Childhood asthma is a common condition affecting a significant population especially in the urban areas. Asthma is characterised by hypersensitive and hyper-responsive immune system with its expression at the lower respiratory airways. Sitting on a hereditary base, asthma is often associated with other allergic conditions such as allergic conjunctivitis, allergic rhinitis, nasal polyps, atopic dermatitis, urticaria, food allergies etc. Initially there is an episodic obstruction of the air passages, which eventually progresses to a permanent narrowing.
Childhood asthma is a chronic, progressive disease causing significant functional impairment of the child, if not treated. There are episodes of cough, breathlessness, wheezing in varying intensity and duration, requiring minimal treatment to hospitalisation. As age advances, many cases show tendency towards worsening of the episodes as well as persistence of low to moderate grade symptoms on a daily basis. Most children continue to be asthmatics throughout their lifetime.
The treatment of Asthma is long term with immunosuppression being the cornerstone of therapy in modern medicine. Often it is found that the individual gets dependent on the medications, and the disease bounces back if the medications are stopped. There are number of undesired side effects of the medications. In sizeable number of cases, only symptoms are alleviated but there is gradual deterioration of the lung functions.
Homoeopathy is commonly employed in the treatment of asthma. Homoeopathy modulates the abnormal immune response, thus curing the IgE mediated allergy. It does not suppress the immunity, rather restores homeostasis. There are number of homeopathic remedies which can be used to treat acute episodes of asthma. Long term homeopathic treatment prevents the attacks of asthma and treats undercurrent symptoms as well. As homeopathy treats the individual, not the name of the disease, all concurrent conditions are also treated with the same medicines. Homeopathic medicines do not have side effects and cure permanently.
Dr. Navin Pawaskar,
Director,
JIMS Healthcare.
