Epilepsy is a disorder in which nerve cells of the brain from time to time release abnormal electrical impulses. These cause a temporary malfunction of the other nerve cells of the brain, resulting in alteration of, or complete. loss of consciousness.
There are several forms of epilepsy. Most people will have seen someone suffer a major epileptic seizure, suddenly losing consciousness, jerking the arms and legs, etc. But there are other types of epilepsy – for example, one common form of epilepsy in children merely consists of staring blankly and losing contact with the surroundings for a few seconds.
The treatment of epilepsy should be directed to the underlying dyscrasia, as this is at fault in most, if not all, cases. Calcarea carbonica, with its rickety, tuberculous, scrofulous and flabby symptoms, its characteristic deficiency of lime assimilation, as shown in children by the open fontanelles and backward dentition, will frequently be the remedy with which to commence the treatment. The characteristic relaxation onfalling asleep and the sweating of the head and neck are fine indications for its use. It has an excellent clinical record. A epileptic suffering continually from the dread of an attack will withdraw himself as much as possible from the outside world, brood over his affliction and become melancholic,and there is no other remedy so well adapted to this condition as Calcarea. Its anxiety, palpitation, apprehensive mood despondency, fretfulness and irritability, its weakness of memory, its loss of consciousness, its vertigo and convulsions are prominent and characteristic indications for its use in epilepsy. If epilepsy be caused by fright, suppression of some long standing eruption, onanism or venereal excess it will probably be one of the remedies to use in the courseof the treatment, and here it would follow Sulphur well. The aura may begin in the solar plexus and pass upwards like a wave, or go from the epigastric region down to the uterus and limbs. Like Sulphur it has a sensation as if a mouse were running up the arm previous to the attacks. Causticum, too, is closely allied to Calcarea, and is indicated in epilepsy connected with menstrual irregularities and also in epilepsy occurring at the age of puberty.
Epilepsy arising from fright, or self-abuse, or sexual excesses, will often find its remedy in Bufo rana. The aura preceding the attacks starts from the genital organs; even during coitus the patient may be seized with violent convulsions. In another form for which Bufo is suitable the aura starts from the solar plexus. Previous to the attacks, the patient is very irritable, often talks incoherently and is easily angered. It is especially in the sexual form, that brought on by masturbation, that Bufo is signally useful. It has also proved useful in severe cases in children where the head in the convulsion is drawn backwards. Indigo has epileptiform convulsions from the irritation of worms, but the patient must be low-spirited and sad– “blue as indigo.” It is the “bluest remedy in the materia medica.” Dr. Colby, of Boston, considers it superior to the bromides. Flushes of heat seem to rise from the solar plexus to the head and there is an undulating sensation in the brain similar to Cimicifuga. Bufo, like Nux vomica, is vehement and irritable. These two remedies and Silicea and Calcarea have the aura starting from the solar plexus. Stannum is also a remedy for epilepsy arising from reflex irritation, as from worms and also from sexual complications.
#Cuprum Metallicum. [Cupr]
Cuprum is a very deep-actingremedy, its well-known power of producing convulsions and spasms and its excellentclinical record make it a valuable remedy in epilepsy. We know positively that poisonous doses of Cuprum cause epileptic symptoms,and it is among the most curative remedies for epilepsy in child life. The convulsions start form the brain, though the aura, which is one of long duration,seems to center in the epigastrium. Owing to this long duration of the aura consciousness is not immediately lost, and the patient will often notice the contractions in the fingers and toes before they become unconscious. The face and lips are very blue, the eyeballs are rotated, there is frothing at the mouth and violent contractions of the flexors. The attacks is usually ushered in by a shrill cry and the cases are most violent and continued. It is also a remedy for nocturnal epilepsy when the fits occur at regular intervals, such as the menstrual periods. Epileptiform spasms during dentition or from retrocessed exanthema may indicate Cuprum. Dr. Halbert remarks that Cuprum will stop the frequency of the attacks more satisfactorily than any other remedy, it is his sheet anchor in old and obstinate cases. Butler also claims his best results from this remedy. Argentum nitricum is also a remedy for epilepsy, the strong indicating features being the dilated pupils four or five days before the attack, and the restlessness and trembling of the hands after the attack. Menstrual and fright epilepsies often call for this remedy the characteristic being the aura, which lasts a number of hours before the attack. Moral causes may lead to an attack. Patient is low spirited, easily discouraged and frightened.
