Gyandas G Wadhwani, MD (Hom)
Abstract: Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has presented us with a wide spectrum of illness from asymptomatic infections to severe acute respiratory syndrome that might require mechanical ventilation. And with the highlighted use of various therapies and vaccines to contain and control the pandemic, there is a general failure to acknowledge reports and publications annotating the contribution of homoeopathy.
Case reports: The author describes three COVID-19 positive cases and their individualized homoeopathic treatment. All three patients recovered and their recovery was evidenced with adequate lab and radiologic investigations.
Discussion and Conclusion: In light of the results of these evidence-based case reports, research studies should be planned to further validate and substantiate the benefits of individualized homeopathic therapeutics in Covid-19 patients.
Keywords: COVID-19, homeopathic treatment of; homeopathy, Acidum phosphoricum, Kali phosphoricum, Arsenicum album, Typhoidinum.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARSCoV-2) is the pathogen responsible for the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic, which has resulted in global healthcare crises and strained health resources. As the numbers of patients recovering from Covid-19 grows, we are experiencing a rise in the incidence of post-Covid complications, some due to the virus itself and others due to medical measures or lack thereof. Today, Covid-19 is recognized as a complex multi-organ systemic disease with a broad spectrum of manifestations ranging from asymptomatic to critical, originating from viral-induced inflammation and hypercoagulability potentially affecting any organ in the body.1,2,3
A significant amount of important information has been gained from every successive outbreak, although limited by an all too brief opportunity for investigation.
In an era of emerging and re-emerging pathogens, the Covid-19 outbreaks serve as a reminder of the importance of robust surveillance, timely diagnosis, and research to understand the basic biology of new viruses and their susceptibilities, as well as the development of effective countermeasures, and, more importantly, an unbiased, ethical and scientific evaluation of all forms of complementary and alternative therapeutic measures. Publications have already highlighted how Traditional Chinese herbal medicine has been used in China to treat Covid-19 patients with various symptoms across a range of disease risk and severity.4
An analysis of past epidemics has highlighted that homoeopathy has always played an important role therapeutically and prophylactically.5,6
This paper intends to report three diagnosed cases of Covid-19 which were successfully treated exclusively with individualized homeopathic medicines and the response corroborated with timely investigations.
All the patients of COVID-19 who consulted were assessed clinically and diagnosed with
The serology, RT PCR and HRCT Chest were repeated at appropriate intervals during the course of treatment to gauge the remedy response and monitor the completion of recovery, as we are also aware of Long Covid and chronic COVID syndromes are another identifiable medical phenomena.8
A 35-year-old-man diagnosed with Vaccine Breakthrough Covid–19 infection consulted for treatment on 19 April 2021. He travelled to India in the first week of April from Dubai after receiving both doses of Pfizer vaccine in February and March of 2021. He had been unwell for the past 12 days with loss of appetite, persistent high fever (temperatures 101-105o F), body aches, profound weakness (VAS score 9) felt especially in the chest, diarrhoea, occasional cough with mucoidal phlegm, and shortness of breath with SpO2 levels ranging between 85 and 88% (Dyspnoea Grade 4). He preferred coconut water over regular water but could only take 1/4th of a glass. When hungry, he would only crave fresh sweet lime juice (but couldn’t drink much). He also felt a heaviness over the vertex of his head. The lab report confirmed Covid-19.
Rx: Acidum phosphoricum 200C was prescribed in water doses, every 3 hours.
A 45-year-old man was brought by his family members for persisting high fever, tachypnea and dehydration on 5 November 2020. There was slight shortness of breath and his SpO2 was fluctuating between 85 and 90%. He was on antibiotics, ivermectin and doxycycline along with antipyretics for the past 7-8 days in spite of which the temperature ranged between 101-104oF. He also complained of body aches, headache, nausea and vomiting. He coughed frequently, which was sometimes productive yielding a yellowish-green phlegm. He complained of profound weakness [VAS score 8]. All the complaints had developed over the previous 10 days. He felt cold all over and used a hot water bag to keep warm. His wife related that whenever the headache increased he asked for an ice pack to soothe it. Appetite was poor and even the sight or thought of food made him nauseous. He was observed to be very anxious, restless and asked for sips of water every now and then. Investigations confirmed Covid-19 and typhoid.
Rx Arsenicum album 200 was prescribed in water doses, every 4 hours.
Case 2 Timeline
A 72-year-old man was brought by his son on the first of December 2020 with slight shortness of breath, SpO2 levels of 89-92, and productive cough with mucoidal phlegm. He had teleconsulted two days earlier for persistent weakness and low grade fever with temperature ranging between 98.8-100o F. He also complained of a slight pain in the abdomen, body aches that were more marked around the wrists, feet and ankles, with profound weakness and fatigue [VAS score 8]. He felt cold especially in the back, could not get warm enough in bed. Sometimes he felt too hot at night with desire to uncover and hunger. After taking antipyretics he had perspiration especially in the axilla, smelling like onions. Investigations confirmed Covid-19.
