In today’s environment of stress and pollution every individual’s life is affected by these hazardous factors and the most gullible ones are the little children. Imagine the stress on the parents from the day their child is born wherein their already busy schedules they are juggling with frequent visits to the hospitals and clinics for the unmanageable and repeated episodes of cold, cough and ultimately following chest infections. Let us deal with the most common condition which is the root of these maladies.
Adenoids and Tonsils are a collection of lymph tissues which protect the body by trapping harmful bacteria and viruses that one breathes in or swallows. They are located on both the sides of the throat and nasopharynx.
The adenoids and tonsils get enlarged when they get infected with bacteria or when the body may overreact to an allergen causing infection and inflammation. Mostly they return back to their original size once the infection is over, however in some cases they tend to remain enlarged when infections are frequent or chronic.
Although some amount of enlargement is considered normal in preschool kids but when grossly enlarged, tonsils and adenoids cause certain ailments.
Symptoms
- The most common ailments are frequent sore throats, chronic ear infections, nose bleed and hearing loss due to obstruction of the Eustachian tube and accumulation of fluid in middle ear.
- Enlarged adenoids give a typical <i>“pinched nose” quality to the voice. The child presents with a sore and painful throat, drooling of saliva and sometimes fever.
- They also affect the shape of the child’s palate and the teeth causing gaps in front teeth and unhealthy gums, bad breath, cracked lips and dry mouth and snoring.
- Children also present with persistent runny nose or nasal congestion.
- Major fallout of the enlarged adenoids is that the child may have difficulty in breathing during sleep leading to a condition called as <i>Obstructive Sleep Apnea . This is a condition in which along with snoring the child goes through brief periods of pauses in breathing during sleep. This in turn leads to low oxygen levels with daytime sleepiness.
The Homeopathic Approach
- Homeopathy offers a very safe and effective way to cure enlarged adenoids and tonsils, saving the little ones from the surgeon’s knife.
- Homeopathic philosophy has always stood by the view that whenever possible the tonsils and adenoids should be saved as they are an important defense tissue of our body and provide the children with the much required Immunity. Our treatment has proved beneficial unless and until it is purely a surgical case, which is only in 2-5 % cases in total. After removal a majority of the cases have symptoms like nose obstruction, mouth breathing and repeated upper respiratory infections which do not improve and there are chances that this infection may travel to sinuses and brain as the defense check post is lost.
- Homeopathic medicines are capable of treating and handling the acute infection and also the septic pockets which are formed in chronic cases.
- The treatment of enlarged tonsils and adenoids with homeopathy has two stages:
- (1) Acute stage with symptoms of fever, acute throat and ear ache, loss of appetite, congestion, vomiting and general discomfort and irritability needs to be treated with fast acting medicines like Belladonna, Merc iod flavus in frequent doses, thus minimizing the visits to allopathic doctors and consumption of antibiotics.
In children who develop septic lesions Heparsulph and Lachesis can be administered and they can be treated successfully at home.
- (2) In chronic stages deep-acting medicines are capable of treating the constitutional tendencies of the child and bring about lasting results as seen with patients given Baryta carb, Thuja, reducing the frequency of acute episodes. Hard and indurate adenoids and tonsils are tackled by Calcarea flour, Calcarea iod and Baryta Mur.
- Precisely indicated remedies are there with us to take care of other complications and concomitant symptoms arising from inflamed tonsils and adenoids. For e.g. Deafness (Staphysagria), Foul mouth breath (Baptisia, Lachesis), snoring (China) and nasal voice (Kali Bichrom).
- Over the period of last few years at least 300 to 400 cases of Acute and Chronic tonsillitis and adenoiditis have been treated by us.
Continuous treatment along with immune boosting medicines gives the children a better quality of life, saving them from the effects of strong antibiotics and frequent hospitalizations thereby making sure that foundation years of a child are healthy and disease free, giving them a platform for a healthy adult life.