Treating Asthma Naturally

Managing Asthma with Natural Medicine
By Randall Neustaedter
Web Exclusive

Natural medicine can significantly strengthen immune function, preventing asthma attacks and even curing the underlying cause of symptoms. The most successful approach to asthma, and the easiest for parents to adhere to, is constitutional homeopathy as practiced by an experienced, certified, classical homeopathic practitioner (see www.homeopathicdirectory.com ).

The constitutional medicine is a single substance that corresponds to the overall picture of a child's physical symptoms, medical history, general metabolism, and behavior. A skilled homeopath will discern the correct medicine and prescribe it in a single dose on sugar pellets or in repeated daily doses of a liquid solution. The typical effect of homeopathic care is a gradual reduction in asthmatic and other respiratory symptoms and the improvement of overall health, with less need for conventional drugs.

A homeopath usually schedules a one-hour initial appointment with one or both parents and the child. That interview will include a detailed history of the asthma, respiratory illnesses, and allergies, including factors and conditions that stimulate symptoms, the time of day when coughing occurs, food triggers, types of weather that aggravate respiratory problems, and the nature of the child's coughs. Such apparently inconsequential details as a child's favorite foods, sleep position, fears, expressions of anger, nervous habits, reaction to change in temperature, and a whole range of idiosyncracies, are also considered in the initial interview. The homeopath decides which of these details best characterize the individual child and chooses the medicine based on this encompassing view. At the end of the interview, the homeopath will prescribe the proper medicine and any other appropriate interventions.

Conventional asthma medication should continue during the beginning of treatment; symptoms should be clearly stabilized before the ongoing drug regimen is gradually reduced. Homeopathy has several prescribing techniques to ensure that conventional drugs do not antidote or interfere with homeopathic medicines.

During a follow-up visit in two to four weeks, and usually monthly for several visits after that, the homeopath reviews symptom recurrence and improvement to determine whether the treatment has been effective. A medicine may need to be repeated or changed over the course of several months based on this evaluation of progress. The goal is a consistent lessening and even complete absence of symptoms. Cure is defined as a year or more without any symptom recurrence.

Oriental medicine and Chinese herbs have the ability to directly strengthen immune function. The disadvantage of herbs is their bad taste, and the most effective strategy for children is to mix liquid extracts of herbs with juice to improve their taste. A licensed acupuncturist experienced in the treatment of children can assess an individual child's needs and prescribe an herbal formula to relieve congestion and build immune function. The correct formula will adjust the child's energetic imbalances and strengthen weaker areas of energy that have led to decreased resistance and heightened susceptibility to allergens. The result is reduced symptoms and increased resistance to infections. An oriental medicine practitioner may also suggest a course of acupuncture, depending on the child's age and willingness to have treatment with needles. (For a list of practitioners, see www.aaom.org [nationwide] and www.csomaonline.org [California].) 

Classical homeopathy, with its 200-year history of treating asthma, and oriental medicine, with a 3,000-year history, are the most consistently effective forms of natural medical treatment for childhood asthma. Both have also been proven effective for asthma treatment in double-blind clinical studies

Homeopathic Treatment at Home
Of all the natural home treatments available, homeopathic medicines offer the quickest relief and are easiest for children to use, because they taste like sugar. Homeopathic medicines have no side effects, dangers, or dosage complications, nor will they interfere or interact with conventional asthma medications. Parents can feel totally confident in the safety of homeopathic medicines. Overdosing is impossible; a child could swallow an entire bottle of any homeopathic medicine and never suffer an adverse reaction.

The effectiveness of homeopathy, of course, depends upon selecting the correct medicine for the symptoms. The process of choosing the right medicine for an asthma attack is simple enough, involving finding the closest match between the child's symptoms of coughing and wheezing and the description of symptoms for each medicine. A homeopathic practitioner can suggest a list of acute medicines that will be most appropriate for a particular child's symptoms. Otherwise, parents can read through the list of symptoms associated with each of the medicines described here and keep on hand those that sound most like their child's symptoms.