Rx: Kali phosphoricum 200 was prescribed in water doses, every 4 hours.
Case 3 Timeline
Homeopathy is practiced utilizing the entire spectrum of signs and symptoms revealed throughout the evolutionary course of an infection and prescribing a medicine which has produced similar indications in a healthy person. The similarity has to be met at a more personal level in the form of modalities, disposition and behavior, physiological generalities and/or characteristics of discharges.
The greatest advantage of treating hydra-headed manifestations of Covid-19 disease with homoeopathy lies in the individualized treatment. Though published case studies have indicated its beneficial effects throughout the pandemic, it is yet unacknowledged and unrecognized.9-16
Some interesting observations from each case study are discussed below.
The case highlights a prompt resolution of symptoms in a ‘severe category’ vaccine-breakthrough Covid-19 infection, with Acidum phosphoricum. Within a span of two weeks, there was a reduction of serology, which can be seen below, and isn’t be observed with even the best of conventional medications.
Summary:
Even though the CT score resolved from 22/25 to 17/25, in span of a mere eight days, the severity of the continuing pulmonary infection, in the context of a failed immune response even after complete vaccination, warranted the prescription of a deeper-acting remedy to complete the recovery. As has been taught in homeopathy, the convalescent phase warrants the prescription of an anti-miasmatic remedy.
Typhoidinum is a yet unproved remedy of our materia medica; however, the remedy can be prescribed in the absence of indications of another polychrest when we find that a patient has never been well since an earlier episode of typhoid or when s/he has suffered with recurring typhoid infections in past. We have already published and presented at an HRI (Homeopathic Research Institute) Congress a retrospective analysis of almost 27 cases that recovered under the Typhoidinum, the abstract of which was published in Homeopathy.17
The Latest HRCT showed complete resolution of complaints under the action of the nosode, confirming the homeopathicity of the remedy.
In the Organon, Hahnemann mentions,18
§35: In order to illustrate this, we shall consider in three different cases, as well, what happens in nature when two dissimilar natural diseases meet to in one person, as also the result of the ordinary medical treatment of diseases with unsuitable allopathic drugs, which are incapable of producing an artificial morbid condition similar to the disease to be cured, whereby it will appear that even Nature herself is unable to remove a dissimilar disease already present by one that is unhomoeopathic, even though it be stronger, and just as little is the unhomoeopathic employment of even the strongest medicines ever capable of curing any disease whatsoever.
§40: III. Or the new disease, after having long acted on the organism, at length joins the old one that is dissimilar to it, and forms with it a complex disease, so that each of them occupies a particular locality in the organism, namely, the organs peculiarly adapted for it, and, as it were, only the place specially belonging to it, while it leaves the rest to the other disease that is dissimilar to it. …..When two dissimilar acute infectious diseases meet, as, for example, smallpox and measles, the one usually suspends the other, as has been before observed; yet there have also been severe epidemics of this kind, where, in rare cases, two dissimilar acute diseases occurred simultaneously in one and the same body, and for a short time combined, as it were, with each other. During an epidemic, in which smallpox and measles were prevalent at the same time, among three hundred cases (in which these diseases avoided or suspended one another, and measles attacked patients twenty days after the smallpox broke out, the smallpox, however, from seventeen to eighteen days after the appearance of the measles, so that the first disease had previously completed its regular course) there was yet one single case in which P. Russell met with both these dissimilar diseases in one person at the same time. Rainey witnessed the simultaneous occurrence of smallpox and measles in two girls. J. Maurice, in his whole practice, only observed two such cases. . .
The experience in this case validates this profound observation of Hahnemann. And even this complicated clinical condition of dual infection with moderate category Covid-19 and typhoid responded to a single homoeopathic medicine chosen according to the guiding principles of the Organon. When the antibiotics, ivermectin and antipyretics failed, microdoses of the similimum helped the patient recover, as can be seen below.
Summary:
Kali phosphoricum is rarely considered in acute conditions, and its prescription clearly helped resolve a moderate category Covid-19 infection, with normalization of serology in span of 12 days and complete resolution of pneumonia in about 5 weeks. This case validates the age-old dictum in homeopathy of prescribing on the basis of the diagnosis of “the sick person presenting with Covid-19,” not for the common diagnostic manifestations.
Summary:
Individualized homeopathic treatment can resolve all categories of Covid-19 manifestations. Evidence-based medicine is the call of the hour and, in light of the results of these evidence-based case reports, research studies may be planned to substantiate the benefits of individualized homeopathic therapeutics in Covid-19 patients.
Laboratory data available upon request. Contact the editor.
About the author: Gyandas G. Wadhwani, MD (Hom). Consultant Homeopathic Physician & Independent Researcher Holistic Homoeopathic Clinic & Research Center, New Delhi, India. Member: Aude Sapere groups, South Africa and DelhiFormer Chief Medical Officer (NFSG) (Homeopathy), Directorate of AYUSH, Govt. of National Capital Territory of Delhi, India. Email: homoeopathygyan@gmail.com
References
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