SWINE FLU REMEDIES – CAN HOMEOPATHY CURE SWINE FLU?
There is considerable evidence that homeopathy can successfully treat any influenza, be it the current Swine Flu also known as H1N1 or any other flu, provided the correct homeopathic medicine is used. In the influenza epidemic of 1918-19, only 1% of those treated with homeopathy died, compared to 30% of those treated with conventional medicine.
One of the problems then was high doses of aspirin see: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/13/health/13aspirin.html?scp=1&sq=1918%20flu%20aspirin&st=cse
(See Julian Winston’s well-researched article)
http://www.nesh.com/main/nejh/samples/winston.html
In the following case of influenza, it is not known whether the infecting virus was H1N1 or another strain, as the patient was not tested.
A 19 year old Houston girl had been vacationing in Spain, where there were over 1,500 confirmed cases of H1N1 influenza as of July 31, 2009, with presumably many thousands more that were not tested.
The course of her influenza during the first four days was as follows:
Day 1—July 10, 2009—she flew from Barcelona to London. On arriving at Heathrow she felt ill. She and two friends took a taxi to a hostel. On the way there, her she noted, “My whole body felt really weak.” When she got out of the taxi she was too weak to lift her 60 lb. backpack that she had been carrying without difficulty for over a week.
She began to have fever alternating with chills. The exact sequence, which she described to me later, was as follows: “I would feel really hot and open the windows. After a while, I’d feel chilled, and I’d get into bed under a comforter and sleep. I’d wake up in a sweat, feeling very hot.” So she would uncover. This sequence—chill then heat followed by perspiration—continued for four days.
Day 2—July 11th—she vomited once and developed a painful throat. The glands along the sides of her throat became swollen and tender. Also, the muscles on both sides of her neck became painful. It was later determined that these were the sternocleidomastoid muscles which act to flex and rotate the head.
Day 3—July 12th—she was having trouble swallowing. “It was painful to swallow and the floor of my mouth towards the back felt closed off whenever I swallowed.” Her eyes became sensitive to light. That night she became short of breath. Her spine was so weak that she could not sit up without the support of the bed board. During this period, she was not only weak but uncoordinated. “I had to hold on to the wall and the door just to make it three feet to the bathroom,” she said. “My whole body was weak and trembling. I felt off balance. Even sitting on the toilet it was hard to hold my back up. It was so weak. I would hold onto the washbasin with my arm.”
She was very short of breath. She could not breathe in without the breath suddenly stopping in mid-inhalation. This frightened her. “It felt as if my throat would close off,” she said, pointing to her trachea.
Day 4—July 14th—she began to see double especially after sleeping. She felt as if there were a weight on her chest.
Her mother, who had been in phone contact with her, became so alarmed that she flew to London from Houston. Once there, she found out her daughter was taking two acetaminophen and two ibuprofen every four hours. These had been prescribed at an emergency room in London. Believing her daughter was taking too much medicine, her mother immediately stopped the ibuprofen.
U.K. health authorities estimated there were over 100,000 cases of influenza that week, most of which were presumed to be H1N1. No hospitals were admitting influenza cases due to overcrowding.
Her temperature did not go above 99.9ºF throughout the illness. (This is a typical finding in the current Swine Flu H1N1 virus—no or very low temperature.)
By the eighth day she was well enough to travel and flew back to Houston. Since she was still not well she saw a local medical doctor who prescribed an antibiotic that badly upset her stomach.
When I saw her three weeks after the onset she was still quite tired and sleeping 12 to 13 hours a night. Her main complaint concerned her vision which had worsened about the time she started the antibiotic.
She said the vision was “messed up.” I asked her to elaborate. She said, “It’s like I’m tripping on drugs.” I asked for more information. “Since this thing began,” she said, “when I close my eyes I see dotted lights that move up and down. Some are white, some are blue—electric blue. Sometimes there is green.”
She said her arms and legs still felt weak. “If I sit for twenty to thirty minutes my legs go numb.”
She is an artist but since the flu, she had found it harder to draw. “I get confused and nervous and can’t draw or paint for more than ten minutes. Then I’ll start staring.” After resting a bit she could continue to draw. She showed me two simple sketches. “They took me 45 minutes to an hour to do,” she said. “Normally, I could do those in 10 to 15 minutes.”
Her eyelids felt heavy.
“I feel slow, a lot slower than normal.”
Her thirst, which had been low in London, was now high.
