The ABC Homeopathy Forum
Know about Allergic Bronchial Asthma
Allergic Bronchial AsthmaCat Asthma, Horse Asthma, Dust Asthma, Miners Asthma, Amygdaline Asthma, Renal Asthma, Gall bladder Asthma, Bronchial Asthma, Abdominal Asthma, Allergic Rhinitis Asthma, Millari or thymic Asthma, Asthma of consumption, Asthma due to nasal obstruction, Asthma alternate with other diseases.
What is Asthma ?
The term asthma (Gr. Asthma =panting ) means gasping for breath. It is an affection of the lungs and characterized by difficulty of breathing. Occurring in paroxysms, attended with suffocation, constriction sensation across the chest, cough and wheezing. Each paroxysm terminates by expectoration of more or less quantity of mucus. The patient usually sits or stands, his arms elevated so as to lift upward and outward the walls of the chest. He often wants the window and doors to be opened and makes frequent efforts to expel something from the air passages by hawking or coughing. His face has an anxious expression, the extremities are generally cold and there is often cold perspiration on the forehead, face or chest. There is frequent palpitation of the heart or arteries. The pulse is irregular, quick or intermittent and expectoration does not afford relief. The breathing is short but fast with difficulty in expiration. Asthma is either dry or humid. The attacks of dry asthma are much more sudden, violent and short duration, the cough is slight and expectoration scanty. In moist or humid asthma the attacks are slow but more protracted, cough being more severe, expectoration commences early and when it becomes copious usually affords relief. Asthma usually sets in suddenly and generally at night. In children, however, its onset is almost always as sudden as spasmodic croup*. The patient is compelled to sit up in bed in order to get his breath. There is no cough nor much, if any, expectoration. The breathing is wheezing, rasping, whistling in character. It is usually rendered some what easier by bending forward with shoulder elevated, patient grasping at his knees. The attack of asthma may last for an hour, a half dozen hours or two or three days depending upon its severity. As the paroxysms subsides there is more or less cough and expectoration. The sputum consist of round tenacious masses. In some cases there is frothy sputum that is more or less ropy. It is hardly found mixed with blood. The patient is exhausted at the end of an attack, whether it has lasted only a few minutes or continued for some hours. The length of the intervals between attacks varies in different individuals. Some patients enjoy good health in the intervals, others show signs of bronchitis.
♥ deoshlok on 2005-09-21
This is just a forum. Assume posts are not from medical professionals.
HOMOEOPATHY FOR ASTHMA.
It was the sudden onset of asthma in a close relative that gave me my first interest in homoeopathy some 30 yrs ago. My GP gave her large injections of steroids. Only later , in an article ,did I read of the dangers of steroids. I was in a corner where my doctor seemed to be endangering this individual.
At first homoeopathy looked to be the ideal DIY medical therapy, and for minor complaints and prevention that is the case. But in dealing with deep rooted and hereditary complaints the situation is more complex. It was about 10 yrs before I began to see clearly the complexity of the relationship between the Homoeopathic remedy and its interaction with the individual life force or vitality of the patient.
Now, with the hindsight of 25 yrs I realise why my efforts did little more than relieve the asthma of my relative. In that time I have cured some cases and relieved others.I know the power of the correct homoeopathic remedy - bearing in mind that it is possible to be totally sure of only one thing in life - - - uncertainty.
Checking the recent updated position on asthma , in the Oxford Textbook of Medicine confirmed little change in the orthodox view. There are enormous chunks of uncertainty.
"What is Asthma?." is a question that has a million answers. Simplistically it is a cramp or spasm of the circular muscle fibres of the small air tubes that drastically reduce the amount of air available to the 300 million alveoli which exchange deoxygenated air for oxygenated air,also involved is a watery secretion that inflatesthe mucous and has a 'plugging' effect on the already restricted airway diameter - giving rise to breathlessness and in bad cases cyanosis where the lips go blue. It's classified in textbooks as an abnormality of the immune response,and is the response of a damaged or depleted immune system.
It is only possible to treat the condition realistically if we know the cause of the spasm.Here we arrive at the ragbag nature of Asthma.
