Kind Anhang Kopfschmerz
[Gerard Smith]
It
will interest us as Homoeopaths to learn from our friends something new.
The
drugs are: Acon. Bell. Gels. Phos.
and Glon.
One
of the most common grounds of error in therapeutics, in these affection
(speaking for myself), is that of founding treatment upon the supposition that
the pain is due
either
to cerebral hyperaemia or the reverse condition, anaemia.
We
often meet with children who have headache + flushed face, bright eyes, and
restlessness, who are usually anaemic; and my
experience tells me that these children are
not
successfully treated with Bell. or Acon.
More
frequently remedies which are homoeopathic to their usual constitutional state,
such as Ferr-met. or Ars.,
will prove valuable.
In
anaemic children, with apparently hyperaemic
headaches, it will usually be found that hot, nourishing food, such as hot milk
or soup, will relieve the pain, whereas in true hyperaemic
headache such a course would perhaps increase the pain.
Examination
of the urine prove valuable in most cases of headache in children. Many anaemic children will be found to pass excess of phosphates
or urates during their headaches, and we may draw
valuable indications for diet from such facts.
A
very painful case of persistent headache in a child, in which great quantities
of phosphates were passed whilst the urine was copious. The child was depressed
and stupefied; had severe pain over the region of the kidneys; vomited food,
and face was flushed, with photophobia; had vertigo with staggering. Many
remedies were tried unsuccessfully, but the rather unusual one, Helon.
A
child, 9 years of age, had epistaxis with his
headache; but this symptom could not be taken as an indication of cerebral hyperaemia, for the child was pale and markedly anaemic; palpitation of the heart, and auscultation
revealed a mitral insufficiency. Lach. proved the
remedy. I mention this case as an example of the error of taking symptoms which
often point to cerebral hyperaemia as always
indicating that state in children. I venture to say that we too often look upon
epistaxis as a proof of abnormal fulness
of
the
cerebral vessels. In children we can usually afford to neglect the possibility
of the bleeding being due to disease of the coats of the vessels, as it may be
in adults; but we should be on our guard, and remember that epistaxis
in children may be a sign even of constitutional anaemia
or of a passive or of a passive congestion due to valvular
disease
of
the heart.
"School
headaches," bring great responsibility upon us; we are called upon to
advise as to the nature and extent of the education which some children can
bear, and if we decide wrongly we may do much harm to the children in their
future life. There is grave responsibility attaching to any man who causes a
child to be withdrawn from its lessons, and to miss that period of life when
habits of thought and memory may be most easily required; and, on the other
hand, great errors have been made in the opposite direction; school-headaches
have been neglected, and the child's brain powers undermined by suffering, and
its normally happy child-time rendered very miserable.
My
experience is, that under the modern system of education, which recognizes the
facts of evolution in these matters, and leads a child up by gradual steps from
play to "play-work," and so on to exercise of memory and perception
by slight and easy stages, we see less of genuine school-headaches; by which I
mean, headaches which are actually the result of overstrain of brain-powers,
and yet, children at school do very often suffer from headache; after errors of
"cramming" have been eliminated, and all the hygienic surroundings of
children at school have been reformed to the modern scientific standard, we yet
have too many of these cases to deal with. Our children -of course I mean
English children only- are very glad at times to get out of school before the regulation
hours, and if they choose malingering as the means to this end, they are clever
enough to select maladies which are diagnosed by subjective symptoms only, for
obvious reasons; and this kind of school-headache is the first to claim our
attention.
I
would not be so discourteous as to suggest that the American child ever shams;
but there are English children in your schools; and if these should be
frequently away from school, with headache, it is sometimes found that it is a
headache which comes on very early in school-hours; is vague in its situation,
and then youngster is able to read books of amusing stories, or engage in other
occupations requiring considerable concentration both of eye and memory,
without a return or increase of the headache; I have found that isolation from
the class in which the child is placed at school, and the use of special large
type, not interrupting the usual school-hours of work, is worth trying as
treatment here; children will not hold out for long if they are malingering
when thus kept apart from their follows.
But
the fact that children know that there is such a thing as headache from reading
point, shows this is no uncommon form of the affection; and I think that a
large proportion of school headache are due to eye-strain.
Headache
due to eye-strain are, I have noticed, more often occipital than frontal or
vertex; considerable success in their treatment is gained by simple attention
to the general health; but so-called "tonic treatment" is never more
than palliative; the headache may be kept away so long as artificial
stimulation is kept up, but will return when it is removed; when the child is
in exceptionally good health, the headache may be absent, as after the
holidays; but as the school term progresses, the trouble returns; in such
cases
it will generally be found that the vision is apparently normal, unless the
child is, at the moment of examination, suffering from pain; but when tired, or
when under
the
influence of Atropine in the eye, the refraction will be found at fault; the
child is able, under ordinary conditions, to produce accommodation by an effort
which is unconscious, but in excess of what should be demanded of the child;
and, under ill-health or prolonged application, this strain is evidenced b
headache.