Perhaps no remedy in the materia medica more closely pictures epilepsy than OEnanthe. Its use in the disease has been mainly from clinical data, but there is ample proof from studying toxic cases that it is homoeopathic to many cases of epilepsy. The reliable and practical symptoms calling for its use may be summed up as follows: Sudden and complete loss of consciousness; swollen livid face; frothing at the mouth; dilated or irregular pupils; convulsions with locked jaws and cold exremities. Dr. S. H. Talcott, of the Middletown State Hospital, summed up his experience with the remedy as follows: 1. The fits decrease in number 40 to 50 per cent. 2. The convulsion are less severe than formerly. 3. There is less maniacal excitement before the fits. 4. Less sleeplessness, stupor and apathy after the fits and the debilitating effects of the attacks are more quickly recovered from. 5. The patients treated with OEnanthe are less irritable, less suspicious and less fault finding. 6. The patients are more easily cared for.The writer can add his testimony to the effect of OEnanthe in controlling attacks of epilepsy. It seems to act better in the 3X or 6X potency than in the tincture. Cases of cure of the disease are becoming more numerous. Artemisia vulgaris is another remedy which has been successfully used for epilepsy from fright or some mental emotion, where the attacks occur in rapid succession, and also in petit mal, where the patient is unconscious only for a few seconds and then resumes his occupation as if nothing had happened. Artemisia absinthium indicated in seizures preceded by vertigo, a warm sensation rising from the stomach, and by a slight impairment of speech, and Solanum Carolinense are also remedies which in some cases have wrought cures, the latter according to Dr.Halbert, of Chicago, also praises it. Melancholia seems to be an indication and also attacks appearing at menstrual periods. Verbena hastata is also recommended, but no special indications are to be found.
#Kali bromatum. [Kali-b]
This remedy should have no place in the homoeopathic treatment of epilepsy; it is given here because it is the principal drug employed by the allopathic school, and because nearly all cases coming to us for treatment from old school hands are liable to be complicated by a previous treatment with the bromides, notable the Bromide of Potash. It is not a curative remedy, but a palliative one; it strikes at the attack and not the disease. It will often modify the attacks, and used as a prophylactic may avert theseizure, but its prolonged use works inevitable harm. It weakens the mental faculties and hastens imbecility. Camphora is useful to prevent the attacks, shorten the duration and lessen the intensity. It is indicated by all the characteristic of epilepsy and hence is a safer prophylactic than the Bromide of potash. Camphora, Nux vomicaand Zincum are mentioned as antidotes for the abuse of the Bromide of Potash. Bromide acne is often present in cases coming to us from old school hands.
Silicea is one of our most valuable remedies in epilepsy. It suits especially scrofulous and rickety subjects. The aura starts from the solar plexus , as in Bufo and Nux vomica. Certain phases of the moon are said to affect the attacks, which are brought on by an overstrain of the mind or emotions. Nocturnal epilepsy, feeling of coldness before an attacks is also characteristic of the drug, and the fit is followed by warm perspiration. Cuprum is also a remedy for nocturnal epilepsy and must be thought of when attacks invariably occur in the night. When Silicea is required there is an exalted susceptibility of the upper spinal cord and the medulla and an exhausted condition of the nerves. The attacks occur about the time of the new moon. It comes in after Calcarea in inveterate chronic cases, and coldness of the left side of the body preceding the attack is very characteristic.
