Children Who Are “Stressed”, Homeopathy Helps

With two calls this week about potential patients, I thought it was time to write this blog post. I had written a blog post about stress and had mentioned at the end of it (STRESS and Homeopathy) that we don’t often use the word “stress” when talking about children. But children do respond to things happening in their lives, are stressed, and have an automatic response to outside pressures, just as adults do.

Both phone calls were to see if homeopathy would be helpful for a child. One was younger than 5, the other was a preteen. Both children have seen or are seeing a therapist;  neither have started any kind of western medication.  Children do very well with homeopathy. It is a wonderful time to start homeopathy when they are young. I have been saying since these two phone calls that these children are at a fork in the road. If they go down the western medicine road, they will most likely be given medication, and that often snowballs, leading from one medication to another one. These two children are both too young to start this, and why do this to children anyway?

The following are some of the symptoms and behaviors we may see in a child who is having difficulties and is stressed: fears, phobias, depression, oppositional type of behaviors, acting out, bed wetting, PTSD type of symptoms, withdrawal, tantrums, difficulty concentrating, anxiousness, anger, crying, sadness, chronic colds or stomachaches, headaches, difficulty sleeping, nightmares, eating difficulties, digestion issues, skin eruptions and more. Actually anything, and everything. It is just how the child manifests his stress.

In some ways, children don’t have as much control over their environment as adults do. (Although adults may feel that they don’t have any control either, and that may be part of their automatic response).  The child may be responding and reacting to different things or events that are happening in his life.  The event or situation may have triggered the child’s sensitivity, and thus symptoms and behaviors are being expressed, some of them listed above.

I know as parents, we all do our best and want our children to be happy, healthy, safe, to be loved, loving, and develop into their full potential as human beings. With all our good intentions as parents, we sometimes don’t have control over things that do happen to our children, or to us. Things happen in life; changes occur; and we just go with it as best as we can.  Some of these events and situations could be: how a person is being treated, family issues, divorce, separation, financial changes, loss of a family member, poverty, reaction to medications or vaccines, malnutrition, abuse, disability, war, exposure to chemicals or drugs, food sensitivities, a difficult birth or start to life and more.

When someone brings their child to homeopathy, the homeopath is learning about this child’s sensitivity. This is done through observation, listening to both the parents and the child, finding out about dreams, finding out what bothers them, the child’s likes and dislikes, and more. With all of this, the homeopath gives a homeopathic remedy that is similar. The remedy stimulates the child’s healing process, and the sensitivity quiets down, the automatic response lessens, and the symptoms ease off. For example, the bed wetting has stopped, oppositional behavior has eased, fears have quieted down, coughs and breathing difficulties are no longer occurring. The situation may have not changed, but there is a shift in the child, and now he is able to move on, and handle things better in his life, perhaps even changing his situation if he can. A healing has occurred.

 

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Homeopathy – Healing Children

Homeopathy is wonderful for children’s health care.  Whether the child is experiencing ongoing health issues or acute colds and stomachaches, homeopathy is very helpful. In the healing with homeopathy, the immune system of the child is strengthened, so the health issue is not occurring as much and finally lessens all together.

Some ongoing health concerns that children experience:

• Chronic ear infections
• Asthma
• Eczema or other skin eruptions
• Allergies
• Behavioral issues
• ADD/ADHD – see post on ADD/ADHD
• Autism spectrum
• Stomachaches
• Constipation
• Diarrhea
• Difficulty sleeping and nightmares
• Fears
• Coughs
• Headaches
• Recurring colds, sore throats
• Childhood disease – measles, chicken pox, mumps, whooping cough, German measles.

I would like to tell you about a patient of mine who I have seen for several years. When he first came to me, he was eight years old. When Joe (not his real name) was playing baseball, he would experience the need to cough when he stopped running. Joe said, “It is weird to have so much mucus in my throat. Coughing gets more mucus. I stop coughing and the mucus goes away.” His mother had taken Joe to the doctor who had suggested using an inhaler for the cough. His mother did not want to do that. She had used homeopathy before, and wanted to see how homeopathy could help Joe.

Joe talked about feeling scared at night when he heard noises in the house. “There could be burglars. If I knew what it was, it wouldn’t be so scary. You can get taken. I would have to scream and kick around. The person doing that would not like it.” His mother said that during the evening, Joe would frequently get out of bed to ask her about the sounds, as well as asking when his father was coming home, if his father was away on a business trip. His mother would give an explanation, but Joe would be back again asking about the noises. His mother described Joe as needing a lot of reassurance, and being very cautious. She said that he checks first with an adult, and then does whatever he was going to do. He doesn’t answer the phone because it might be someone he doesn’t know.

