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HOMOEOPATHIC APPROACH TO HEADACHE

SHILPA PHUTANE
Department of Homoeopathy, Bombay Hospital.

THE PHILOSOPHY

Homoeopathy not only treats diseases, but also prevents certain ailments to which a person is prone.

In order to understand the action of homoeopathic medicine, let us first consider the action of an allopathic vaccine. A vaccine prepared from the plasma of an infected person, when injected into the blood of the healthy person, creates antibodies. During the period when the antibodies are being generated within the person, he exhibits certain disease-like symptoms for a short period which vanish when the antibodies are generated. This is the stage when the person is considered immunized against the disease.

Homoeopathic drugs work on a similar principle. Each drug when administered to a healthy person produces a particular set of mental and physical symptoms.

Homoeopathy believes the converse to be valid hence the cure. In other words, a patient exhibiting the symptoms (similar to those created by the medicine in a healthy person) can be cured by the medicine. This is called ‘similia similibus curanter’ meaning ‘likes are cured by likes’.

The success of the treatment lies in correctly identifying the medicine whose characteristics perfectly matches the patient’s set of symptoms.


HEADACHE

Headache is one of the commonest complaints. In the majority of patients, the cause is trivial and reversible.

Classification

Headaches can be classified as under:
  1. Tension headache - Most common of all headache types, occurs due to anxiety, overwork. Feeling of a band around the head. Pain may continue for days or weeks without interruption. Pain may be less noticeable when patient is occupied.
  2. Migraine headache - Episodic headache with generally some periodicity. Typically unilateral with vomiting and visual disturbances.
  3. Sinus headache - Sneezing, coryza, nose-block.
  4. Eye complaints - Headache comes with eye strain.
Each of the above condition, and medicines that can be used are discussed below.

Tension headaches

These are headaches that are caused by muscular or mental/emotional tensions.

Emotional disturbances
  1. Gelsimium - Cures cases of dull heavy headache, with heaviness of eyelids, pain in temples extending into the ear, wing of nose, and chin.
  2. Ignatia - Cures congestive headaches following anger or grief. Headaches worsen with smoking or smelling tobacco.
  3. Staphysagria - Cures headaches due to anger and insults, sexual excesses, violent outbursts of passion.
Mental exertion/nervous exhaustion
  1. Picric acid cures headaches which comes on with slightest mental exertion relieved by bandaging tightly.
  2. Nux vomica cures headaches which occur due to sunshine and due to sedentary lifestyle with great deal of mental work, characterised by patient seeking stimulants in excess, habituated to take medicines.
  3. Anacardium cures headache due to depression, mental exertion. Headache is characterized by temporary relief by eating.
  4. Phosphoric acid cures headache due to nervous exhaustion, characterized by heavy head, confusion.
  5. Kali phosphoricum cures headaches of students who are worn out by mental fatigue.
  6. Natrum carbonicum cures headaches which comes on from slightest mental exertion.
  7. Nux vomica cures congestive types of frontal headaches which occur due to sunshine.

Migraine
  1. Robinia - Dull throbbing, frontalpain, worse motion and reading, gastric headache with acid vomiting.
  2. Lack defloratum - Pain begins in forehead to occiput in the morning on rising. Intense throbbing with nausea, vomiting, blindness and obstinate constipation.
  3. Kali c - Headache from riding in cold wind, aching in occiput, one sided with nausea on riding in carriage.
  4. Onos - Migraine headaches from eye strain and sexual weakness (especially sexual neurasthenia in women). Frontal and supra-orbital pain. Pain starting in temporal region with scalding lachrymation of affected side. Headache from overwork.
  5. Sang - Worse right side sun headache, periodicity every seven days. Vasomotor disturbances worse on right side.
Sinus Infection
  1. Hep cures headache occurring when shaking the head or riding. Boring pain in right temple and in root of nose every morning.
  2. Kali Bi cures aching and fullness in glabella. Semilateral headache in spots and from suppressed catarrh. Frontal pain over one eye.
  3. Merc v - Frontal pain, congestion of head with excessive coryza.
  4. Sticta - Dull headache with heavy pressure in forehead and root of nose. Catarrhal headache before discharge appears. Burning in the eyes.
Eye Complaints

Eye complaints should be corrected using appropriate glasses.
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