Natural Medicine Approaches to Flu

 

This page has been placed on my teaching website to accompany the article in Pathways Magazine. Please read that issue and see the various articles by a variety of practitioners.

 

See below: Homeopathic Books and Flu Treatments | Homeopathy e-newsletter sample

See also: My description of Homeopathy Science

 

The homeopathic view of Vaccinations (Verspoor)[click here]

 

For appointments at National Integrated Health Associates, please call our office at: 202-237-7000, then press 103 for the Naturopathic Business Coordinator.

 

Title: Flu as a Doorway to Personal Enrichment: Natural medicine approach

 

“Flu” is much more than an “inconvenient illness.” When someone asks about treating Flu I begin by emphasizing how important it is to understand what I call The Basics. A person should learn how their body works in times of good health as well as illness.  

 

People should individualize support of their body in wellness as well as illness, understanding their strengths and weaknesses. Then when Flu develops they can sense when their body becomes ill and choose support measures that successfully work for them. Preventing Flu includes strengthening the body’s “terrain” so it can resist growth of microbes. Many of the following samples of treatments can also be used preventively.

 

Meticulously cleanse hands and body (prevents additional microbes from entering body, or spreading them to others).

Do not swallow phlegm or nasal drainage, rather spit them out into tissues and dispose of these (when a virus “sheds”, secretions carry the virus).

Clean bedclothes meticulously.

Breathe deeply of fresh air at neutral temperatures.

Prayer or Meditation.

Exercise: Usually avoid while ill; gentle stretching, Tai Chi, Qi gong.

Eat carefully, not too many carbohydrates (the Zone Diet often helps). Chicken soup with lots of garlic and parsley often helps.

Drink: Pure water. No orange juice (sugar impedes white cell activity, iron feeds bacteria).

Take acidophilus and bifidus, they produce antimicrobial byproducts (“those bacteria OWN you”, write Wiley and Formby in their book Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar and Survival).

Often an enema at the outset of a cold can reduce bowel toxin stress.

Herbal: Olive Leaf extract has been helpful.

Homeopathic: “Oscillococcinum” has helped.

Light Therapy: Sunlight, or colored light “baths” (individualize, often Green and Yellow help).

 

Please note I do not recommend vaccinations. My website has links to alternatives that may work better.

 

Important: See my section on Understanding Your Health and Health Concerns.

 

Here are some entries from my communications with natural medicine practitioners about Flu:

 

From a natural health practitioner: "I am part of a homeopathy group. Many of them have been doing free flu homeopathic treatment as a preventative and keeping stats  - I think close to 100% flu-free from doing the influenzinum nosode or the vaccine isode. We do it in my family and I did it with several patients in my locale and no flu. Also, discuss immune support with the optimal vitamins/minerals and antioxidants to keep the immune system healthy and prevent being prone or at risk of catching the flu. Of course, it's the terrain not the bugs which is the problem - also the state of mind of the individual - but how do you put that down in an article!"

 

Vaccination Alternatives Using Homeopathy Links @ Holisticmed.Com

 

Dr. Joseph Mercola Article on Flu Vaccine Questions

 

Vaccines may cause great stress on infants. One legal case of supposed child abuse may have actually been caused by vaccine reaction. [See Alan Yurko case.]

 

National Vaccine Information Center: The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is a national, non-profit educational organization founded in 1982. It is the oldest and largest national organization advocating reformation of the mass vaccination system:

Vaccines or immunizations are recommended for every child born in the United States.  Vaccinations shouldn't hurt a child but sometimes they do.  Before your child takes the risk, find out what it is.  --NVIC

 

