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Friday 27 June 2014

Diarrhoea. Best treated with Homeopathy?

Diarrhoea is passing loose or looser, or more frequent stools, than normal. It is not normally a serious condition, but can be an annoying and embarrassing one. Acute periods of diarrhoea usually last no more than a few days, and can be accompanied by fever, vomiting and stomach cramps. Longer-term, chronic diarrhoea can be more serious, and more difficult to treat.

Note that diarrhoea, like most ailments, can be brought on my a variety of conventional medical drugs.


CONVENTIONAL MEDICAL TREATMENT
NHS Choices states, quite rightly, that “diarrhoea will usually clear up without treatment after a few days because the immune system fights off the infection”. The advantage of Homeopathy over conventional medicine, however, is that waiting for the body to recover on its own is not necessary, and remedies can be used immediately, and have been proven to shorten the period of recovery.

NHS Choices then goes on to give sensible advice about drinking fluids, including oral rehydration solutions, to avoid dehydration. It also gives some advice about what to eat.

NHS Choices then goes on to describe Antidiarrhoeal medicines, like Loperamide and Racecadotril, 
which “may help reduce your diarrhoea and shorten how long it lasts by around 24 hours”. It says that these should not be given to children, or if there is blood or mucous in the stool. This is presumably because of the side-effects of these drugs. These side-effects, some of them serious, can be found on this link.

Painkillers are the next suggestion. As NHS Choices says, these do not cure your diarrhoea, but can relieve any accompanying fever or headache. However, as is now well known, these ‘benefits’ come at a considerable potential cost, and the dangers of painkillers are now becoming so serious that doctors are increasingly reluctant to prescribe them. To read about the dangers of painkilling drugs, see this link.

NHS Choices then introduces Antibiotic drugs as a possible treatment. However, it says that “treatment with antibiotics is not recommended for diarrhoea if the cause is unknown”. The reasons given is that they will not work if the diarrhoea is caused by a virus, and antibiotics “can cause unpleasant side effects”. And, of course, there is the whole issue of antibiotic resistance too! Apparently, however, they will be prescribed if there is severe diarrhoea.

Finally, NHS Choices talks about hospital treatment “if you or your child is seriously dehydrated due to diarrhoea”. Treatment will involve administering fluids and nutrients directly into a vein (intravenously).


THE HOMEOPATHIC TREATMENT OF DIARRHOEA

Important Note
Homeopathy does not treat illness or diseases. It treats the individual who has been diagnosed with a particular illness or disease. The distinction is important, and if you wish to read more about this, click on the chapter “Illness Diagnosis” above.

These remedy descriptions come from the Hpathy website. They are likely to help if the patients’ symptoms match with these general remedy symptoms.

Aesculus hip
Chronic diarrhoea, stool first hard and black, later becomes yellow, thin, watery associated with severe lumber and sacral pains, weakness, weariness, and sleepiness.

Aconite
Diarrhoea from checked perspiration, during heat of summer, from fight or anger, in cold nights, corrosive slimy stools, frequent and involuntary.

Aethusa cynapium 
Green, thin, bilious discharges, with violent tenesmus, stools of partly digested food, just after meal or at night. Stool loose with cutting in abdomen.

Agaricus 
Excellent remedy for diarrhea in wet weather.

Aloes 
Remarkable remedy for diarrhoea, profuse watery diarrhoea; wants of confidence in sphincter ani, early morning diarrhoea, driving out of bed in the morning;  urging of stool continuously worse immediately after eating; feeling of fullness and weight in the pelvis, with passage of urine, only hot flatus passes, giving relief but burning in anus afterwards; stool difficult to retain; even a well formed stool passes unnoticed; aggravation hot damp weather, overheating, after cold in a damp room, after chagrin; urging with intense gripping, pinching pain across the lower part of abdomen.

Nux Vomica 
Diarrhoea due to over eating and diet errors and indigestible foods; pain in abdomen before stools; stools contain undigested particles of food; diarrhoea after debauch.

Podophyllum 
Diarrhoea green watery, fetid, profuse, and gushing; Worse during teething and in the morning, while bathing or washing and in hot weather; Camp diarrhoea; Diarrhoea alternating with constipation; Prolapse of rectum, before or with stool.

