Asthma is one of the distressing ailments which are not easy to cure. After using palliative medicines to overcome an acute attack, one should resort to constitutional treatment in order to give permanent relief to the patient. The main medicines for constitutional treatment which should be given in addition to other indicated medicines are: -
(1) Tuberculinum; (2) Thuja; (3) Natrum Sulph; (4) Medorrhinum; and (5) Syphilinum.
The above medicines are to be given intercurrently in potency not below 200 (IM or CM potencies preferable)
No other medicine is to be given for two or three days before and after. If any of the above medicines have the desired effect, further drugging of the patient should be avoided.
2. A hint as to the diet is also necessary. The use of white flour and white sugar or its products, meat, fish, milk and puddings should be avoided. Whole-wheat flour, barbados sugar, honey, salads and fresh vegetables should be eaten with eggs and cheese.
Aconite IX:
Ipec. IX:
To be given alternately during the attack. It will act as a palliative and will ease the breathing and the cough. Aconite is also useful for asthma of Millers.
Ipecacuanha: Spasmodic form of asthma with great weight on the chest with anxiety, wheezing, shortness of breath, feeling of suffocation, worse on movement, constant cough causing vomiting; chest full of phlegm, cold sweat on hands and feet. Asthma with skin diseases. Give in 200 potency.
Zingiber: Asthma of gastric origin. Hoarseness. Smarting below larynx; breathing difficult. Stitches in chest. Worse towards morning.
Kali Carb: This remedy is often indicated, especially when the attack comes at the night after midnight. It compels the patient to sit which position affords him relief. Sensitive to atmospheric changes, draughts of cold. Irritable and full of fears and imaginations.
Belladonna: When there are violent spasms of asthmatic breathing attended by constriction of chest and a sense of constriction of throat if the patient would suffocate. An anti-spasmodic remedy.
Aspidosperma: An effective remedy in asthma with difficult respiration. Give in 2X or 3X dilution.
Grindelia: When there is abnormal accumulation of mucus, breathing stops when asleep. Emphysema with dilated heart. Asthma in old persons suffering from bronchitis which causes partial paralysis of pneumogastric nerve. An excellent remedy for bringing back the appetite and for ameliorating palpitation and dyspnoea.
Carboneum Sul: Has served well in asthma with difficult or fast breathing. Broken down constitutions by abuse of alcohol.
Pulmo Vulpis: With enormous whistling and rattling and dropsy of the lungs.
Blatta Ori: An excellent remedy for asthma with or without bronchitis. There is dyspnoea with thick and purulent mucus. May be given in 2X or 3X dilution during attack.
Chloralum: Asthma with wheezing respiration; when lying inspiration through the nose and expiration blown from the lips.
Ambrosia Art: Asthma with hay fever due to observing the pollen of ragweed.
Aralia Racemosa: Asthma alternating with coryza. There is loud wheezing and whistling respiration coming on lying down or at midnight. After short sleep. Sputum is warm and saltish. Cough caused by tickling in the throat and constriction of chest; has to sit up to avoid choking.
Kali Bich: When the attacks are caused by or follow coitus. Early morning aggravation. Ropy expectoration is its characteristic which comes out in abundance. Asthma due to bronchitis.
Kali Phos: In nervous asthma. Give IM potency as an intercurrent remedy.
Kali Nit: With excessive dyspnoea, faintness and nausea with dull stitches and burning pain in chest-rather free expectoration.
Kali Sulph: 3 Yellow expectorations, much rattling in chest laboured breathing, talking almost impossible.
Alumina Silicate: The breathing is arrested by coughing; asthmatic breathing with rattling in chest. Difficult breathing from coughing.
Sulphur: When asthma is due to suppression of eruptions, or alternates with eruptions, i.e.; asthma appears when eruptions disappear and Vice Versa.
Lycopodium: Asthma due to excitement by anger or emotion with fanlike motion of alae nasi; nervous asthma. Asthma in chilly patients, always catching cold, easily tired and exhausted. Whenever catching cold, phlegm settles down affecting right lung. Asthma with burning arising from the epigastric region of the stomach and going up to the upper portion of the oesophagus with eructation, pyloro-duodenal spasms. Aggravation 4 to 8 P.M.
Naja: With difficult breathing, cannot lie down; intense sneezing which relieves breathing; dryness of lungs with difficulty of breathing. Pulse slow.
Natrum Sulph: Attacks during wet weather or in rainy season. Should be tried when the patient gets attacks every change of season. Attacks early in the morning. Cough loose, humid with copious, viscid, greenish yellow phlegm; mucus rates, rattling, noises, expectorating large quantities of white mucus which is thick and ropy. The chest feels sore and oppressed. Holds the chest with the hand which gives relief to cough. Asthma with bronchitis and deformity of the chest. Asthma associated or alternating with chronic rheumatism. If this remedy fails to give relief, give Medorrhinum as an intercurrent remedy.
