antibiotic resistance infections & approach in homoeopathy medical science

ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE

INFECTIONS & APPROACH IN

HOMOEOPATHY MEDICAL

SCIENCE.. By: Dr.Ankit Srivastava (B.H.M.S.)

Email:[email protected]

©Dr.Ankit Srivastava

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ANTIBIOTIC RESISTANCE INFECTIONS &

APPROACH IN HOMOEOPATHY MEDICAL

SCIENCE.

INTRODUCTION: Doctors can no

longer rely on their first or second choice

of antibiotics to fight many human

infections. Scientists are concerned that

physicians will lose these essential

infection-fighting tools. The majority of

the most serious antibiotic-resistant

infections occur in hospitalized people,

but these infections are becoming more

frequent in healthy people. Public health

officials are sounding the alarm about

antibiotic resistance because of the

emergence of “superbugs” in the last

decade. These germs are resistant to

many antibiotics, including powerful

drugs such as vanco-mycin, which is

reserved by physicians to fight the most

stubborn infections.

Antibiotics were discovered in the

1940s and have been used to successfully

treat infections caused by bacteria.

For decades, these

miracle drugs have prevented serious

illness and death from bacterial diseases.

Unfortunately, antibiotic use also

promotes the development of antibiotic-

resistant bacteria. According to the U.S.

centres for Disease Control and

Prevention (CDC), almost all significant

bacterial infections affecting humans are

becoming resistant to commonly

prescribed antibiotics.

The concept of Homoeopathy is truly

holistic and individualistic where

significance is given to the whole

individual or a sick person as a whole

instead of any diseased parts of the body.

According to the

Homoeopathic system of treatment, the

whole is always greater than a part; and

disease by itself, has no separate

objective existence. Disease is not a

thing but only a condition of a thing;

that disease is only a changed state of

health, a perverted vital action, and not in

any sense a material or tangible entity to

be seen, handled, or weighted, although it

may be measured.

Causes and risk factors: Antibiotic-resistant infections are caused

by bacteria that survive treatment with

commonly prescribed antibiotics. When

bacteria reproduce, slight changes occur

in their genetic material. Some of these

changes allow bacteria to evade certain

antibiotics. Each person carries more

micro-organisms on the skin than there

are people in the world. Bacteria that

Co-exist on our skin and in our bodies

without causing disease are called

healthy bacterial flora. When antibiotic-


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resistant bacteria develop, they compete

with our own flora, becoming a trivial

member of our bacterial melting pot.

However, in the presence of an antibiotic

drug, the resistant bacteria can magnify

their population a thousandfold to a

millionfold. The resulting infection is

harder to treat and often requires a more

powerful antibiotic drug. Both viruses

and bacteria cause common infections.

However, antibiotics fight only those

infections caused by bacteria, not those

caused by viruses. Viruses and bacteria

are distinct. Bacteria are one of the

smallest life-forms and occur as single

cells. Many bacteria are not harmful, and

some are actually beneficial. Disease

causing bacteria can grow on the skin or

inside the body and cause illness. For

example, strep throat is caused by

bacteria called Streptococcus pyogenes.

Viruses are even smaller

than bacteria. They are mostly genetic

material—DNA or RNA—and often

have a protective coat surrounding their

genes. A virus cannot reproduce outside

the body’s cells. Viruses invade healthy

cells. They use the machinery of the

body’s cells to make copies of

themselves. Typically, newly formed

viruses destroy the cell as they leave it to

infect new cells. Viruses rather than

bacteria are the more frequent culprits of

respiratory illnesses such as colds, sore

throats, and coughs. Most stuffy noses

are caused by viruses called rhinoviruses

cells.

Symptoms: During the early days of a cold or upper

respiratory infection, the nose produces

clear mucus. The mucus helps wash the

germs from the sinuses (air-filled spaces

in the skull) and nose. Immune cells then

join in to fight the infection, and the

mucus changes from clear to a whitish or

yellowish color. During recovery from a

stuffy nose, the bacteria that live

normally in the nose grow back, which

can change the mucus to a greenish

color, which experts say is normal.

