Allergien Anhängsel 2

‡ Folgendes hat anthroposofische Einschlüße ‡

The threefold nature 1. of the neurosensory system as the basis for perception, the forming of ideas and coping with stimuli and 2. the system of limbs and metabolism as the basis for exerting the will and the metabolic function are in opposition. The astral body and I organization enter deeply into limbs and metabolism, withdrawing away from conscious awareness, as it were. In the neurosensory system, they are essentially acting freely. 3. The rhythmic organization (heart and respiration) as the vehicle for the emotional life acts as a mediator between the opposites.

An atopic constitution exists when the neurosensory system is overstressed or hyperactive with a relative weakness of the system of limbs and metabolism.

In many schools of natural medicine atopic conditions are considered to be due to metabolic weakness and treatment is via the metabolism. This would explain why these conditions are mainly seen in people who do mental work. (in Switzerland the incidence of hayfever is 1% among rural workers and 20% among intellectuals).

General dietary advice: a balanced wholefood diet with little animal protein. Milk products only when tolerated. Sugar consumption is reduced, and synthetic food additives (preservatives/colorants etc. are best avoided). A reduction in sensory stimulation is favorable and important for the above reasons (TV./videos/cassettes/computer/electronic games), with children encouraged in creative play (as in Waldorf education). Art work/art therapies/eurythmy therapy strengthen the rhythmic organization and help create a better balance between neurosensory system and system of limbs and metabolism.

Neurodermatitis in children is generally treated without corticosteroids. Ointments with various plant extracts [Equisetum 10% oily extract/Dulc./Lysi. (Dermatodoron Ungt.)]. Oral medication serves to strengthen metabolism (Cich./Gent-l./Taraxacum stanno cult.) or counteract the chronic inflammatory process in the skin (Quartz/Thuj.).

Sometimes Bryophyllum 50% trit. or Urtica dioica ferro cults w . Elimination diets for a week or two followed by exhibition to specific foods can assist in formulating an individual diet plan if the history suggests food allergy.

Asthma: may involve life-threatening episodes. The domain of conventional medicine.

Longterm treatment. Evaluation is distinctly less good with symptomatic treatment using beta2-agonists and corticosteroids. Sodium cromoglycate derived from Amm-v. Clinical use of the potential offered by anthroposophical medicine has, in our experience, given considerable improvement, making it possible to discontinue both corticosteroids and beta2-agonists. It was interesting to note that some patients did better on purely anthroposophical treatment than with conventional treatment.

Home-made oak bark tea in the mornings, Vero-o. (= speedwell) tea at night as basic medication (tannins and bitters as active principles). Cupr-acet. D 4 and Tab. D 6 orally (by obstruction). Other possibilities are Levico (D 3 ampules), Gencydo® (0.1 - 7% ampules) and Quartz D 20 inhalation, chest packs (lavender oil, lemon, ginger or mustard) depending on the psychic constitution, warmth metabolism and individual tolerance.

Art therapy and educational psychotherapeutic guidance help the child to harmonize the breathing process by influencing the life of feeling. Objective monitoring of evolution is by means of peak flow determinations.

Childhood:

hayfever: Gencydo® (eye drops/nose drops)/tannins/bitters/quartz.

Cystic fibrosis: to strengthen the lung organization and counteract the slowly progressive fibrosis, which is a form of premature involution. Prun. Ferr-met. Phos. Marked improvement in quality of life and survival are seen with conventional treatment (antibiotics, enzyme substitution/physiotherapy). Warning explicitly against treating manifest pneumonia in cystic fibrosis patients with natural medicine only, without antibiotics.

Endocrinology: Rosemary baths are given in cases of diabetes mellitus; oral medication may include bitters (Abs.) and Phos. (D 6), to strengthen an I organization that is not sufficiently controlling sugar metabolism.

Neonatology: A valuable addition that infants evidently find agreeable is gentle, whole-body massage with a mixture of almond oil, a drop of rose oil, Blackthorn Flower Skin Oil (Wala) or Wild Rose Oil w. Child with birth trauma is given Arn. (D 6) by mouth, and in case of infections adjuvant Arg-met. D 30/Echi. D 6 and Carb-v. D 30.

Oncology: Visc.

It has been found that one cannot, as a rule, do without surgical interventions, chemotherapy and radiotherapy that are likely to be effective. Anthroposophical medicine does, however, represent a definite addition to the armamentarium. The aim of using it in adjuvant and follow-up treatment is to reduce the tendency to tumor development in the organism, support affected organ functions, and reduce the often severe side effects of conventional treatment. It is evident that children are subjectively better with this kind of adjuvant treatment, showing better tolerance of a course of chemotherapy (comparison made also in the same patient), and that appetite, autonomic rhythms and powers of resistance show a more rapid return to normal. In some cases (brain tumor) where no further conventional treatment is available, purely anthroposophical treatment has resulted in remarkable remissions.