Extrinsic Asthma - brought on by external factors is similar to hay fever and may be seasonal if due to pollens at specific times of the year , or all year round if due to such things as domestic pets, dust or house mites. This type is at present more normal among young people and is esentially an allergic reaction to external factors.
Intrinsic Asthma happens spontaneously and the hypersensitivity is triggered by many factors. Also it tends to be "late onset" starting after some trauma/stress outcrop in 20/30's or midlife.
When I first came across Asthma I used to say that no one dies of Asthma. I soon realised that was not strictly true. Asthma associated with syphilis either primary or inherited could kill , but this was very rare.
Only in the post 60's did non syphilitics start to die of Asthma.That timing is in my view very important and should be kept in mind.
In the past I have treated asthma along strict homoeopathic lines. I ask myself what are the signs of imbalance that I see in the individual. One then tries to match those signs to a particular remedy - and bring the individual back into a natural balance.
In more recent times I have taken an interest in TB and AIDS as they have a bearing on the basic theory of Homoeopathy. Because of that interest I have become more aware of the essential underlaying part that the immune system plays in all physiological problems.
There are many ways to get asthma and I will list a number of those , but for now I'd like to trace one particular path leading to Asthma as being , in my view, typical of the many roads leading to that condition.
Dr D. Foubister was a Consultant at a London Hospital for many years. He was a noted homoeopath who published many books and pamphlets and died in 1988. He pointed out that one of the basic roots of all illness is inflammation.
Mutiple Sclerosis is condition resulting from inflammation which has disseminated along neural pathways damaging and scarring the myelin sheath.Any disease ending in '- itis' indicates an inflammatory condition - meningitis; of the brain and spine - endartitis; of the artery - endocervicitis; of the cervix - endocarditis; of the heart - proctitis; of the rectum - colitis; of the colon etc.
To quote the Oxford Textbook of Medicine "The pathology of Asthma is characterised by the infiltration of the airways by esinophils and other inflammatory cells which migrate in response to chemotactic factors released by mast cells macrophages and lymphocytes.
Esinophils contain a substance, which damages the airway and is responsible for the large amorphous pink masses in the muscous and submucosa seen in patients who have died of Asthma." So inflammation is a characteristic of Asthma, which accounts for the widespread use - in the past - of steroids in their anti-inflammatory role.
Let us for a moment look at the reason for,and function of, inflammation in disease of all kinds. I quote a medical dictionary
"Inflammation is the defensive reaction of tissue that has been attacked and is the start of the natural process of healing. Inflammation is instigated by the immune system and is essential to the proper natural bodily process of healing. - It involves pain, heat,redness, swelling and loss of function of the affected part. Blood vessels are dilated so that the local blood flow is increased. White cells enter the tissue to engulf bacteria and foreign particles. Similar cells from the tissues remove and consume dead cells and the process of healing commences."
Before man came down from the trees - in evolutionary terms - inflammation has been essential to the natural process of healing and is today correctly shown to relate to the body's basic defense system and to the immune system.
However since the mid 40's [i.e. approx 50 years] antibiotics have been used to abort or short circuit the natural healing of the inflammatory process. I have often said to people that antibiotics are ok in the role they were originally employed - in life threatening conditions and NOT otherwise.
It has long been established that whatever provokes an attack of asthma , the condition itself is due to a defective or underactive immune system .
A consultants handbook points out that -" Both humans and animals have an apparent relative immunity against a second infection if they are left for 6/12 weeks before being treated. However if antibiotics are promptly given in the early infection no such immunity develops and immediate reinfection is then possible". Obviously we have here a direct relationship between inflammation and the immune system - both being natural bodily processes .
But the short circuiting of inflammation has many affects. From a homoeopathic point of view the inflammation does not disappear under antibiotic treatment. It is dispersed from its original local intense and painful site - where the immune system is busy healing the body - and driven along the path of least resistance. Where it takes up a chronic character such as tennis elbow,trapped nerve, neuralgia, rheumatism etc. Its function as part of the healing process is defeated and the immune system is affected.