She mentioned again that during the acute phase in London her whole body was visibly trembling.
“Currently, I can’t look at any one thing too long. When I do my vision becomes confused—my mind, too.”
“Two days ago everything I looked at became foggy. I’d close my eyes for awhile and when I opened them I could see the object again.” Because she had double vision, I asked if she could force the two objects to merge into a single object by force of will. She said she could.
I asked her if she had had any hemiopia—a condition in which there is blindness in one half of the visual field of one or both eyes. She had had the vertical kind in which half the side vision in both eyes disappears.
Currently, when she looked at an object then turned her eyes away the image of that object often followed her gaze.
If she looked to either side it caused pain in the eyes.
I asked about reading. “When I read the letters overlap,” she said.
I wanted to know more about the acute phase when she was in London. “Did you notice your heartbeat?” I asked. “Yes. I remember when I was having trouble breathing my heart would slow down. My Mom said so, too.” Later I asked her mother who said she put her ear to her daughter’s chest and noticed the heart rate sounded slow.
“In London, when you were trembling and frightened, did you have your Mom hold you?”
“Yes, she did. I remember that.”
She also had been feeling as though there was a lump in her throat since returning to Houston and taking the antibiotics.
She had another unusual symptom—she was “seeing” wavy lines, thousands of them, in her visual fields when I saw her on August 1, 2009.
At this point I examined her neck. I placed the flat of my hand against her right cheek and I asked her to turn her head into my hand. That maneuver caused the left sternocleidomastoid muscle to contract and become both visible and palpable. I moved my free hand along the muscle and it was still somewhat sore. The medicine I prescribed is known to affect those particular neck muscles. (see below)
I did not feel the antibiotics had been warranted but I also did not think they caused the vision to deteriorate since certain viruses are known to interfere with the vision. Presumably, the virus that had earlier ravaged her whole body was now interfering with her vision.
The homeopathic medicine she needed and received was Gelsemium which comes from the plant, Yellow Jasmine.
She improved immediately on Gelsemium and two days later reported her vision much improved. There was no diplopia; she was able to draw without difficulty; she could read without the letters overlapping; there was no hemiopia, and no foggy vision. A few days later, she “saw” occasional blue dots. All other symptoms had vanished.
I wish to stress that I saw her three weeks after the acute phase. When I saw her she was still tired and she had the many visual symptoms already mentioned. Gelsemium clearly made her vision normal.
The question is: could Gelsemium have cured her in the acute phase (day one to four)? I contend it could have done for the following reasons:
The kind of fever she had: chill followed by heat followed by perspiration.
The heaviness of her eyelids and the sensation of general bodily heaviness.
Her general weakness coupled with incoordination.
Her trembling.
The pain that localized in her sternocleidomastoid muscles.
The extreme weakness of the back.
The above symptoms are all covered by Gelsemium and can be found in our various reference works.
I propose that we keep Gelsemium in mind as we approach the coming fall with the very real likelihood that the swine flu will continue to spread.
It is of interest that Gelsemium was the most commonly prescribed homeopathic medicine during the 1918-19 flu epidemic.
Though it is possible in the current pandemic that Gelsemium will be curative in many cases it is also possible that other medicines will be needed. AS ALWAYS WITH HOMEOPATHY, THE SPECIFIC SYMPTOMS WILL LEAD TO THE CORRECT PRESCRIPTION. There is no one-size-fits-all medicine.
Each of the following rubrics (symptoms as they appear in the Repertory) contains the medicine Gelsemium.
EYE – Staring
EYE – Heaviness – Lids – Upper
GENERALS – Trembling, Externally
CHEST – Pain – burning
FEVER – Succession of states – chill – followed by – heat – then perspiration.
BACK – Weakness
VISION – Diplopia
VISION – Diplopia, strength of will ameliorates
VISION – Wavering
VISION – Confused
VISION – Exertion of the eyes aggravates
VISION – Fade away, then reappear; objects
VISION – Hemiopia – vertical
VISION – Images, too long retained
VISION – Looking – concentrated, focused, aggravates
VISION – Looking sideways – aggravates
VISION – Mental exertion aggravates
VISION – Run together – letters
EXTERNAL THROAT – Pain – Sternocleidomastoid muscles
THROAT – Lump, sensation of
THROAT Pain – swallowing aggravates
Karl Robinson, M.D., 4200 Westheimer, S.100, Houston, Texas 77027
Tel. 713-621-3184.
Website: www.homeopathyyes.com