Pulsatilla 
Diarrhoea after measles; stool contains undigested food particles; diarrhoea due to food poisoning.

Natrum Sulph 
Stools involuntary while passing flatus; early morning diarrhoea; great size of fecal masses.

Veratrum album 
Painful diarrhoea; watery, copious, and forcefully evacuated followed by great weakness.

Arsenic album 
Useful in cases where there is marked restlessness; anguish and intolerance of pain; quantity of stool passed is small and prostration and weakness is out of all proportion to the quantity passed; great thirst for small quantities of water at short intervals.

Croton Tig 
Stool yellow, watery, expelled suddenly, gunshot diarrhoea; aggravated by drink or food; diarrhoea associated with nausea and vomiting; every movement causes discharge.

Graphites 
Stool of brown fluid mixed with undigested substances and an intolerable fetid odour.

Sulphur 
Morning diarrhoea ordinarily at the time when the patient begins to think about rising; between midnight and morning

Antim crud 
Alternate diarrhoea and constipation in old people; diarrhoea after overheating; after nursing, after cold bathing, at night and early morning; diarrhoea with nausea and vomiting, colic and loss of appetite; diarrhoea from acid, vinegar; stool profuse, watery, with little hard lumps. Diarrhoea on alternate days, rectum inactive, even a soft, thin stool requires great straining, patient cannot pass until there is large accumulation; diarrhea when she urinates.

Argentum Nitricum 
Remarkable remedy for nervous diarrhoea, diarrhea from anticipation or apprehension; when ready to go to church, opera, theatre, etc. diarrhoea from taking sweets, from drinking; diarrhoea during dentition; stool green, flaky, like spinach, mucus, with much flatulence.

Bryonia Alba 
Diarrhoea due to suddenly checked perspiration in hot weather, from getting overheated in summers; from drinking milk; desire from cold drinks and acids, for large quantities at long intervals; bilious diarrhoea with lancinating pain.

Calcaria phos 
Diarrhoea with much flatulency, caused by juicy fruits; after vexations, in school going girls with headaches; diarrhoea during dentition.

Camphora 
Diarrhoea with great prostration and collapse; Dark brown r black stool with cutting pain in abdomen; rice watery stools

Cuprum met 
Violent diarrhoea, with cramps in the stomach and chest; frequent watery diarrhoea, with flakes; cold sweat; weak and small pulse; excellent remedy for cholera.

Dulcamara 
Diarrhoea alternating with rheumatism; stool slimy, alternately yellow or greenish, whitish, watery; frequent; scanty; corrosive, with floculli, aggravation at night and in wet weather.

Iodum 
Diarrhoea from pancreatic affections; chronic diarrhoea of an exhausting character

Ipecaucuanha 
Autumnal diarrhoea; chronic diarrhoea, continuous nausea, stool as green as grass, putrid; frequent vomiting of jelly like green mucus.

Lycopodium 
Diarrhoea after suppression of skin eruptions; stool thin brown or pale; excessive accumulation of flatulence.

Mag carb 
Stool like scum of frog pound; green or frothy white masses, floating on the green, watery stool; aggravate in hot weather, during dentition, from artificial food.

Phosphorous 
Watery diarrhoea; with lumps of white mucus; morning diarrhoea , exhausting stools; chronic diarrhoea with gradual loss of strength.



Atrial Fibrillation. The dangers of blood-thinning drugs

Recently, the mainstream media, including the BBC, reported that NICE were instructing doctors to stop using Aspirin in the treatment of Atrial Fibrillation, and to use blood-thinning drugs (like Warfarin, Pradaxa and Multaq) instead. In my blog, "The NHS Overspends again" I said the following about this change of advice.

The NICE guidance on aspirin overturns conventional medical practice that has been in place for decades. What does this mean? It means that the NHS has now recognised that people have been taking a drug is not very effective.

Yet the main problem with aspirin is not just that it is ineffective. There is a growing recognition that aspirin is positively dangerous to our health, especially when taken on a long-term basis. This, of course, was not mentioned by NICE, or by the BBC, but it could well be the primary reason for the change in advice.


