Influenza or Real Flu
View on different forms of influenza
In homeopathy it does not matter whether it is a real influenza or a mild cold. It is not the flu virus that is fought, but the patient’s self-healing powers are supported individually. In the following article, the treatment scheme according to Dr. Fortier-Bernoville is given at first, and then the most important drug pictures are presented.
Fasting is the best thing
A homeopathic treatment of the flu without following a diet would hardly fulfil the principle of a holistic approach. As with any serious illness, flu can only be treated without complications if the body is not unnecessarily burdened with food. The situation becomes critical as soon as the disease has fully broken out and the food intake has not been completely stopped. The homeopath is faced with a long, difficult treatment, i.e. the complicated forms of influenza will occur (lung involvement; typhus-like, septic directions etc.). Furthermore, the treatment will also turn out to be susceptible to complications during the recovery period.
For all serious illnesses, it is important to wait until the basic picture shows up. Aconitum and Belladonna are not suitable for the treatment of severe influenza because they do not contain the flu’s nature.
To treat the uncomplicated, simple flu, basically one requires only a few remedies.
The main remedies are
Eupatorium perfoliatum, Gelsemium, Bryonia, Rhus-tox, Rhus radicans, Arnica, Ruta, Sarcolacticum acidum, Dulcamara, Aconit and Belladonna.
The treatment of a complicated influenza is too difficult to be dealt with in this context. Only the most important Fortier-Bernoville remedies are listed.
There are three main forms of flu
- the nervous form – normal process
- the respiratory form – more complicated process
- the gastrointestinal form – more complicated process
Basically, the normal influenza is the nervous form, if complications occur, the process can become typhoid, adynamic or septic.
Remedies which are important in the typhoid process
Arnica, Gelsemium, Muriaticum acidum, Rhus-tox, Bryonia, Baptisia, Lachesis.
In the adynamic process, the following remedies are primarily recommended
Carbo vegetabilis, Gelsemium, Helleborus and Veratrum album.
The septic process demands
Arsenic, Anthracinum, Echinacea, Lachesis, Naja, Pyrogenium.
Remedies for the respiratory form
Nose and paranasal sinuses
Allium cepa, Eucalyptus, Hepar sulfuris, Hydrastis, Kalium bichromicum, Nux vomica, Pulsatilla, Sticta pulmonaria.
Throat and larynx
Arum triphyllum, Bromum, Drosera, Justicia, Mercurius, Phytolacca, Rumex, Sambucus nigra, Spongia.
Bronchia and lungs
Antimonium arsenicosum, Antimonium tartaricum, Antimomum sulfuricum, Arsenicum album, Ipecacuanha, Potassium bichromicum, Potassium carbonicum, Phosphorus, Pulsatilla.
Pleura
Apis, Aesclepias tuberosa, Arsenicum iodatum, Bryonia, Cantharis, Ranunculus bulbosus, Sulfuricum iodatum.
Remedies for the digestive form
Stomach
Anacardium, Bryonia, Carbo vegetabilis, Ipecacuanha, Potassium carbonicum, Nux vomica, Phosphorus.
Pancreas
Lachesis, Lycopodium.
Liver
Phosphorus, China, Helleborus, Iris, Berberis and Chelidonium.
Intestine
Aloe, Argentum nitricum, Arsenicum album, Capsicum, Nux vomica, Podophyllum and Sulfur.
The time between ingestion of the pathogen and the outbreak of the disease (incubation) can last from a few hours to a few days. Depending on how long the incubation period lasts, the homoeopath can already gain the first indication for the remedy. The patient should tell you exactly how it all began.
The flu can start suddenly in the midst of complete well-being or during the usual occupation. It unexpectedly starts with more or less strong fever, often with chills. The temperature rises rapidly, even up to 40° C and higher, and drops rapidly after one or two days. This is accompanied by headache with such severity, mostly on the forehead area and the eye sockets, so that the patient is hardly able to think. He is neither awake nor asleep. Each coughing, each speaking increases the headache to the unbearable.
