What can—and what cannot

be done by homeopathy
for our immune system?

In the beginning of the twenty-first century, there are unfortunately many signs referring to the fact that our immune system cannot fulfill its task anymore. The number of allergic, autoimmune, and tumorous sicknesses is rapidly growing, the children, especially those who attend a school or community functions, get sick often, and consummation of antibiotics is getting daunting and astoundingly high. In the same time, unjustified overreaction or underachievement can happen showing a disturbance of equilibrium of the system.

In ideal cases a child can be "escorted" from its birth date by homeopathy, that means interventions having side reactions should be possibly avoided. Of course, a homeopath can also prescribe antibiotics to his patient if it is reasonable.

In case of acute sicknesses, the homeopathic medicine means exercise for the body. In lucky cases, it does not only cure, but also brings prevention against new infections. At this occasion, the medication is chosen based on the symptoms of the acute disease; to this end, detailed information should be gathered from the patient, or in case of infants and little children, from the parents. If it is possible, we should know what could cause the symptoms, what are the complaints, where the symptoms appear, and what natural circumstances improve or worsen the symptoms and/or the general condition of the patient. Consequently, we should know the individual characteristics of the patient's symptoms compared with many other patients with similar clinical diagnoses.

It is obviously different and more difficult when the homeopath is seeing a child who frequently catches viral and bacterial infections, gets cured slowly, has perhaps residual symptoms, and shows respiratory, digestive and/or skin signs referring to allergies. In this case along with treating the actual disease, the so called constitutional treatment is aimed to retune the whole body of the patient, to find a remedy for all physical, spiritual, and mental symptoms. For this reason, we need to know as much as possible how our patient differs from those suffering from the same problems. Characteristics of the patient's personality, individual environmental effects, and medical history are important, too. In a lucky case, the well-chosen "constitutional" medicine can effectively cause the disease to occur less frequently, the outcome of the sickness to be mild with less complications, the patient's health to return spectacularly and rapidly, and to get over the illness so it becomes bearable even without administering antibiotics; so that the immune system "finds itself" again.

In the fall, winter, and spring periods when respiratory illnesses are frequent, the immune system can be fortified by taking low potential (D3, D4, D6) Echinacea intermittant (twice daily for a week, then one week break). This herb is well known in herbal therapy, it is an immune system stimulant saving its fitotherapeutic effect in low homeopathic potential, and so there is no need to give a preparation of high alcohol content to our children.

All of the above can be supplemented with general detoxification, incidentally by cleansing the lymphatic system.

Homeopathy is not a miracle, but it can help give multilateral support to the weakened immune system. Dr. Mariann Molnár Pediatrician, Homeopath