On car trips, Joe gets extremely carsick. He also is sensitive to the heat. His head and stomach hurt, he feels dizzy, and he throws up. He gets very upset when friends pretend they will hit him and then stop. “It is unfair and mean.” To him, it is a huge thing. He can’t let it go.

After taking the homeopathic remedy that was most similar to what he was experiencing, Joe was not coughing after running, and the sensation of mucus in his throat was gone. In fact, when visiting the doctor after the first dose of the remedy, the doctor could no longer hear anything in his lungs. Joe was falling asleep easier at night, and was not getting up at night to ask questions. He was no longer experiencing carsickness, and his sensitivity to the heat also decreased. And when Joe and his family were vacationing in Hawaii, every morning Joe went up to the the desk clerk and asked for the sports section of the newspaper.

Over the years, Joe has had doses of the homeopathic remedy when it was needed. Sometimes, his sensitivity to heat has come back, or other acute situations have occurred. This is when a dose was given. He has though no longer experienced the coughing and the sensation of mucus in his throat.  Homeopathy heals the whole person. With Joe, the mucus in the throat and the coughing were better, as well as other aspects of him, his emotional state and other physical symptoms.  Homeopathy heals the person.

Healing ADD/ADHD With Homeopathy

To continue with the thought of my last post, There is a Need for Homeopathy, I want to address attention deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADD/ADHD). Many parents don’t know that there are other choices besides medication in helping their children. The information in this post also applies to adults who have ADD/ADHD like symptoms.

Very often school aged children, usually boys more than girls, are placed on medication. The prescribed medications are stimulants, such as Ritalin, Dexedrine, Desoxyn or Cylert.  If these medications are not effective, tricyclic antidepressants may be prescribed.

ADD/ADHD encompasses a large range of behaviors and symptoms. The following are some of those behaviors considered to be symptomatic of ADD/ADHD: over stimulation, distraction, restlessness, hyper vigilance, withdrawal, compulsion, impulsiveness, acting out, poor attention span, lack of focus, lack of concentration, disruption, aggression, defiance, dawdling, lack of friends, low self esteem, hyperactivity, awkwardness, and difficulty with school work.  Remember, ADD/ADHD is a name, a title,  with symptoms listed underneath.

Sometimes these behaviors and symptoms are a response to detrimental factors in the child’s environment. Once the child’s environment is changed, the child does much better. Samuel Hahnemann, the German physician who developed homeopathy, called these detrimental factors maintaining causes.  Some of these factors could be:

• The child is bored and needs a more stimulating school environment
• The school program doesn’t plan enough time for physical activities
• The child learns better using a different teaching modality, such as auditory, visual, or kinesthetic
• The child is not hearing or seeing properly and thus having difficulty processing the information
• The child is not getting enough to eat or getting enough sleep
• There are difficulties at home

                                                   

With conventional medicine, children with different symptoms are prescribed the same ADD/ADHD medication. For example, a shy child who may have difficulty concentrating and staying on task in school is prescribed the same medication as another child who is portraying behaviors of aggression and violence, biting people, and being very difficult to control. Both of these children are diagnosed as having ADD/ADHD, and both are prescribed the same medication, although each child is expressing a different state, different symptoms and different behaviors.  This is the one size fits all thinking.  What happens is: have a diagnosis of ADD/ADHD and give medication for ADD/ADHD. The individual child is not being treated.

The intended actions of the medications last only for several hours and then another dose needs to be taken. Side effects are often experienced when taking some of these medications. These side effects could be loss of appetite, insomnia, tics, headaches, stomach aches, drowsiness, short-term growth retardation, irritability, moodiness, and increased rate of blood pressure. Side effects are the unwanted responses from a prescribed medication.

Homeopathy can be very useful in helping children, and adults, who are experiencing some of these behaviors and symptoms. Homeopathy treats the whole person, the individual person, not the diagnosis ADD/ADHD.  The shy child mentioned above would be given a different homeopathic remedy than the child who has aggressive behaviors or the adult who is impulsive. Each person is experiencing symptoms and behaviors unique to them, and therefore each person needs a homeopathic remedy that is similar to what they are experiencing. The homeopath takes time to understand and to uncover what the person is experiencing, what and where they are suffering. And then he/she selects a homeopathic remedy that is similar to that suffering. The main principle of homeopathy is Like Cures Like or the Law of Similars. The homeopathic remedy then simulates the person’s own healing process.

We want a healing, not a palliating. Homeopathy heals. There is a need for homeopathy.