From the NVIC essay: First Do No Harm

Photographs of three beautiful children are the first images encountered by a visitor to the website of the National Vaccine Information Center. Each child is a victim of immunization gone almost unimaginably awry: Two of the children are now paralyzed -- one following a polio shot, the other following the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine -- and the third, a chubby baby in a blue knitted hat, died in infancy, only 33 hours after receiving the whooping cough (DPT) vaccine. It is just such vaccine-related hospitalizations, injuries, and deaths that Barbara Loe Fisher, a cofounder and President of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC), wants to prevent. A tour of the NVIC's website provides a host of cautionary materials on a procedure most Americans, including the current President, consider crucial to maintaining good health: vaccination against childhood diseases. But Fisher is concerned that, in medicine's war against microbes, citizens are paying too dear a price for the promised protection. As evidence, she cites not only vaccine failures and adverse reactions -- which include, among others, paralysis, brain damage, shock, encephalopathy, development of autism and learning disabilities, and death -- but also a public health bureaucracy increasingly intent upon mandating inoculation with vaccines that have not been studied rigorously enough to ensure they are safe. Additionally, Fisher points out that there are no studies being conducted -- as there have been for cancer and heart disease -- to determine the long-term effects of vaccination. Some research has suggested that various defects in the vaccines routinely administered to newborns and small children may be contributing to the current explosion of chronic, neurological and immune system dysfunction in the American population, including asthma, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, and AIDS. The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) is operated by Dissatisfied Parents Together (DPT) in Vienna, Virginia. A non-profit organization begun in 1982, NVIC receives no government or corporate funding, and operates solely on donations from concerned parents, health care professionals, and other individuals. The mission of NVIC is to encourage health care consumers to make informed decisions about vaccination; to that end, NVIC provides educational materials about the risks and benefits of vaccination. Fisher is the author (with Harris Coulter) of DPT:A Shot in the Dark (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985; Warner, 1986; Avery, 1991), one of the first books to publicize the dangers of vaccinating in what she calls "a vacuum of scientific knowledge."

 

 

Dr. George Georgiou of the Worldwide Health Center has written several articles about natural medicine including one on Vaccine Risks and Alternatives. Following is a good section from that article dealing with alternatives:   A SPECIFIC HOMEOPATHIC PROGRAM We will now examine the programs developed by the Issac Golden over the last ten years, who wrote the excellent and comprehensive book "Vaccination? A Review Of Risks and Alternatives." As stressed previously, no program, orthodox or alternative, can be guaranteed 100% effective, but it is essential that we establish a reliable guide to the relative effectiveness of vaccination and homoeoprophylaxis. It must be emphasized that the methodology of disease prevention and the remedies used in the kit are not new, having been used for nearly 200 years. However, Issac Golden, following extensive research in the Homoeopathic literature, and subsequent personal clinical experience developed the particular programs. read more here>>

 

Treating Flu

This information is not intended for any individual. Your own physical makeup will affect how your immune system functions and what will help you in particular.

Cleansing hands and body: Hygiene -- the Clenzology approach of Dr. Mercola

 

