Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Is homeopathy good for Chickenpox?

Is homeopathy good for Chickenpox?
Many people ask this question to me.I will tell them my experience.

A Staff Nurse working in my Hospital came to me with the typical rash of Chickenpox.The eruption started only that morning. I told her it is chickenpox and in most of the cases it wont create any problem.It is a self limiting[meaning will subside by itself] viral infection.She asked about the anti viral treatment.I told her with treatment the recovery is faster by few days especially if started on the day of the eruption of rash.As she did not have much leave she opted for anti viral treatment[Acyclovir]. She recovered fast and was back to work in 8 days.

About 4 weeks later the Nurse came again to me with her mother who had healing and active rashes all over her body.She had secondary bacterial infection of her skin as a complication of Chickenpox.She was exhausted and dehydrated.Her mother developed rashes 10 days ago.She was taking homeopathic treatment, but was suffering badly. She was advised salt free diet and other dietary restriction. I gave her treatment for skin infection due to bacteria and few symptomatic remedies,asked her to take salt normally and reassured her.It took another 10 days for her mother to become all right again.
At that time the Nurse's sister a College student was shown to me with early chickenpox rash.I again gave her the option of just taking symptomatic medicines or taking anti viral medicines also.She did not opt for anti virals. Her illness had an uneventful course and she recovered completely in 12 days.
Chickenpox is self limiting and usually do not produce any complications in young persons.Anti viral therapy reduces the number of eruptions and increases the speed of recovery.Anti viral therapy is a useful option in those who want to recover fast.

Homeopathy do not have any additional proven benefit in management of Chickenpox.But severe diet restriction along with some stronger homeopathic medicines are found to increase the number of eruptions and increase the exhaustion and fatigue in patients, there by delaying the recovery.
Chickenpox in older people may cause complications.Such patients may have to be looked after carefully.
For more authentic information on Chickenpox visit here

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was really wondering about homeopathy a system
which I thought having minimal effects in the field of health care.and was searching for the real effects of homeopathic treatment for chicken pox.Thanks a lot doctor

Arun.N.M. said...

Anonymous,you are welcome

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christo said...

you are wrong, i had a patient who was treated with anti viral drugs and was happy that she recoverd in no time, but later after 4 days she developed deadly erruptions with respiratory complications and later she took homeopathic treatment and recovered completly.
i feel anti viral drugs supress the disease and makes further complications, and those patients are lucky who recover using that.
thank you

Arun.N.M. said...

Christo, Welcome here.
What you stated was just your feelings while a large body of scientific evidence suggest homeopathy is nothing more than a placebo. See my latest post http://malayalidoc.blogspot.com/2010/10/uk-govt-continues-support-for.html