In some individuals the immune system becomes underactive and results in lethargy - M.E. - and numerous minor infections 'the never well syndrome'. In other individuals the immune system becomes overactive and gives rise to many allergies due to its supersesitivity. Among the many immune/allergic effects is Asthma.
It has been shown that in TB, and particularly in AIDS , it is possible to inherit a damaged immune system. That being taken in conjunction with the time span since the 40's we now have a third generation of people treated with antibiotics. It is interesting that the first generation had few allergies - that the second generation in the 60/70's had increasing degrees of allergic response and that some of the third generation now die due hypersensitive allergic response.
It would also be of interest if a study could be carried out to see if the rise in Asthma was paralleled by the rise in the uncontrolled indiscriminate use of antibiotics.
So having shown a homoeopaths view of the mechanism of asthma and identified antibiotics as one of a number of culprits let us look at other aspects and culprits listed in the Oxford Textbook of Medicine [15.142 tab 1.] as;-
"Drugs which may produce or exacerbate asthma."
"Pharmacological effects;- ORAL
Cholinergenic agents e.g. carbachol pilocarpine
Cholinesterase inhibitors e.g. pyridostigmine
Prostaglandin F2alpha
Histamine release e.g. curare derivatives
Beta sympathetic antagonists
Idiosyncratic effects;-
Analgesics and anti-inflammatory agents
Asprin
Idomethacin [inlcudes] Artralin
Imbrilon
Indocid. Indoflex. Indomod.
Kap-ind. Rheumacin.
Mefinamic acid[inc] Ponstan
Flufenamic acid
Phenylbutazone
Fenoprofen [inc] Fenopron. Progesic.
Ibuprofen [inc] {Apsifen. Brufen. Ebufac. Fenbio {Ibular. Ibumetin. Iboslo. Inabrin Ibuprofen (cont) Maxagesic. Motrin. Novaprin. Nurofen. Paxofen. Proflex. Relcofen.Seclodin. Uniprofen.
Diclofenac [inc] Volterol.
Naproxen [inc] Laraflex. Naprosyn. Synflex.
Paracetamol.
Tartrazine-containing compounds (used to color medicine & food ;E102 food additive)
Carbamazepine[inc] Tegretol
Idiosyncratic;- BY INJECTION
Penicillin
Aminophylline[inc] Phyllocontin
Hydrocortisone [inc] Cortisol. Cortril. Dioderm
Hydrocortone.
N-acetyl cysteine
Idiosyncratic;- INHALED
Ampicillin
Benzyl Penicillin
Cephalosporins[used intransplant ops to suppress the immune system
Alpha-methyl dopa
Cimetadine[inc] Tagamet
Piperazine[inc] Antepar. Ascalix.
Psyllium
Pancreatic extract
Pituitary snuff
Ipratropium bromide(hypotonic solution)[inc] Atrovent."
The Oxford Textbook of Medicine also points out;-
"The potential exacerbation of Asthma by drugs used to treat it presents a particularly acute dilemma as drug effect may be difficult to dissociate from spontaneous deterioration. Apart from potential problems related to tartrazine there are well documented cases of worsening asthma after both aminophylline and hydrocortisone, the latter may be particularly aproblem in asthmatic patients with analgesic sensitivity. -- Bronchodilator and other drugs formulated as a dry powder sometimes have an irritant effect , as also may the propellants used in pressurized aerosols."
It was the sudden onset of asthma in a close relative that gave me my first interest in homoeopathy some 30 yrs ago. My GP gave her large injections of steroids. Only later , in an article ,did I read of the dangers of steroids. I was in a corner where my doctor seemed to be endangering this individual.
At first homoeopathy looked to be the ideal DIY medical therapy, and for minor complaints and prevention that is the case. But in dealing with deep rooted and hereditary complaints the situation is more complex. It was about 10 yrs before I began to see clearly the complexity of the relationship between the Homoeopathic remedy and its interaction with the individual life force or vitality of the patient.
Now, with the hindsight of 25 yrs I realise why my efforts did little more than relieve the asthma of my relative. In that time I have cured some cases and relieved others.I know the power of the correct homoeopathic remedy - bearing in mind that it is possible to be totally sure of only one thing in life - - - uncertainty.