According to the CDC, doctors feel

pressure to prescribe antibiotics for

respiratory infections. Respiratory

infections such as sore throat, cold, and

coughs are usually caused by viruses.

Tens of millions of antibiotics prescribed

in doctors’ offices are for viral infections.

Using antibiotics for a viral infection

offers no benefit to the affected person

and could possibly cause harm. Taking

unnecessary antibiotics increases the risk

of antibiotic resistance developing in

bacteria. Staphylococcus aureus,

commonly called staph. bacteria, is found

on human skin and in the nose. Staph

bacteria are one of the most common

causes of skin infections in the United

States. Most of these skin infections are

minor. However, staph bacteria can also

cause serious blood infections and

pneumonia, which can be fatal.

Hospitalized patients are particularly at

risk for antibiotic-resistant infections,

including infections caused by staph

bacteria. Often, these infections are

introduced by urinary or intravenous

catheters, and can be serious. Certain

underlying health conditions increase the

risk of infection. Such conditions include


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diabetes, kidney disease, and immune

system problems. Also, antibiotic use—

for example, to prevent infection after

surgery—increases a patient’s risk of

developing a resistant infection. Staph

superbugs are often referred to by their

abbreviations: for example, MRSA

(methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus

aureus), VRSA (vancomycin-resistant

Staphylococcus aureus), and VISA

(vancomycin-intermediate

Staphylococcus aureus). MRSA

infections are becoming more common in

various communities and are affecting

healthy people. No longer confined to

health care settings, MRSA outbreaks

have occurred among children, athletes,

and military recruits. In the last decade,

doctors are seeing more cases of

antibiotic resistant infections in healthy

adults and children. Close contact with

people who have antibiotic-resistant

infections is an important risk factor in

healthy people. In one outbreak among

high-school athletes, sharing of towels,

sports equipment, and uniforms were

important factors in transmitting MRSA

from one athlete to another. The use of

antibiotics in livestock on farms is also

under scrutiny by government agencies.

There appears to be a link to the

development of antibiotic resistance in

humans, especially when the same class

of drugs (for example, fluoroquinolones)

are used in both livestock and to treat

humans.

KEY NOTES:

Description:

Hard-to-treat infections caused by bacteria that

survive treatment with common antibiotics.

Causes

Repeated and improper use of antibiotics.

Risk factors

In hospital settings, antibiotic use and underlying

health conditions. In the community, close contact

with people who have antibiotic-resistant,

infections. Use of antibiotics in livestock.

Symptoms and signs

Bacterial infection that does not improve after

treatment with antibiotics.

Diagnosis

Laboratory tests of blood or infected tissues..

Pathogenesis

When bacteria survive treatment with antibiotic,

they continue to multiply. The bacterial infection

becomes more severe and harder to treat.

Epidemiology

Antibiotics were discovered in the 1940s.

Unfortunately, antibiotic use also promotes the

development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. For

example, MRSA was first isolated in the 1960s.


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Prevention and

treatments: To help prevent antibiotic-resistant

infections, antibiotics should be taken as

prescribed by a health care provider. A

course of antibiotics should not be

stopped at the first sign of improvement.

To help prevent resistant bacteria from

gaining an upper hand, it is very

important to take every dose of the

prescribed antibiotic until it is finished.

Antibiotics should not be saved for use at

a later time. Experts on the subject of

infections maintain that many bacterial

infections get better on their own and that

physicians should only prescribe

antibiotics when it is likely to benefit the

patient. Viral infections, such as cold or

flu, do not respond to antibiotics.

Frequent hand washing is one of the

easiest ways to reduce transmission of

infectious diseases. Sometimes an

antibiotic is needed. A health care

provider should be consulted if a

respiratory illness gets worse or lasts a

long time. To treat an antibiotic-resistant

infection, clinicians perform laboratory

tests to find the antibiotic or combination

of drugs that will beat the superbug.

Providing clinicians with better tools to

distinguish a viral illness from a bacterial

infection will help prevent unnecessary

antibiotic use.

Homoeopathic Approach:

In Homoeopathic medical science rubric

given in Synthesis repertory for these

type of conditions:

GENERALS - HISTORY;

personal - antibiotics; of use of

carb-v. mag-p. op.