#Nux vomica. [Nux-v]
The characterizing feature of epilepsy is loss of consciousness, therefore, Nux vomica is not often a remedy in the idiopathic form. It suits cases arising from an excess of the reflex action caused, for instance,by indigestion. The aura in a case calling for Nux starts in the solar plexus, and among the most characteristic symptoms is a sensation of ants crawling over the face. The middle and higher potencies will be found more useful in the spinal form of epilepsy, and this is the form most suitable to Nux. Plumbum has caused epilepsy, and we may use it for these symptoms: the attack is preceded by a heaviness of the legs and is followed by paralysis; epileptic seizures from sclerosis, or from tumors of the brain, consciousness returning slowly after an attack is another indication and it is more suitable to the chronic forms of the disease. Constipation and abdominal pains further indicate. Secale is recommended for sudden and rapidly recurring convulsions, with rapid sinking of strength and paralysis of the spinal nerves.
#Cicuta virosa. [Cic]
The indications for cicuta are sudden rigidity followed by jerks and violent distortions, and these followed by utter prostration. The prostration is characteristic, being equaled only by that of Chininum arsenicosum. There is a tonic spasm renewed by touch simulating Strychnia; but in Cicuta there is loss of consciousness , thus resembling more the epileptiform. There is great oppression of breathing, lockjaw, face dark red, frothing at the mouth and opisthotonos. The reflex excitability under Cicuta is much less than under Strychnia. Another characteristic of Cicuta is fixed staring eyes; others are trembling before and after the spasm and strange feeling in the head preceding the attack. Bayes, however, regards muscular convulsions as a specially prominent symptom for Cuprum.
#Sulphur. [Sulph]
Like Calcarea, Sulphur is a constitutional or basic remedy, and it will act well where there is a scrofulous taint. It is useful for the same class of cases as is Calcarea; namely, those brought on by sexual excesses or the suppression of some eruption. The convulsions are attended with great exhaustion and it is suitable to the chronic form of epilepsy in children who are typical Sulphur patients. There is perhaps a tendency to fall to the left side. Sulphur is also a useful intercurrent remedy in the course of the treatment of an epilepsy. Psorinum may also be needed as an intercurrent.
#Hyoscyamus. [Hyos]
In epileptic convulsions Hyoscyamus is a most valuable remedy. There is much twitching and jerking and hunger previous to the attack, there is frothing at the mouth and biting of the tongue. A violent fright will produce an attack that will call for Hyoscyamus. The convulsions seem to have more of a hysterical nature, and there are illusions of sight and hearing. Stramonium has epilepsy from fright, sudden loss of consciousness and jerking of the head to the right, with rotary motion of the left arm. Stramonium is the opposite of Belladonna, for whereas the Belladonna patient shuns light, fears noises and is sensitive in the highest degree, the Stramonium patient fears darkness and hates to be alone; he acts like a coward and trembles and shakes. Agaricus 30 cured a case of epilepsy of 22 years’ standing for Dr.Winterburn. He was led to its prescription by the unusual symptom of “great flow of ideas and loquacity after the attack.”
Belladonna is especially a remedy for acute epilepsies, when the cerebral symptoms ar prominent, where the face is flushed and the whole trouble seems to picture cerebral irritation, and more especially if the patient be young. There is an aura as if a mouse were running over an extremity, or of heat rising from the stomach. There are illusions of sight and hearing, and the convulsions are apt to commence in an upper extremity and extend to the mouth, face and eyes. The great irritability of the nervous system, the easily disturbed sleep, the startings, the tremors and twitching and the general Belladonna symptoms will render the choice easy. Atropine,the alkaloid of Belladonna, has also been used successfully in the treatment of epilepsy. Hydrocyanic acid. Another remedy is Hydrocyanic acid , to which Hughes ascribes specific powers in the disease. In recent cases it perhaps our best remedy. the cases calling for it will be characterized by loss of consciousness, clenched hands, set jaws, frothing at the mouth, inability to swallow, and the attack is followed by great drowsiness and prostration. Children are disinclined to play and take but little interest in anything. It is one of our mainstays in epilepsy and its clinical record ranks it high.
What is Homeopathic Medicine?
“All substances are poisons; there is none which is not a poison.