Checking the recent updated position on asthma , in the Oxford Textbook of Medicine confirmed little change in the orthodox view. There are enormous chunks of uncertainty.
"What is Asthma?." is a question that has a million answers. Simplistically it is a cramp or spasm of the circular muscle fibres of the small air tubes that drastically reduce the amount of air available to the 300 million alveoli which exchange deoxygenated air for oxygenated air,also involved is a watery secretion that inflatesthe mucous and has a 'plugging' effect on the already restricted airway diameter - giving rise to breathlessness and in bad cases cyanosis where the lips go blue. It's classified in textbooks as an abnormality of the immune response,and is the response of a damaged or depleted immune system.
It is only possible to treat the condition realistically if we know the cause of the spasm.Here we arrive at the ragbag nature of Asthma.
Extrinsic Asthma - brought on by external factors is similar to hay fever and may be seasonal if due to pollens at specific times of the year , or all year round if due to such things as domestic pets, dust or house mites. This type is at present more normal among young people and is esentially an allergic reaction to external factors.
Intrinsic Asthma happens spontaneously and the hypersensitivity is triggered by many factors. Also it tends to be "late onset" starting after some trauma/stress outcrop in 20/30's or midlife.
When I first came across Asthma I used to say that no one dies of Asthma. I soon realised that was not strictly true. Asthma associated with syphilis either primary or inherited could kill , but this was very rare.
Only in the post 60's did non syphilitics start to die of Asthma.That timing is in my view very important and should be kept in mind.
In the past I have treated asthma along strict homoeopathic lines. I ask myself what are the signs of imbalance that I see in the individual. One then tries to match those signs to a particular remedy - and bring the individual back into a natural balance.
In more recent times I have taken an interest in TB and AIDS as they have a bearing on the basic theory of Homoeopathy. Because of that interest I have become more aware of the essential underlaying part that the immune system plays in all physiological problems.
There are many ways to get asthma and I will list a number of those , but for now I'd like to trace one particular path leading to Asthma as being , in my view, typical of the many roads leading to that condition.
Dr D. Foubister was a Consultant at a London Hospital for many years. He was a noted homoeopath who published many books and pamphlets and died in 1988. He pointed out that one of the basic roots of all illness is inflammation.
Mutiple Sclerosis is condition resulting from inflammation which has disseminated along neural pathways damaging and scarring the myelin sheath.Any disease ending in '- itis' indicates an inflammatory condition - meningitis; of the brain and spine - endartitis; of the artery - endocervicitis; of the cervix - endocarditis; of the heart - proctitis; of the rectum - colitis; of the colon etc.
To quote the Oxford Textbook of Medicine "The pathology of Asthma is characterised by the infiltration of the airways by esinophils and other inflammatory cells which migrate in response to chemotactic factors released by mast cells macrophages and lymphocytes.
Esinophils contain a substance, which damages the airway and is responsible for the large amorphous pink masses in the muscous and submucosa seen in patients who have died of Asthma." So inflammation is a characteristic of Asthma, which accounts for the widespread use - in the past - of steroids in their anti-inflammatory role.
Let us for a moment look at the reason for,and function of, inflammation in disease of all kinds. I quote a medical dictionary
"Inflammation is the defensive reaction of tissue that has been attacked and is the start of the natural process of healing. Inflammation is instigated by the immune system and is essential to the proper natural bodily process of healing. - It involves pain, heat,redness, swelling and loss of function of the affected part. Blood vessels are dilated so that the local blood flow is increased. White cells enter the tissue to engulf bacteria and foreign particles. Similar cells from the tissues remove and consume dead cells and the process of healing commences."
Before man came down from the trees - in evolutionary terms - inflammation has been essential to the natural process of healing and is today correctly shown to relate to the body's basic defense system and to the immune system.
However since the mid 40's [i.e. approx 50 years] antibiotics have been used to abort or short circuit the natural healing of the inflammatory process. I have often said to people that antibiotics are ok in the role they were originally employed - in life threatening conditions and NOT otherwise.
It has long been established that whatever provokes an attack of asthma , the condition itself is due to a defective or underactive immune system .