Prominent medicines mention in this

rubric are Carbo-veg, Magnesium

Phosphoricum and Opium.

Other rubric suitable for such type of

condition is:

GENERALS - WEAKNESS -

antibiotics; from

carb-v.

Prominent medicine is Carbo-Veg. also

in this rubric.

Carbo veg. is especially indicated in

patients who are advanced in life, and

consequently debilitated. In analyzing the

drug we will speak first of its effects on

the blood. We find Carbo veg. indicated

in affections in which the composition of

the blood is decidedly changed. There is

decided sepsis or blood poisoning in

many of the diseases in which Carbo veg.

is the remedy.

Disintegration and imperfect oxidation

is the keynote of Carbo-Veg. Vegetable

charcoal affects all of the mucous

surfaces, but more especially that of the

stomach and upper part of the intestinal

tract, producing debility, and increase of

the mucous secretions, with excessive


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acidity, and immense accumulation of

gas in the stomach and small intestines.

Its effects on lymphatic glands become

enlarged, with acid, foul secretions.

Characteristic of its symptoms included,

“Great foulness of the secretions”.

"Patient wants more air; wants to be

fanned all the time”. Especially adapted

to adynamic diseases, with great

prostration; Hippocratic face, cold

breath, and cold knees in bed, bluish

discoloration, with an excessive

accumulation of flatus in the abdomen.

Opium is the powerful narcotic spends

the whole of its action upon the cerebro -

spinal and the sympathetic nervous

system, producing brief excitation,

rapidly followed by depression and

paralysis of all functional activity. As a

result there is a general torpidity of the

entire system. The cerebral powers are

overcome and stupor ensues; motion and

sensation are destroyed; the secretions of

the mucous membranes are diminished,

and the mucous surfaces become dry and

congested; the breathing becomes slow,

sighing and irregular; There is loss of

appetite and the digestion is retarded.

The heart's action and the arterial tension

are increased, and the cerebral function is

active.

Prominent indications mentioned of

Opium are All complaints: with great

sopor: painless, complains of nothing:

wants nothing. Want of susceptibility to

remedies; lack of vital reaction, the well

chosen remedy makes no impression.

Red face, eyes half-closed, blood-shot;

skin covered with hot sweat

Magnesium Phosphoricum, diseases

having their seat in the nerve-fibre cells

or in the terminal bulbs of the nerves, in

the muscles or in the muscular tissue

itself, are cured by this remedy. It is best

adapted to lean, thin, emaciated persons

of a highly nervous organization, and

prefers light complexion and the right

side of the body.

Attacks are often attended with great

prostration and sometimes with profuse

sweat. The Magnes. phos. patient is

languid, tired, exhausted, unable to sit

up, whether he is suffering from acute or

chronic affections.

Symptoms are often changing in locality,

and are relieved by warmth and pressure.

Other Homoeopathic medicines that are

very useful are:

Thuja lobii: From the heart-wood are

separated out the thujaplicines, alpha,

beta and gamma, which have a tropolone

nucleus, and antibiotic, as well as

antifungal properties.

Zingiber officinalis: possesses numerous

pharmacological properties, the most

relevant being its antioxidant effects;

inhibition of prostaglandin, thromboxane,

and leukotriene synthesis; inhibition of

platelet aggregation; cholesterol-

lowering actions; choleretic effects;

cardiotonic effects; gastrointestinal

actions; thermogenic properties; and

antibiotic activities.


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Refrences: VERMEULEN F., Synoptic Materia

Medica.

BOERICKE W., The Twelve Tissue

Remedies of Schussler.

BOERICKE W., Pocket Manual of

Homeopathic Materia Medica

CLARKE J. H., The Prescriber.

FARRINGTON E. A., Clinical Materia

Medica.

ALLEN H. C., Keynotes and

Characteristics with Comparisons.

COWPERTHWAITE A. C., Text book of

Materia Medica and Therapeutics.

Harrison’s Internal medicine 18th

Edition.

Encylopaedia of Diseases and

Disorders.

API Text book of Medicine 6th Edition.

Synthesis Repertory 9.0

antibiotic resistance infections & approach in homoeopathy medical science

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