Sleep disorders (with no appreciable organic cause)

These are not infrequent in infants and young children, and can be a major challenge to parents and pediatrician. A child lives wholly in his environment with soul and spirit, sharing in the soul quality of the environment. In anthroposophically-extended pediatrics we therefore consider it most important to include this environment in looking for the causes.

The body is regenerated in sleep. The powers of conscious awareness, which are active during waking hours, have a destructive effect, and this causes tiredness. Young children need more sleep than adults because they use up more of their constructive powers in growth. We see a greater incidence of sleep disorders when young children are exposed to too many stimuli (travel/movies/media) or a tense atmosphere (parental strife) or have too much attention focused on them. The mother's intense feeling that the child ought to be asleep will prevent sleep just as adults who have problems going to sleep must not try to force it but "let go".

Night-time rituals that make a child dependent on its parents can also contribute to sleeping-through problems (giving a bottle/a dummy/always letting the child go to sleep at the breast/taking him from his cot and carrying him about for long periods). If we see sleep as a condition in which the child returns to the world of the spirit where he had been before he was form, we can create a special mood before the child goes to sleep to mark the transition (saying a night-time prayer by candle light/singing a song/older child a story).

In many cases, treatment consiSTed mainly in creating more distance between parents and child, helping parents to feel confident that the child can go to sleep on his own, to show oneself when he cries at night, comfort him, give a brief caress but not take him out of his cot. Medication may give support but should not be the only solution to the problem.

Avena sativa comp. dil. w, Avena comp. (Wala) and Bryophyllum 50% (trit.) Bryophyllum argento cult. w.

Enuresis nocturna

After exclusion of purely organic causes or the delayed maturation which is hereditary in some families, emotional causes of bedwetting have to be considered. R.S.: symptom of childhood hysteria, a form of emotional hypersensitivity that leads to anxieties and depressive moods. R.S. suggested Hyper. D2 and Hypericum oil (25% Oleum) applied to the bladder region and thighs. This herbal antidepressant was known long before imipramine hydrochloride was introduced as a conventional antidepressant for the treatment of enuresis.

Apart from working through any conflicts that may exist between the parents or with parents and child, in family therapy and simple behavioral measures such as waking the child at night to go to the toilet and morning rituals such as painting a sun if he has been dry and rain if wet, offering a small reward if there are a sufficient number of suns, eurythmy therapy proves successful in many cases. ‡

‡ Allergies arise because foreign processes are not properly perceived. Food allergies often in conjunction with intestinal mycosis. The intolerance often only shows itself with a careful elimination and re-exposition diet. The human being is not able to register the foreign nature of the food nor the foreign fungal flora.

Cand.: allergic to milk protein, hen's egg white, almond and soya tend to attract Cand. rather than other yeasts. These are often people with an overweening immoderate metabolism/more inclined towards hysterical disorders.

Aspergillus: People in whose stools Aspergillus is been detected will often show a neurasthenic wyw component and have cereal grain allergies. ‡

By: Philip Incao, M.D.

Q. Having just been through a severe allergic reaction (hives covering my body) I would very much be interested in an article on allergies from a spiritual scientific viewpoint. Why do apparent runaway histamine reactions occur?

A: Your question is a wonderful opportunity to compare two different approaches to seeking answers to nature's puzzles.

Today mainstream science uses the reductionist approach. Reductionism seeks to explain a puzzling phenomenon such as allergic hives by reducing it to its smaller active parts, much as you would explain how a T.V. set works by taking it apart and examining what the essential parts do and how they work together. Reductionism has led us to discover histamine, a chemical substance in our body which causes hives, swellings and asthma when injected into mice. Thus, from the reductionistic viewpoint the cause of allergies is the making of too much histamine by the body. Apparently this solution to the allergy puzzle doesn't entirely satisfy you, even though you may appreciate feeling less itchy after taking an anti-histamine pill. "But why did my body produce excess histamine?" you ask. Most of us doctors don't like such questions. We would prefer that you gratefully accept your antihistamine prescription and go quietly.

This column, however, encourages and applauds bold questions. We go by Einstein's wonderful maxim: "the important thing is not to stop questioning." Rudolf Steiner even asserted that if we have the will to pursue a thought to its ultimate conclusion, through unbiased and logical questioning, we are led to a spiritual scientific outlook. Such an outlook always seems to call for greater moral responsibility on our part, which is probably why most people do not pursue thoughts to their ultimate conclusions. If it means I have to change myself, then maybe I'll just take that antihistamine pill after all.

Spiritual science takes a phenomenological approach in seeking answers to nature's riddles, but we also entirely validate the reductionistic approach which has led to the discovery of lifesaving medicines like the adrenal hormones adrenalin (epinephrine) and cortisol (usually prescribed as prednisone) for the treatment of allergic reactions.