A consultants handbook points out that -" Both humans and animals have an apparent relative immunity against a second infection if they are left for 6/12 weeks before being treated. However if antibiotics are promptly given in the early infection no such immunity develops and immediate reinfection is then possible". Obviously we have here a direct relationship between inflammation and the immune system - both being natural bodily processes .
But the short circuiting of inflammation has many affects. From a homoeopathic point of view the inflammation does not disappear under antibiotic treatment. It is dispersed from its original local intense and painful site - where the immune system is busy healing the body - and driven along the path of least resistance. Where it takes up a chronic character such as tennis elbow,trapped nerve, neuralgia, rheumatism etc. Its function as part of the healing process is defeated and the immune system is affected.
In some individuals the immune system becomes underactive and results in lethargy - M.E. - and numerous minor infections 'the never well syndrome'. In other individuals the immune system becomes overactive and gives rise to many allergies due to its supersesitivity. Among the many immune/allergic effects is Asthma.
It has been shown that in TB, and particularly in AIDS , it is possible to inherit a damaged immune system. That being taken in conjunction with the time span since the 40's we now have a third generation of people treated with antibiotics. It is interesting that the first generation had few allergies - that the second generation in the 60/70's had increasing degrees of allergic response and that some of the third generation now die due hypersensitive allergic response.
It would also be of interest if a study could be carried out to see if the rise in Asthma was paralleled by the rise in the uncontrolled indiscriminate use of antibiotics.
So having shown a homoeopaths view of the mechanism of asthma and identified antibiotics as one of a number of culprits let us look at other aspects and culprits listed in the Oxford Textbook of Medicine [15.142 tab 1.] as;-
"Drugs which may produce or exacerbate asthma."
"Pharmacological effects;- ORAL
Cholinergenic agents e.g. carbachol pilocarpine
Cholinesterase inhibitors e.g. pyridostigmine
Prostaglandin F2alpha
Histamine release e.g. curare derivatives
Beta sympathetic antagonists
Idiosyncratic effects;-
Analgesics and anti-inflammatory agents
Asprin
Idomethacin [inlcudes] Artralin
Imbrilon
Indocid. Indoflex. Indomod.
Kap-ind. Rheumacin.
Mefinamic acid[inc] Ponstan
Flufenamic acid
Phenylbutazone
Fenoprofen [inc] Fenopron. Progesic.
Ibuprofen [inc] {Apsifen. Brufen. Ebufac. Fenbio {Ibular. Ibumetin. Iboslo. Inabrin Ibuprofen (cont) Maxagesic. Motrin. Novaprin. Nurofen. Paxofen. Proflex. Relcofen.Seclodin. Uniprofen.
Diclofenac [inc] Volterol.
Naproxen [inc] Laraflex. Naprosyn. Synflex.
Paracetamol.
Tartrazine-containing compounds (used to color medicine & food ;E102 food additive)
Carbamazepine[inc] Tegretol
Idiosyncratic;- BY INJECTION
Penicillin
Aminophylline[inc] Phyllocontin
Hydrocortisone [inc] Cortisol. Cortril. Dioderm
Hydrocortone.
N-acetyl cysteine
Idiosyncratic;- INHALED
Ampicillin
Benzyl Penicillin
Cephalosporins[used intransplant ops to suppress the immune system
Alpha-methyl dopa
Cimetadine[inc] Tagamet
Piperazine[inc] Antepar. Ascalix.
Psyllium
Pancreatic extract
Pituitary snuff
Ipratropium bromide(hypotonic solution)[inc] Atrovent."
The Oxford Textbook of Medicine also points out;-
"The potential exacerbation of Asthma by drugs used to treat it presents a particularly acute dilemma as drug effect may be difficult to dissociate from spontaneous deterioration. Apart from potential problems related to tartrazine there are well documented cases of worsening asthma after both aminophylline and hydrocortisone, the latter may be particularly aproblem in asthmatic patients with analgesic sensitivity. -- Bronchodilator and other drugs formulated as a dry powder sometimes have an irritant effect , as also may the propellants used in pressurized aerosols."
walkin last decade
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