This may be bad enough - doctors giving us ineffective but harmful medicines. Yet what has not been reported is new evidence about the dangers of blood-thinning drugs, notably Pradaxa (a new drug, used as an alternative to Warfarin, which for many years has been considered to be a dangerous treatment). 

Pradaxa was approved in 2010, and is used to treat irregular heartbeat (atrial fibrillation, or AF). It is supposed to prevent strokes. As usual Big Pharma (supported by the mainstream media) heralded this as a 'breakthrough' drug, being safer, and causing less haemorrhaging than Warfarin). However, the dangers of Pradaxa soon became known to the medical establishment, even if they were not publicised, and even if patients have not been told.

When the FDA approved Pradaxa in the USA, they said that it's bleeding rates were not higher than Warfarin's. Yet, in a straight contraction to this, it also stated that the risk of bleeding was 6 times higher than with Warfarin!

What has happened since suggests that the latter statement was correct. The manufacturer of Pradaxa, Boehringer Ingelheim, has settled about 4,000 injury lawsuits, and have been reported to have paid over $650 million to those injured by the drug. (Investigation update: Manufacturer settles approximately 4,000 Pradaxa lawsuits for $650 million, published online 04.06.14, newsnet5.com).

Yet the drug is still being prescribed! Of course! Did it suggest to drug regulators throughout the world that Pradaxa was a dangerous drug? Of course not!

It has been estimated that Pradaxa caused 542 deaths, from bleeding, in 2011, that is, the year after its approval. (FDA-Approved Drug Linked to 542 Deaths and 2,367 Hemorrhages, but FDA Refuses to Pull It, published online, healthimpactnews.com).

Most of the complaints about Pradaxa were that the drug company failed to warn patients about the risk of internal bleeding. Yet did the FDA do anything about these complaints. Of course not! One piece of research indicates that Pradaxa can be blamed for a total of 1,158 deaths, and 12,494 serious injuries - just in the USA!

And yet nothing is done. The drug is still being marketed throughout the world, with sales rising year by year. People are still taking it, and most of them will be unaware of the potential consequences - because no-one in the mainstream media, no-one in the conventional health establishment, not even our own doctors, bother to tell us!

So, in the NICE guidance, and the BBC article referring to the treatment of AF, doctors are advised not to give Aspirin - but to give blood-thinning drugs instead.

AND NOTE, THERE IS NOT A WORD OF WARNING ABOUT THE DANGERS OF THESE BIG PHARMA DRUGS - AS USUAL! 

So what NICE is suggesting for the treatment of AF is interesting. Aspirin is not effective. So move to taking a blood-thinning drug. However, they are not informing us that Aspirin is dangerous. Or that Warfarin, Pradaxa, and other blood-thinning drugs are more dangerous.

Homeopathy anyone?


PS 
Can any blood thinning drug be taken safely? The answer is "No". If you are in any doubt about this, please see my blog on Multaq, another dangerous blood-thinning drug!

Wednesday 18 June 2014

NHS Overspend - again!

The mainstream media is reporting yet another NHS overspend this morning (18th June 2014). 

Of course, this is not new news - such overspends have been a regular feature of NHS health news for the last 60+ years and more. The usual reasons given (including by the BBC Today programme) is that the NHS is underfunded (currently the spending freeze is highlighted), and there is an ageing population. Yet the BBC Today programme featured two other health-related features.

These news features were not linked by the BBC, of course, although there is a very clear link, as I have pointed out, in considerable detail, in my e-book, "The Failure of Conventional Medicine" (click here to read this). Conventional, drug-based medicine has always been expensive. Some drugs can cost £30,000 per annum per patient, and a few much more than this. 

Yet whilst the cost of conventional drugs is an issue it is NOT the fundamental reason the NHS is constantly found to be overspending. Indeed, the reason for NHS overspends are contained within the BBC's own reports today on Aspirin, and on Crohn's disease.

The NICE guidance on aspirin overturns conventional medical practice that has been in place for decades. What does this mean? It means that the NHS has now recognised that people have been taking a drug is not very effective.

"Aspirin has been used for years to help protect patients from strokes, but mounting evidence suggests the drug's benefits are too small compared with other treatments".