Phenomenology bids us take the phenomena at face value. In Goethe's words, "Do not ... look for anything behind phenomena. They are themselves their own lesson." Thus the investigator begins by looking, long and hard, and with marvel and wonder, at the allergic phenomena: the swelling, sneezing, itching, the hives, the watery eyes and nose of the allergic subject. We carefully observe the phenomena in great detail, but also we immerse ourselves in them and experience these symptoms as if they were part of us. This wondering observation and immersion repeated persistently and with loving interest, can lead to special insight. We learn to intuitively "read" the phenomena, in this case, the allergic symptoms. This process should be quite simple, natural and un-selfconscious. Many mothers in my practice are good phenomenological investigators of their childrens' illnesses. Through their loving interest and keen observation they can often read correctly what is happening in their children.

If you had to choose one phrase that best describes your recent acute allergic reaction, my guess is it would be something like "maddening irritation" or “itching both inside and out" or "jumping out of my skin." It seems fairly self- evident that with allergies we are dealing with something foreign, like cat dander or pollens or peanuts, that irritates us severely. But why does the exposure of the human being to cat dander result in allergic symptoms only in some people and not in others? How can we use our rational imagination to live into and understand the separate realities of the allergic person with itchy, watery eyes and nose and the totally unaffected non-allergic person as they encounter the same cloud of pollen? Pursuing both questions with a fundamental attitude of wonder and respect for the phenomena we are observing might lead us to some simple general truths.

We human beings are placed within a natural environment which supports us with its warmth, air, water and food and which also threatens us with elements, plants and animals which may be harmful or poisonous to us. Anything in the environment that comes into our body through eating, inhaling or through our skin can either support us or stress us, depending on what it is and how much of it there is. The warmth of the sun can sustain us and also kill us if it is too extreme. Each individual has their own particular limits of tolerance, their own individual coping ability, for each of the many stressors in our environment.

From this viewpoint, an allergic reaction is what happens in our body when we encounter an outer stress which exceeds our capacity to process it, to digest it and to neutralize it. We can say that episodes of indigestion, vomiting or diarrhea, coughing, sneezing and hives are all different ways that our body is saying it is not able to easily adapt to the outer foreign presence which has come into us. Our coping forces are stretched beyond their normal limits and the body in its wisdom calls upon its reserve forces. When our reserve forces become active, then we may experience hives, or the other symptoms mentioned above.

If we examine these symptoms, we might discover that they represent various ways that our body tries to digest, destroy and expel the foreign presence that is stressing us. It takes considerable focused energy to process stress in this way. Being healthy today is in large part determined by how well we develop the skills and capacities to maintain ourselves against the various stressors from our environment that would tip us off balance. We can talk about these skills and capacities in future columns, if our readers are interested.

You didn't say what kind of exposure might have triggered your hives. In some cases there is no obvious exposure to anything.

Our environment comes into us in the food we eat and the air we breathe, and this environment is alive. But God designed our body to house only one living individual (us!) and not any of the other various life forms in our environment. Foreign life is poisonous to us, with the exception of our symbiotic and commensal bacteria. Therefore our body digests and destroys any foreign life coming into it. Every bite of food is thoroughly destroyed deep in our interior by our digestive system. Foreign particles that enter into us through our breathing and skin are destroyed by our immune system. When this inner destruction proceeds normally, we have little or no perception of it. When the outer life which has entered into us proves difficult to destroy, either because it is too strong or there is too much of it or because our forces to destroy it are too weak, then our body must make a special effort and must intensify the destructive power of our digestive and/or immune systems. When this happens we notice it, we feel sick and have various symptoms of illness. This intense activity of our digestive and immune systems is what is usually called a detox reaction or a healing crisis.

An allergic reaction like hives is thus a kind of detox reaction, in which the cells of our immune system feverishly releasing histamine and chemicals called cytokines, (interferon, interleukin and others) which cause all the familiar symptoms of inflammation: swelling, redness, pain, fever. Rarely, in severe cases, a serious drop in blood pressure (shock), multiple organ failure and even death can result when there is a massive release of cytokines into our bloodstream. We usually think of our immune system as our defender against illness and death, but an acute overreacting immune system can kill us. In a very allergic, hypersensitive person an acute anaphylactic reaction upon exposure to peanuts or a bee sting can be fatal. A toxic person who develops sepsis or toxic shock syndrome can also die, in spite of antibiotics. In the past we considered deaths from sepsis to be caused by overwhelming bacterial infection. Now the evidence shows that these deaths are caused mainly by an over-reacting immune system pouring too many cytokines into our circulation! This fairly recent change in our mainstream medical understanding of severe "infection" has very far-reaching implications, but these have not yet filtered down to practicing doctors, nor to the general public. I look forward to the day when they do!

Vorwort/Suchen Zeichen/Abkürzungen Impressum