Sherman: Treating whooping cough with alternative medicines
This is the time of year when people come down with different types of acute illnesses.
This is also the time of year when public health officials ramp up their “war on disease” vaccination campaign.
Of those vaccines, the pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine can be the most deadly.
Whooping cough is an acute infection that is often misunderstood. It sometimes leaves parents in absolute fear for their child.
Whooping cough, also known as pertussis, is an infection of the respiratory system caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis (or B. pertussis).
It is characterized by severe coughing spells that end in a “whooping” sound when the person breathes in.
The first symptoms of pertussis are similar to those of a common cold—runny nose, sneezing, mild cough, low-grade fever.
After about one to two weeks, the dry, irritating cough evolves into coughing spells. During a coughing spell, which can last for more than a minute, the child may turn red or purple.
At the end of a spell, the child may make a characteristic whooping sound when breathing in or may vomit. Between spells, the child usually feels well.
Contracting whooping cough insures lifelong immunity and generally is not dangerous and complications are rare in children under two years of age.
Immunization does not guarantee you will not “pick up” this illness; a type of “masked whooping cough” can develop in vaccinated children and can be harder to treat and diagnose.
To diagnose whooping cough, it is usually done from the clinical picture and laboratory tests on the secretions at the back of the nose.
There is an antibiotic, which is sometimes effective for whooping cough, but this is seldom used except in severe cases as the antibiotic has proved to be quite toxic itself.
Sometimes what may have been diagnosed, as whooping cough actually is not. It may be parapertussis.
The symptoms are the same, but no vaccine for parapertussis exists.
The pertussis vaccine does not protect against parapertussis. This disease is a form of whooping cough and can only be positively identified by lab cultures.
But regardless of the strain, if your child does get whooping cough, there are some things you can do to reduce the chances of complications. Homeopathic medicine is one such thing.
Homeopathy has long been a first choice in the treatment of whooping cough from the early 19th century, and there are some very effective remedies to consider.
Take a 30CH or 200CH potency every one to two hours. If relief is not experienced in any degree after a day or so, try another remedy such as:
Drosera: This remedy is indicated in persons with whooping cough that is deep, hoarse, and choking usually worse as soon as head hits the pillow. Usually there is a vomiting of thick mucous after coughing fit.
Ipecacuanha: I have had very good results with this remedy. Usually indicated when there is a bleeding nose and vomiting accompanied with the cough along with wheezing. The tongue is usually clean—a confirmatory symptom when choosing this remedy.
Antimonium tartaricum: Coarse rattling of mucous in the chest, very difficult to bring up. Can almost seem like Ipecacuanha above but will have a white coated instead of a clean tongue.
John Sherman is a homeopath in Kelowna.
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