Lungs: The Tree of Life
Guest Post Written by Dr. Furqan A Syed (The Author)
Introduction
Lungs belong to the group of “Vital Life Organs”. Life comes to a sudden end if anyone from the Heart, Brain, Liver, Lungs or Blood stops functioning. Of course, all the organs are vital in that respect but non-functioning of other organs may not cause sudden death… and the life lingers on for some time unless the cause finally stops any of the Vital Life Organs.
All life-threatening events, without any prejudice, medical or non-medical in nature, would cause breathing difficulty at one or other stage, whether it is a loss of blood due to some accident, a heart attack, a poisonous snake bite, an allergy, renal failure, physical damage to lungs, diseases of lungs, respiratory passage blockage, lack of Oxygen in breathing environment, gas poisoning, exposure to smoke, etc.
Therefore, in a limited scope of narrating a case of breathing difficulty, we would take a cursory look only at the lungs and respiratory tract related diseases that cause or produce breathing difficulty. I rated seven of these in order of most widely affecting us in my dwelling area.
1) Pneumonia: a functional disorder of lungs due to exposure to cold that causes inflammation of lungs by attracting micro-organisms like bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites and resultantly the alveoli become filled with fluids causing breathing difficulty.
2) Asthma: an idiosyncratic reaction of a biological assay that causes swelling of respiratory passages and results in breathing difficulty.
3) Croup: an idiosyncratic health condition resulting in swelling of the upper respiratory canal, mostly around vocal chords and causing “barking cough”. It is common in children and may also arise due to reflex from digestive disorders.
4) Bronchiolitis; Swelling and inflammation of Bronchioles of the lungs could be from several causes of exposures to acidic gases or might be allergic in nature, causes difficulty in breathing and may further aggravate to broncho-pneumonia where multiple places in lungs get consolidated causing breathing difficulty. Insecticides sprays have a role to play, especially note that when mosquitoes are more in a season, there are more cases of bronchiolitis than malaria in cities.
5) Cor Pulmonale: Cuore is Heart and Polmonare is belonging to lungs, in this condition, the heart gets affected due to thinning of arteries in lungs, in result, one side of the heart becomes larger, also explained in a condition of pulmonary hypertension, both ways, the difficulty in breathing is experienced.
6) COPD: The Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, as in smokers’ lungs, destruction of lungs due to prolonged exposure to fumes or smoke or caused by chronic bronchitis with a history of a long-term cough and mucus.
7) Epiglottitis: A flap at the base of the tongue that keeps food from going into the windpipe. It is a medical emergency requiring urgent procedures or may result in a death of the patient. The epiglottis is a flap-like tissue that keeps food from entering windpipe when swallowing. This flap gets inflamed and increased in size and might cover the windpipe opening causing a severe obstruction in inhaling. It is serious.
Role of Homeopathy
With the above-mentioned first few lung conditions in mind, we, the homeopaths, can carry out very effective remedial treatments, only if our prior preparedness is complete, my questions are
1. Whether a touch of Borax Powder on tongue provides immediate help in epiglottitis or not? [click to tweet]
2. If Senega could be so effective in COPD and Bronchiolitis, does Digitalis helps cor pulmonale patients if the pulse is slow with high blood pressure and Crataegus when it is rapid and weak?
3. Borax, Natrum Sulf and Bryonia when a child is in Croup but at other times Kali Carb and Argentum Nitricum might be required.
4. Does COPD in old age require Baryta Carb, Antimonium Tart or Stannum Met when weakness is so much that any effort to speak takes away all the energy?
A case of breathing difficulty
Let us go to a case of breathing difficulty from my diary mentioned in the year 2008…
In 2008, I was called to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of our local government hospital by some relative of a woman who was on put on a ventilator. I reached there around 8 p.m in the evening. At the door of ICU I met the patient’s attendants, I thought of getting some insight into the case before I see her and started asking general questions and it was revealed that the patient was a female around 58 years of age, married with grown-up children, she developed asthmatic conditions few years back that gradually worsened and finally she got an attack of severe dyspnoea two months back. Presently, she was on the ventilator for the last two months. Whenever she was tried to off-ventilator, her oxygen levels dropped suddenly with an almost sudden attack of suffocation.
