Had a great mom come in with daughter. Seen at the ER for a bike accident few days ago. Was wearing a helmet (thank God!) but took a face plunge and "road rashed" her left face with a puncture to the inside left lip from her tooth and residual night terrors from the event. Couple of other minor scrapes to the arm and leg left side. Mom is very "natural" tries to avoid conventional fruits and veggies, gluten, dairy and red meat. This is a great mom- takes alot of effort and research in addition to high cost to purchase low toxin, pesticide and antibiotic exposed food sources. Some of my average American families (especially the Dad's) will be saying "I grew up eating meat and potatoes with scrambled eggs every morning and look at me-I feel great and dont need to see a doctor or take medicine". Truth is some people are lucky but most Americans are overweight (33.9% as of 2008), more Americans kids are on ADHD medicines than ever before, 25% of all deaths are due to heart attack even with all the sophisticated surgeries, medicines, hospitals you see advertised on TV, and following heart disease, the second highest cause of death in the US is cancer. Anyway, doing as much at the younger years as possible for your children will probably keep them out of the "statistics" of an average American.
Here is the other end of the bell shaped curve. She was using tea tree oils for the wounds (helps with healing but can sting the hellll! out of the fresh abrasion) and it smells funny to kids. Was using colloidal silver oral drops for speeding up white blood cell response (good suggestion but dosing in kids can be challenging and there have been cases with chronic use causing a permanent blue color to the skin (I took care of a man that did colloidal silver for years and yes he looked like Papa Smurf). And she had read about homeopathic pellets, asked the herbal store clerk (who was well versed with pellets) and was giving her daughter 5 pellets of 30C Arnica Montana daily in addition to another. The concept of Homeopathy is an old science that dates back about as far in the Hippocrates if you ask the Homeopaths but was officially practiced from the 17-1800's. 3 Principles of
1. Similarity (like cures like)
2. Process of Individualizing Therapy
3. Lowest Dose Necessary
Some of my collegues will say if the pellet contains only a parts per million fraction of a 'toxin'....how can if cure an illness. Most people (doctor or layman) will usually fear or hate what they dont understand. There have been meta-analysis back and forth in the medical communities across the globe on if Homeopathy is better than placebo from 1997 up to recent Swiss study in 2005. Problem is results will be OFF when you study applying a standard sample of technique that is meant to be individualized. This same problem came up with modern medicine "studying" the effects of traditional acupuncture for "western diagnoses" like high blood pressure. Acupuncture (like homeopathy) is a "whole system" approach of healing. It doesnt just look at a constellation of symptoms labeled under an ICD9 Diagnosis. The ancient healing arts look at the individual, paying attention to the functioning, thinking, emotionality of the patient. (Personally I disagree with the studies that said acupuncture is equal to placebo in treating disease) Regarding homeopathy, I have seen great things with the Naturopathic doctor in my office reversing complex symptomatology in patients I was having so much trouble controlling. (Most recent was a college age student with ulcerative colitis stuck on steroids that were worsening his ADHD/Anxiety; which in turn worsened his ulcerative colitis prompting is GI specialist to consider a "fecal transplant" from an unknown donor to reinhabit the kids colon......yes, in laymans terms...placing someones poop in your butt....ewwew!) Sorry I detracted, bottom line is the average intake questionaire a homeopath goes through to choose the correct medication/pellet is 8 pages long. I learned from one of my Infectious Disease Integrative Collegues who is also a practicing homeopath-it can be very dangerous to "pick and choose" from the pellet display at Whole Foods Market for reversing disease. It can be deadly to apply the same principals to a child.
My patient's mom had all good intentions and I praise her for it. The learning point is please consider seeing a practicing homeopathic doctor before just loading up on those sweet tasting tiny pellets to heal (could be considered candy as well so keep out of kid reach). 30C several times a day for an adult could be good or bad.
-200C needs expert advise
-Kid dosing needs expert advise
-Using chinese herbs or multiple supplements or prescription medicine in addition to pellets needs expert advise
a Link to find expert advise;
http://homeopathyusa.org/specialty-board.html
http://www.hanp.net/
http://www.homeopathy.org/
I advised my patient's mom she was right on with inention and offered a few changes:
-stop the pellets until seeing Dr Green (the naturopath in our office)
-instead of the pellet/tea tree combo, switch to the topical cream of Traumeel (lower dose homeopathic content with a cooling effect if placed in the fridge) at lunch for 10 days
-switch the oral colloidal silver to topical Silvadene Cream (also placed in the fridge for cooling effect)- well tolerated for burn victims of all ages and covered by insurance twice a day for 10 days
-continue to avoid dairy and gluten
-tylenol for pain before showering to reduce the burning sensation
-lavendar drops on her pillow to relax and induce sleep
-guided imagery (story telling) at night to help sleep http://triblocal.com/oak-park-river-forest/community/stories/2010/02/just-me-and-the-trees-new-childrens-book-introduces-families-and-classrooms-to-breathing-and-meditation-techniques/
-consider seeing a kid friendly counselor if the "nightmares" continued after 3 weeks