In the other case, it begins slowly with dizziness of the head, back pain, pulling in the limbs so that the patient cannot hold himself upright. It seems as if he has lead in his limbs. This is accompanied by a rather dry, agonizing cough. In addition, there is loss of appetite, pressure sensitivity of the pit of the stomach and constipation of the stool, sometimes diarrhoea. In some cases, the flu ends in about four days, in others it often lasts several weeks, during which two to three recurrences occur. Recovery takes place only through abundant sweating and the removal of salty urine. Weak patients often cannot recover for a long time and suffer from nerve disorders (neuralgia, neurasthenia, etc.).
Dosage
- Repeat the appropriate remedy in C 200 every two to four hours.
Aconitum
Symptoms
- Sudden onset of strong chills
- Must cover very warmly
- Dry heat with high body temperature
- The whole body glows
- The patient is restless
- Frightened expression
- Fear of dying
- Great thirst for cold drinks
- The patient gets dizzy and pale when he sits up
- He threatens to faint
- Dry, agonizing cough
Aconitum is limited to epidemic catarrh. Basically, it is limited to cases that could be cured within 24 hours. You can’t know this for sure, but if we stick strictly to the Aconite picture, we could draw this conclusion from the rapid effect of the remedy. In a real Aconite case, the flu often gives way within hours, often accompanied by an outbreak of sweating, after which the patient falls asleep and wakes up completely healthy. This happens with healthy, robust people who do not have dyscrasia, as is often the case with children.
Belladonna
Symptoms
- Burning heat, increases at night, sometimes with light sweating
- Dry tickling cough
- Face is glowing red and dry
- Strong rush of blood to the head, accompanied by violent, knocking headache
- The slightest movement, light, sounds and especially vibrations are unbearable to the patient
- Thirst wants small quantities
- At night deliriums occur very frequently; the sick person sees monsters or animals, preferably black, horned
Belladonna is also one of the remedies through which temperatures rise rapidly and very high. These people, especially children, have a healthy constitution. They are very active, friendly and sociable.
Echinacea
Symptoms
- Great feeling of illness, whereby the flu has objectively not yet broken out properly
- Feeling of being sick for a long time.
- Pain in the whole body
- Great fatigue and exhaustion
- Freezing with nausea
- Nausea better through resting
- Fever with chills in the back and red face
- Feeling as if the head is dull, full and tired
- Pulse fast and strong
- Irritability and anger when something is done against his will
The immune system in this person has been weak for a long time, and an infection, be it a mild cold or a severe flu, can easily gain a foothold. If Echinacea is given at the very beginning, it has the strength to ward off even a severe viral flu.
Tip
The digestive system has been overstrained and contributed to the weakening of the immune system. Now your organs need rest and recovery, especially the ones for digestion. You feel so miserable that you lose your appetite. The patient should only drink cold water until he feels completely recovered.
Solid food would only begin to ferment in the stomach and cause burping and flatulence. That is why the patient should only drink cold water or the pureed pulp of mangoes as well as berries, diluted with water several times a day. These freshly pureed fruit juices are very beneficial.
Rhus toxicondendron
Symptoms
Short, dry cough, which occurs mostly at night and is triggered by the slightest covering, even of the hands; cold air also worsens
Warm drinks would improve the cough, but the Rhus-tox patient often has thirst for very small amounts of cold drinks
The tongue is yellow-white, usually only at the root with characteristic red triangle at the tip
Rhus radicans
Symptoms
- Headache with unbearable stiff neck
- A feeling of hammers and shocks in the neck and above the temples
- Strong pulling-racking pain in the legs
- The tongue burns; sore feeling at the tip of the tongue
- Pain between the ribs shooting up to the shoulders
Rhus radicans should be taken instead of Rhus-tox if there is a noticeable stiffness, especially in case of headache.
Arnica
Symptoms
- Bad breath when coughing
- The cough is so painful that children cry bitterly
- The patient lies there, dazed.