A
girl of 12 years of age suffered from severe neuralgic pain in the neck,
radiating down the cervical nerves on both sides, which was caused entirely by
eyestrain, and was cured by the use of the proper glasses.
I
here no doubt that the Homoeopathic therapeutics of such conditions are well
known to all present, but they will be of little avail if the help of
properly-adjusted glasses is neglected; not "Pincenez,"
which sometimes provoke fresh headache in a sensitive child by their pressure
on the bridge of the nose, but light-framed spectacles. There are
3
drugs which I have been led to use, of which the first, Acid picric., is perhaps not
sufficiently valued; the pathogenesy of this drug
points to both the headache and the ocular symptoms; I have used it in the
higher potencies, by which I mean from 12 to 30;
Arg-n. and Cimic. are the other two; these I mention as being, possibly,
outside the general run of headache remedies, and because they have served me
well. I use the two latter in varying doses, but the Cimic.
in lower potencies, 3x, or thereabouts.
I
think that the headaches of girls at approaching puberty are becoming more
general in our times; the new physical regime has not been universally adopted
as yet, though in families where it has been practical of from childhood, I
find less suffering among the girls as menstruation comes on; the cause of a
girl's headache at this period of her life is generally well recognized by
mothers, who are aware to the necessity of physiological rest at these times; I
need not detain you with therapeutics here, but drop a word to attract your
attention to the tendency of Homoeopathic mothers having a fancy for Puls. in all these
troubles of their girls; it seems very apt to act upon the ovaries rather
too
freely, for the tendency in most girls is to rather free less of blood at the
first few periods, more often than the opposite (in my won experience), and Puls. increases this tendency unduly; Coff. and Ferr-met. often
useful.
The
"genital headaches" of boys at puberty often cause much suffering,
and in all cases of intractable headache in boys the possibility of approaching
puberty should receive attention. Other genital irritation in boys also seem to
play a prominent part in causing headache, and in my own experience I have
found that phymosis is not seldom a cause of headache
in boys, as it is of many nervous symptoms; and you, no doubt, will all
remember cases where circumcision has cured such troubles. I have known, in
several cases, the most happy results from circumcision in boys headaches.
I
will not deal with the headache of febrile states, since our attention in such
cases in turned to the fever rather than the headache alone; but there are
headache accompanied by fever, and due to malaria, which are instances of the
headache being the main guiding symptom. I think they are usually intermittent;
they are either very vague and general in the locality they affect, or
occasionally will be truly neuralgic, the pain being fixed in one or other of
the cranial nerves, or at least being felt over the surface where the nerves
are distributed, and perhaps the supra- orbital region, comes before us, we
have the true sphere for Quinine to be used Homoeopathically.
I
may, perhaps, be at variance with others when I state that I do not think that
true "migraine" is often seen in children. In the case of the
children of parents who are sufferers from migraine we certainly often see
headache, but I find them usually to be coincident with some digestive upset, and
the vomiting, if presents, to be more often controlled by remedies acting upon
the stomach than by such as are chosen upon the cerebral supposition. I
recognize that these pathological suppositions are alien to the Homoeopathy
held by many, but I think that in most cases it will be found that a remedy,
chosen first on the ground of the totality of the symptoms, turns out, on
further examination, to
be
also the pathological similar.
Still,
there are cases of headache in children in which, before the onset of pain, we
hear of various warning symptoms, such as flashes of light before the eyes, or
sensations
of
dimness of sight, or, in some cases, temporary weakness or paralysis of an arm
or leg, either motor or sensory, or both. Then the pain in the head, localized
generally in a definite spot on one side of the forehead, comes on, and is
followed by vomiting. Such headaches, if frequent in onset, are probably true
migraine, not coincident with dyspeptic trouble, and they may be hereditary.
The first point is to eliminate the possibility of eye strain, for this is more
frequently the cause of migraine than is sometimes supposed. In such cases of
true migraine in children, Coff. C 6 and Carb-ac. C 12 have served me well.
I
need scarcely mention the importance of headache where the pain is felt near
the mastoid bones or round the ear, as indicating ear disease, but I have seen
the neglect of timely surgical interference very injurious in at least three
such cases. The pain is not headache, though generally described as such.
And
we must always be on our guard when we meet with serious nervous symptoms, such
as spasm of the muscles of the neck or spine, paralysis of muscles, twitchings
or
convulsions, in connection with children's headaches. Such indications of
possible cerebral mischief, tubercle or tumor, are, of course, known to us all.
Finally,
I would not the headache of renal disorder. I would urge regular testing of the
urine in all cases of children's headaches, for if, as is sometimes the case,
the pain
is
coincident with uraemia or albuminuria,
our remedies will be of no use unless those symptoms are placed in the front
rank when drawing up the total symptoms.
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