The right dose differentiates a poison from a remedy” Paracelsus
09/01/2002
Of all the methods used at the Healing Research Centers, the one least understood by most patients is our use of homeopathic medication. Although homeopathy as a form of therapy is more than 200 years old and has been practiced continuously during this period, few people today are familiar with its fundamentals. Unlike orthodox medicine, called allopathy by the homeopath, which has an ill-defined set of assumptions abouthealth and disease, the homeopathic practice is based on very definite conclusions about disease and its effects. For homeopathic treatment to be optimally successful it is important for the patient to be acquainted with these basic principles and to be in agreement with the objectives the homeopath desires to obtain.
Dr. Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), the founder of homeopathic medicine and a brilliant scientist of his day, abhorred the completely unscientific manner in which drugs then used for healing human ailments were selected, tested, and prescribed. From his investigations and the observations of his fellow practitioners, he realized that most drugs were discovered mainly by chance, often by those not in the medical professions and they were used basically for what has become known as the "primary effect," with little regard to their actual mode of operating within the body or their secondary toxic effects.
The allopathic school takes a simplistic and almost naive view of health and disease. Allopaths consider disease as that which is represented by certain sets of symptoms that are deviations from the normal parameters of body activity. They then attempt to discover a drug or drugs that will force these symptoms to regress to a point they consider normal. Only rarely do they concern themselves with the true causes of the symptoms or with the reason that the body produces them in the first place. The general assumption is that if the various body reactions they can measure by their insensitive methods are within normal ranges, the patient is healthy. This isn’t to say that allopaths don’t try to find the cause of an infection, or if the ankles are swollen that they wouldn't check the heart or kidneys for malfunction. On the other hand, they probably wouldn’t attempt to discover what body imbalances enable the infection to occur or what deficiencies are causing the heart or kidney malfunction.
The homeopath, on the other hand, as do all natural healing physicians, tends to consider most symptom patterns not as the disease per se, but as the body's attempt either to warn of the disease condition or to cast off the basic disease entity. If the disease were only the symptom pattern, the allopathic method would be adequate to cure all our ailments. If the homeopathic and naturalist views are correct, however, the allopathic method would all too often tend to thwart the body in its actual healing efforts, making the person less healthy than he was before the treatment.
In the late 1700s and early 1800s, Hahnemann began to develop a theory of medicine that he hoped would place the medical art on a solid foundation. He was a logical, methodical physician who did not believe in putting into the body any substance whose action he did not know as completely as possible.
He postulated that each drug used in treating the sick had a unique specific action on the body, and that before such a substance could be properly used, this unique and specific action must be thoroughly investigated to the point that the physician knew exactly what effect it would have in the human economy. In his day, there were no instruments capable of such a
complete
investigation, so the good doctor turned to biologic methods. After some thought, however, he rejected the much-used animal research of his allopathic contemporaries. Experience had taught him that the reactions of each species are individual and unique and one can’t necessarily extrapolate information gained from one animal body system to that of another species.
Hahnemann therefore restricted all his investigation to the use of human subjects and with this he developed the method known as proving. In order to prove a drug, moderate physiologic doses of the compound were given to a large number of persons considered in to be in good health. Young medical students were usually used because they were available and were considered to be more observant than the average lay persons. The specific drug was continued until various symptoms caused by the drug’s action began to appear. These symptoms were carefully recorded by the students and the drug was continued until either the symptoms had run their gamut or until signs of toxicity appeared.
Two groups of symptoms were generally elicited. First, a prevailing group that was more or less common to almost all the drug’s provers; and second, individual idiosyncratic symptoms that occurred only in one or two prover. The more consistent set of symptoms was considered the most important; although the idiosyncratic symptoms were preserved and are available in the larger homeopathic texts on materia medica. They can be useful to the homeopath in difficult cases.
From these provings, Hahnemann ascertained the specificity of each drug he tested. In other words, after an extensive set of such provings, Hahnemann had information about the specific organs and tissues affected by each drug, and he also had knowledge about the exact manner in which this drug affected these structures. While such information went well beyond what had been done previously in pharmacology, it still did not provide him with a method of curing diseases.
At this time, the inspiration came to Hahnemann that resulted in the homeopathic school of medicine and laid the foundation for the fundamental basis of cure by all the natural therapeutic methods. Some inner wisdom brought him to see that the symptoms usually present in most diseases weren’t actually the disease itself, but were in truth the body’s attempts to overcome the disease and that a true healing method should encourage the body in these efforts and not discourage the body from carrying out its constructive eliminative processes.