- Confused speech
- Plays down his illness
- Is seriously ill and considers himself healthy
Arnica can sometimes easily be confused with Rhus-tox. The Arnica patient often has to change position, but for some other reason – the bed seems too hard for him. Even very soft pads start to become harder and harder after a while. They cause pain, which forces him to change position frequently. Arnica is a ‘putrefactive’; when the Arnica patient coughs, the people around him are almost overwhelmed by the bad breath. When winds go off, they stink of rotten eggs.
The sick person suffers from great dizziness. If the practitioner wants to make a classic anamnesis instead of simply observing him, he can get very much confused by the Arnica patient. When questioned, he starts giving clear answers, but the answers become more and more incomprehensible, until at the end only hissing sounds can be heard. Even if the Arnica patient is not so dazed yet, one can hardly use his answers for the homeopathic case study. He talks more and more incoherently, but cannot resist stressing how unimportant his illness is to him; in the end everything is not so bad at all. The Arnica patient’s classic answer to the question of how he is feeling is: “I’m fine, I’m healthy”, and he has a 41 degree fever! It can reach a point that he doesn’t want to bother the doctor or even sends him away. Rhus-tox’s occasional slumbering addiction should not be confused with Arnica’s stuporous state.
Bryonia
Symptoms
- Slightest movement is associated with significant pain
- Inflexibility also in the mental area
- Significant is his apathy
- Great thirst for mostly cold drinks, unless he has an intestinal flu
- If the lungs or pleura are affected, he lies on the painful side and holds the spot with his hand in order to be able to exert even more pressure
- He looks dull, numb and heavy
- His complexion and lips are dark red
- He looks very ill, his condition indeed is often threatening
- Painful cough and headache
- Characteristic are the stabbing pains
A real Bryonia flu develops very slowly. Three to four days may elapse before the disease completely breaks out. The aversion to move exists from the beginning, but the Bryonia man is not really sick yet. After all, one morning after waking up he feels sick enough to stay in bed. On the same evening and in the night the temperature rises very high. Bryonia marks the aversion and aggravation by movement. The patient can sit motionless for hours in a dark room in one position with his back to the door. He gives the impression of sleeping and reacts only when another person is very pushy. Then he reacts with greatest reluctance, that makes him feel to the other clearly.
Sarcolacticum acidum
Symptoms
- Vehement stomach and intestinal flu with severe nausea and convulsive choking
- Uncontrolled vomiting after every food intake, even after water, followed by great debilitation (arsenic)
- The muscles feel very weak and powerless
- Can hardly sleep at night due to restlessness
Sarc-acid. fits for stiffness and soreness, similar to what we already know from Arnica. In the initial stage, the two remedies can hardly be distinguished from each other. The Sarc-acid type moves little and is overworked.
Gelsemium
Triggering factor
- warm weather
Symptoms
- Adipsia
- Moving of eyes very painful
- Feels heavy and tired
- Head hurts so much that he cannot move.
- Chills running up and down the back
- Slow pulse
Gelsemium influenza develops slowly and tends to change into the adynamic form after the third to fourth day. Gelsemium symptoms belong to the purely nervous form of influenza. It is a common remedy for influenza in hot countries or in warm weather. Concerning Bryonia, every movement is bothersome and worsening. As to Gelsemium it is the movement of the eye that hurts so much.
Eupatorium perfoliatum
Symptoms
- Great thirst for cold water, he always drinks large quantities of it, especially in the morning hours, as if he had almost died of thirst at night
- Gets chills after a while
- Then he gets sick and vomits larger amounts of green liquid (bile)
- All symptoms, except headache, better by sweating
- Chest pain when inhaling cold air
- Headache with eye pain
“It hurts in the bones” – this symptom characterizes Eupatorium. It is as if the bones are beaten or even broken. Unbearable pain forces him to move, although it does not give him any relief. In the first phase of the flu, when the other symptoms do not clearly indicate another remedy, this symptom certainly allows us to give Eupatorium so that the further process is averted. With headache, the eyes are very painful, not only when moving, as with Gelsemium and Bryonia, but all the time
………….to be continued
Further literature
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and D. Pulford / Ravi Roy PNEUMONIE – Homeopathic treatment of pneumonia, Lage & Roy Verlag
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