Books and Supplies

From Homeopathic Educational Services: Homeopathy and Influenza: Real Research, Real Results Homeopathic Treatment of Influenza (The 2005 Bird Flu edition) Flu: Alternative Treatments and Prevention The Vaccine Guide: Risks and Benefits for Children and Adults World Health Organization Conference on Homeopathy: January 2006. The World Health Organization (WHO) is expected to publish a report on homeopathic medicine that will be supportive of homeopathy.  Homeopathic remedy: Oscillococcinum: A remedy that has worked for many to reduce the symptoms of the Flu. E-newsletter from www.Homeopathic.com: Dear Friends of Homeopathy, This issue of our HOMEOPATHIC EMAIL NEWSLETTER contains information on: -- England's Royalty Support for Homeopathy -- Italy's Tuscany love for natural medicine -- Swiss support for "complementary" medicine -- Swiss professors attack on homeopathy and complementary medicine -- Homeopathy and the World Health Organization [they next listed the books above in the original e-newsletter] Royal Support for Homeopathy! Prince Charles officially opened a refurbished London Homeopathic Hospital in October. It was also announced that HRH Princess Alexandria has agreed to become the President of the Blackie Foundation Trust, a charity started by a former physician/homeopath to the British Royalty, which support research and education in homeopathy. A report commissioned by the Prince of Wales' Foundation has found that alternative and complementary medicines should be more widely available through England's National Health Service because it is beneficial to people's health and to the economy. This new report notes that patients treatment with complementary medicines experienced a 30% reduction in visits to doctors and a savings in prescription drug costs by 50%! By the way, Dr. Peter Fisher (Physician to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II) will be one of the keynote speakers at the National Center for Homeopathy's annual conference to take place on April 7-9th, 2006, in San Jose, California. More information about this conference is available shortly at: www.homeopathic.org Regional Government in Italy Support Alternative Medicine For the first time in Italy, the government in the Tuscany region has supported an ad campaign to officially encourage its citizens to use acupuncture, herbal medicines, and homeopathy. Swiss Support for Complementary Medicine A survey in March, 2005, found that 87% (!) of the Swiss population wants complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to be reimbursed under their country's compulsory health insurance programs. The survey also revealed that 31% of those surveyed had seen a CAM doctor in the last year alone. It is also important to mention that homeopathy is presently the most popular of all alternative and complementary therapies in Switzerland. Of special interest to insurance companies and governments, this survey also discovered that the costs of homeopathic practice were about 50% of those of conventional practice. (To see this study, go to: www.bag.admin.ch/kv/forschung/d/PEK.htm -- some of these reports are in German, but several are also in English). Attack Against CAM From Swiss Professors Despite the immense popularity of CAM in Switzerland, some medical school professors in this country asserted at a conference of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences that they will do anything possible to prevent CAM from remaining available through their country's compulsory health insurance programs. They even said that they would "throw grenades." "The Lancet" Attacks Homeopathy You may have heard that the Lancet (8-27-05) published an extremely flawed "study" that compared 110 studies that have been conducted using homeopathic medicines with a "matched" group of studies using conventional drugs. The author was a Swiss professor, M. Eggers, who is known to speak against homeopathy at every chance he gets, and he even informed the Lancet before he started his comparison that he fully expected homeopathy to be disproven. Despite this bias, despite the fact that he and his team selected which studies to include (or not), and despite his article's own admission that more of the homeopathic studies selected were designed and conducted to a higher level of scientific research (!), the Lancet still chose to publish this poorly conducted comparison of studies. The authors of this study identified 21 homeopathic studies and 8 conventional medical studies that were of a higher standard according to their own criteria. Then, they selected a ridiculously small subset of their trials, though they did not give reasons WHY they chose this small group nor did they even state which trials they selected. Dr. Peter Fisher, the editor of the academic journal "Homeopathy," along with 31 other signatories wrote a letter to the Lancet editor, "Shang, et al state that 'eight trials of homeopathic remedies in acute infections of the upper respiratory tract...indicated a substantial beneficial effect...sensitivity analyses might suggest that there is robust evidence that the treatment under investigation works. However, the biases that are prevalent in these publications, as shown by our study, might promote the conclusion that the results cannot be trusted.' They state that 8 studies is too few to question their conclusion about the whole set of publications. Their conclusion about the whole set, however, was also based on 8 studies, Is eight enough or not? The authors simply refuse to believe the results of positive clinical trials of homeopathy." For further critique of this Lancet article, go to: www.homeopathyeurope.org. Homeopathy and the World Health Organization It should be noted that the LANCET acknowledged that the World Health Organization (WHO) is expected to publish a report on homeopathic medicine that will be supportive of homeopathy. It seems that the Lancet sought to go on the attack as rapidly as possible by publishing the above mentioned article, even though this article was so significantly flawed. A representative of WHO will speak at a London homeopathic research conference on January 26-27, 2006. For details about this conference, go to: www.rlhh.org.uk/conference. We grant you permission to send this email newsletter to others. Dana Ullman, MPH Homeopathic Educational Services 2124 Kittredge St. Berkeley, CA. 94704 (510)649-0294 (800)359-9051 (orders only in the U.S.) (510)649-1955 (fax) mail@homeopathic.com http://www.homeopathic.com return to top >>