Viability of Homeopathic treatment in case of tuberculosis

In 1991, New York City experienced an outbreak of MDR TB that eventually claimed more than 500 lives. Recently, a MDR TB outbreak in Russia has killed many more. WHO has recommended a new treatment method ‘DOTS’ (Directly Observed Treatment, Short course) after the resurgence of the tuberculosis and increased incidence of drug resistant tuberculosis.

It will be difficult to check the spread of tuberculosis since DOTS has no provision for drug resistant strains and, moreover, it is providing no preventive procedures to check the recurrence of the disease.

For improvement in tuberculosis treatment, development of a new generation of anti-tuberculosis drugs is technologically feasible.

In such circumstances, it is most important to find-out a system, which has proved to be effective, safe, and cost-effective. Reliable evidences are available to show the effectiveness of homeopathy in tuberculosis, it can cure the disease just within few months and without fibrosis.

In this connection I found homeopathy is one of the best matches, which can solve all the questions, remained unsolved by the DOTS. But the homeopathy alone cannot takeover the whole project because homeopathy is a highly individualized basis of treatment i.e. it takes a long time to understand an individual patient in a particular situation, so it has no fix set of medicines for all TB patients. So homeopathy cannot be prescribed for the patients in a long queue.

Furthermore, the advantage of prescribing homeopathy would include no resistance, as drug resistant strains of TB are resistant to available anti-tubercular drugs but not to homeopathy because homeopathy has no direct action on the bacilli. Constitutional homeopathic treatment also serves as a preventive therapy.

In new settings patients with multidrug resistant tuberculosis could be tried to individualized homeopathic treatment.

Fortunately, I have number of TB cases treated successfully through homeopathy in very simple way. We have to prescribe for a TB patient as a whole, not for the TB disease, that is we have to prescribe for the symptoms presented by the individual patient at the time of illness. It is very simple – just collect the totality of symptoms, repertories them and find a single similar medicine and prescribe it in 30c or in LM potency.

Now the question arise that if it is so simple to prescribe for a TB patient then why are most homeopaths avoid for treating TB?

For the above said question I have some clarifications such as-

1. Strong reservations about the homeopathic treatment of TB are expressed in the literature. For instance, Kent stated in his lecture on Calcarea ostrearum (Calc carb), that homeopathy cannot cure consumption (pulmonary TB) and advised his pupils to be wary of anyone who claimed to cure it. On the other hand we have lot of homeopathic medicines written in repertory and materia medica, found effective in treating TB.

2. Most TB patients are always complaining for one or the other problem. They never become satisfied with the prescribed medicine in spite of having very good relief.

If a homeopath is able to draw a clear-cut picture of a homeopathic medicine on the basis of totality of symptoms can cure a case of even drug resistant TB. Professional homeopaths, however, may recommend one or more of the following treatments for tuberculosis based on their knowledge and clinical experience. Before prescribing a remedy, homeopaths take into account a person’s constitutional type. In homeopathic terms, a person’s constitution is his or her physical, emotional, and intellectual makeup. An experienced homeopath assesses all of these factors when determining the most appropriate remedy for a particular individual.

Although, a full course of allopathic medication can cure TB mostly in those who do not have a drug-resistant strain yet the outcome may be less promising in patients who are elderly, those who have TB that has spread to locations other than the lungs including miliary TB (which spreads through the bloodstream affecting many organ systems), drug-resistant strains of TB, or those with HIV. But this all is not been found in case of homeopathic treatment.

Dr. K. K. Goyal
Principal investigator of TB project and Member of scientific advisory committee “Dilli Homeopathic Anusandhan Parishad” an autonomous research body of Delhi government.

email: goyaldrkk@gmail.com


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