As Hahnemann began to appreciate the true nature of health and disease, he also began to develop a method by which drugs, and the knowledge of their action, could best be used to help the sick. He hypothesized that because the symptoms produced by the body in most diseases were really an effort by the body to overcome such conditions, we should help the body in this effort in every way we can. If drugs are to be used to treat disease, the most practical way, he reasoned, was to use them to stimulate the body in its efforts to eliminate the disease.
In his provings on drugs, he discovered that individual drugs were capable of stimulating specific tissues in the body in the same manner that the different disease processes could. "If the drugs and disease cause similar effects, what would happen," he asked himself, "to a patient, who has a certain set of symptoms which the body is creating to overcome a disease, if I gave a drug which in a healthy person would cause that identical set of symptoms? Would this drug stimulate the body in its efforts to overcome the disease more rapidly than it could without this help?" Such reasoning put into practice was the beginning of homeopathic medicine.
When this new method was put to the test, Hahnemann was overjoyed to discover that it was more successful than even he had hoped. He found that when the specific drug that caused a certain set of symptoms in a healthy person was given to a diseased patient with a similar set of symptoms, a speedy and apparently complete recovery ensued. For example, belladonna, when given in large doses to a healthy person produces a hot, dry, very red, sore throat. When such a throat is encountered as a disease entity, it usually is rapidly cured if small amounts of belladonna are given. Thus, although the allopath and the homeopath both use this drug in their treatment programs, the conditions and principles behind the administration of the drug are entirely different.
Lets use the sore throat again to show the difference between these schools. The allopath holds that if he can destroy the bacteria, the disease is cured and the body will be healthy once again. Hahnemann and the homeopaths would look on this matter from an entirely different viewpoint. They know our body is always inhabited by bacteria; in fact, almost all the known pathogenic bacteria can be cultured from the healthy human throat. The homeopath would therefore consider the sore throat an attempt by the body through an inflammatory process to eliminate a morbid or unhealthy condition that may have been building up in the body, rather than consider it a disease per se. The homeopath would consider bacteria as the agents by which this morbid matter is destroyed and not necessarily as detrimental agents. This would be particularly true of recurring sore throats that are controlled but not cured by the usual antibiotic therapy.
The disease process then is actually this morbid or toxic matter that has accumulated within the body. The throat inflammation is the body’s attempt to overcome and cast off this disease material. The homeopath gives the patient a remedy that will help the body in its efforts to eliminate this matter. When this is done, the bacteria, their job finished, disappear and the throat returns to normal.
Antibiotics, as used by the allopath, prevent bacterial growth and suppress the acute inflammation, thereby leaving the body with the disease still fulminating within its depths. Homeopathic treatment helps the body to cast off the disease so that when the symptoms subside by the use of homeopathic remedies, not only is the patient pain-free, but also the morbid disease matter itself is eliminated. In other words, the patient usually becomes healthier after the proper treatment of conditions by homeopathic methods, whereas all too often he may become less healthy when treated by allopathic methods.
Over the years, there have been many explanations about why homeopathic medicine works. One theory is that because the remedy and the disease are nearly identical in their effects, there is created within the body a neutralization somewhat like that caused when two out-of-phase sound waves of identical frequency cancel one another.
Hahnemann’s original explanation, however, was not quite so complicated. He merely said that the drug has a stimulating effect on the specific cells affected by the disease and that this reaction greatly hastens the body’s attempt to cast off the ailment. In chronic diseases, he believed that the body’s attempts to overcome the disease were unfortunately quite feeble, thus enabling such chronic ailments to persist. Here he particularly thought the homeopathic stimulative method to be very important to properly direct and activate the vital force in its efforts to overcome such conditions.
We liken homeopathic therapy to the traveler initiating a new journey. Giving the homeopathic remedy is like giving the traveler a tank of gas and a road map to help he or she arrive at the desired destination. In like manner, the homeopathic remedy gives the body’s own self healing abilities "a tank of gas and a road map” to allow it to perform its job in self healing.
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