So this was a case where doctors had already completed steroidal therapies and unofficially have counselled the relatives that there is almost no chance of her life without the machine, Meanwhile, someone told them to get me there that they settled with the duty doctors so I was here. I was the alternate guy with the alternate medicine they wanted to try now. I must say that when I reached there and asked questions that were never asked before; like, thirst, temperament and thermals, they did get hopeful, wondering for some miracle.
After half an hour of general discussions I entered the small ICU where all the beds were occupied and at one bed, nurses in uniform were wrapping a body of an old man who had just died. I glanced at the old man’s body and noted that he had lost all weight and was almost a skeleton at the time of his death. Almost all the remaining patients were on breathing pipes, some slept and some just laid down. Someone called my name from behind and that shook me out of my engrossment, where my mind raced through the materia medica, remedies, potencies and outlook of patients lying in front of me…
I turned back and right behind me she was lying facing left, feet towards me, Oxy-meters blinked 98% Oxygen, Pulse 82, Blood Pressure 115/85, I glanced at her uncovered feet, not a sign of swelling or fluid retention, no discoloration, perfect healthy feet, She was in her personal blanket that was loosely over her torso, I slid through the narrow space between life-saving electronics and her bed and reached close to her face, her son woke her up from the other side of the bed and told her that they are there with some doctor. She turned and smiled.
She was obese like Calcarea, her eyes were smiling and hopeful like Phosphorus, she had puffed upper eyelids like Kali Carb and also slight bags under the lower eyelids like Apis M…. I smiled back, unlike the other patients around her, she was ready to laugh at any joke, I felt so happy with her and said,” When do you want to leave this ward ?”, she almost laughed at it .. alas the windpipe did not allow the vocal chords to produce a sound, and her heart rate increased as I listened to the increasing frequency of dim beeps. I told her I will check her lungs so please relax for the moment. Stethoscope told a different story, her lungs were almost full of mucus, rattles, rails .. upper lobe, middle, lower… not an area was found clear.
I told her that I am giving her a medicine and she would be happily out of this ward very soon. I told the family to come and collect the medicine from my home tonight. Then we shared some salutary glances of goodbye and I walked around asking how other patients felt. I did note that when I was with her the other staff and doctors were eyeing me and slipped left or right when I reached various beds. In those brief moments, that was my ward and those were my patients. I had to kill the feeling as I knew the medical staff of ICU was working day and night and they knew they were quite helpless in curing these patients…I walked out, one of her attendants followed me in his car to my home.
I prepared in 10 ml water, Phosphorus 30th dilution and gave it to him, he was told to rub 2 drops of it after washing his finger thoroughly at her gums every 2 hours and up to 8 doses and let me know the condition next morning and for sure stop other medicines if possible.
Next morning the awaited call came, the rattles were gone, her oxygen level is 99%, pulse 75 and I asked them to continue the dose with an interval of 6 hours and arrange for the off-ventilator procedure. This was a tough decision for everyone at the ward, they had tried the procedure only two days back and had no experience of someone again qualifying for it so early. The administration of the ward refused the off-ventilator procedure, and it took the doctors and the relatives of the patients about one full week to finally show a record that formed the base. She was shifted out of ICU in 10 days time, it was slow, earlier I had a patient off-ventilator in two days but that is another long story.
“I share it just because of the reason that this is one of the cases that I really felt like a true homeopath. It seldom happens.”
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About the author: Dr. Furqan A Syed
Dr. Furqan A Syed, DHMS, is a registered Homeopathic Medical Practitioner from Islamabad, Pakistan. He retired prematurely as a pilot and took up the challenge to heal the sick as he belonged to a family of very first of homeopaths since 1955. You can view his website at https://www.homeoconsultant.com/ He can be contacted at faukishah@gmail.com
The Copyright is reserved with the author (Furqan A Syed). All opinions are that of the author.
The above Guest Post is the fifteenth in the GUEST BLOG SERIES. For reading previous Guest Posts check out https://drnancymalik.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/guest-blog-series
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