Yet the main problem with aspirin is not just that it is ineffective. There is a growing recognition that aspirin is positively dangerous to our health, especially when taken on a long-term basis. This, of course, was not mentioned by NICE, or by the BBC, but it could well be the primary reason for the change in advice.


In terms of cost, this means is that the NHS has been using a largely ineffectual (and harmful) drug on the basis that it was doing us some good. This is not a one-off situation. It has been repeated regularly over the years - we are given a drug because it is supposed to be effective, only later for us to be told it is not effective! 

We are, however, not usually told that the drug we have taken for years is also dangerous.

However, this is not the case with the BBC's feature on Crohn's disease. The cause of this particular epidemic was actually mentioned. Antibiotic drugs. And particularly antibiotics given to young children. The dangers of antibiotics drugs have rarely been discussed by the mainstream media. The conventional medical establishment have, said for over 60 years, that these drugs were "very safe", and it has been on this understanding that most parents have allowed their children to take them over the years. 

The admission that Antibiotic drugs meddle with our gut flora, disrupt our digestive system, and can ultimately cause Crohn's disease, was mentioned in this BBC feature - but the issue was not pursued. The mainstream media, including the BBC, has rarely, if ever, discussed the issues of medical drugs causing such epidemics of chronic disease. There are many examples of this but they appear to be 'no-go' areas for our media!


So what are we facing in this situation? What are we missing? Basically, we are missing a vicious circulatory in the way we are delivering health services to sick people, and the outcomes.
  • Start with an overspending NHS......
  • Then consider the use of drugs, over decades, that are eventually found to be ineffective (and also harmful to our health).....
  • Then consider the epidemics of chronic diseases, like Crohn's, often new diseases, caused by conventional drug treatment, which add to the levels of illness the NHS is having to cope with.....
  • Then consider the additional demands this places on NHS services......
  • And then ask the question - why does the NHS overspend its huge budget......
I wonder when the Media is going to be allowed to do some 'joined-up' thinking on the issue of health, and the domination of conventional drugs within the NHS?



Wednesday 11 June 2014

BBC News highlights its own inadequacies in health reporting. Statin Drugs.

The mainstream media does not report the dangers of pharmaceutical drugs, and this includes BBC News, a public service broadcaster that has repeatedly refuses to inform its viewers and listeners of the harm Big Pharma drugs can cause.

It was therefore a surprise to hear this morning (11th June 2014) that the Today programme reported that certain senior doctors have asked NICE to re-look at its advice to prescribe Statin drugs to healthy people. Perhaps they did not realise that they were giving an opportunity for these doctors to state that Statin drugs cause serious adverse reactions, including kidney and liver damage, muscle damage, and diabetes (dementia was not mentioned).

The BBC, and most of the mainstream media, have never reported these disease-causing-effects of Statin drugs before - and the question needs to be asked - Why not?

(Incidentally, the 'epidemic' rise of diabetes was featured by the Today programme the previous day, 10th June 2014. No connection was made to this, or the fact that many conventional drugs are known to cause diabetes).

What astute listeners would  have realised is that BBC News have never announced these adverse reactions, and have always been happy to parrot the conventional medical establishment's view that these drugs were 'entirely safe', and that 'everyone should take them'.

The report also demonstrated that NICE make their recommendations without access to all the evidence known to Big Pharma companies about the adverse reactions of drugs. 

John Humphries seemed genuinely surprised about this 'revelation'. Perhaps we should ask where he has been during the last ten years and more!

It also seemed to come as a surprise that NICE was dominated by people who had close links with Big Pharma companies.

For a moment I thought that the BBC had changed their policy on health issues - a sudden conversion to open and honest and impartial reporting. However, it is more likely that they stumbled on this evidence. Whether they pursue such concerns in future remains to be seen. But by past performance, they will continue to believe everything the conventional medical establishment tells them, and assume that the only people who know anything about health are conventionally trained doctors.

Patients are badly served by the BBC, and by the mainstream media generally. This is one of the main reasons for this, and similar blogs - to inform people about the dangers of conventional medicine - to inform people that the NHS, NICE, the MHRC, et al, are part of a monopoly that is causing harm to our health.