Ambra Grisea: In old people and in children; whistling in chest during breathing; dyspnoea from any little exertion.
Ammonia Carb: With dyspnoea which increases in warm room until suffocation seems imminent. Cough from 2 A.M. to 5 A.M. Cough with much rattling in chest.
Mephites: Asthma in drunkards. Violent hacking cough as if would die with each attack.
Drosera: Asthma in consumptives. Oppression worse by heat of bed. Dry cough with no expectoration. If Drosera fails, try Mephites.
Lachesis: When aroused from sleep by paroxysm. Cannot bear least pressure about the neck or chest. Finally, he coughs up watery phlegm with great relief. Worse during and after sleep.
Yerba Santa: When relieved by expectoration.
Ars. Alb: In acute and chronic cases with laborious breathing, extreme agitation, moaning and restlessness; great exhaustion and anguish as if at the point of death, with cold perspiration. The oppression of breathing is worse when walking, going up the hill or ascending stairs. The attack comes on at the time of retiring or during the first part of the night. It also occurs after midnight aggravation. Asthma associated with emphysema, hay asthma, asthma appearing after the suppression of eruptions.
Bryonia: It is indicated in obstructed breathing at night or towards morning, with frequent cough, pains under the short ribs, and inability to recline on the right side, or without much inconvenience on the left, so that the patient is constrained to lie on the back. Worse on talking or on slightest movement. Tracheal or bronchial irritation.
Nux Vom: Asthma of digestive origin, nocturnal attacks of suffocating tightness preceded by disagreeable and anxious dreams. The attack is relieved by lying on the back or by changing sides or sitting up. There is also flatulence. Oppression begins in the epigastrium which is very swollen.
Antim. Tart: It should be employed against difficulty of breathing with suffocating cough and anxious oppression at the front part of the chest arising from an excessive secretion of phlegm in the air tubes; it is of great service in aged people or in children. Respiration is rapid, painful and noisy.
Opium: Is indicated in obstructed breathing, either from congestion or from spasm of the lungs with suffocating cough and livid hue of the face; loud mucus rattling in the chest, with extreme anguish and dread of suffocation; difficult breathing during sleep, resembling nightmare.
Graphites: Eruptions alternating or co-existing with asthmatic fits.
Sambucus Nig: Rapid and laborious respiration, with loud wheezing; oppression of the chest as from a weight, attended with anguish and dread of suffocations; sometimes swelling and livid hue of face and hands; general heat, tremor, inability to talk much above a whisper ; suffocating cough aggravation of the symptoms in the recumbent posture. Asthma in children, bakers and millers. Child wakes up choked for want of respiration. Sweating of the body.
Arum Triph: Particularly adapted to hay fever, sneezing, pain and contraction about the throat with profuse coryza in the afternoon.
Moschus: In asthma of nervous origin occurring mostly in hysterical women, or in children from exposure to cold; sense of spasmodic constriction in the upper part of the windpipe with paroxysms of suffocating feeling as if caused by the inhalation of Sulphur vapor.
Cuprum Met: It is indicated for the same symptoms as in Moschus but it should be given when the latter fails. Spasmodic asthma threatening convulsions, constriction of the throat. Lobelia Inflata. Tightness of the chest, tickling sensation in the trachea and laborious breathing with disposition to keep the mouth wide open in order to breathe. Oppression of the chest causing a deep breath to be taken to relieve the pressure; slight tickling under the breast bone, on drawing a deep breath. There is no cough or expectoration. Aggravation in cold and by tobacco fumes, the smell of which is unbearable.
Phosphorus: Useful for asthma of humid variety. Violent thirst for cold water which is vomited as soon as it becomes hot in stomach. Extreme oppression. Diminution of urine with albuminuria.
Acid Phos: It should be tried when Phosphorus fails. May be given first in 3X potency, afterwards in 200 potency.
Natrum Ars: Asthma alternating with urticaria. Asthma produced by inhalation of coal-dust.
Agaricus M: Indicated in slender, willowy, nervous and restless persons who get twitches, quivering of muscles, tingling of nerves: clumsy and awkward persons, falling about, dropping things and breaking them. Immensely cold feeling; tendency to consumption: catarrh of the chest with night sweats. Violent coughing fits ending in sneezing. Breathlessness, palpitation, jerking of limbs followed by extreme tiredness and weakness in the morning but towards evening he is full of cheer and able to do things.
Thuja: When asthma follows vaccination. Face becomes palid, sickly, waxy and shiny. Worse off and on. Dry cough occurring in the afternoon. Infantile asthma with cough dry or loose. Ozoena with thick yellow-greenish discharge. It should be given inter-currently when well selected remedies fail.
Hepar Sulph: Asthma following an exposure to cold, dry east wind. Worse by cold of any form. It has strong amelioration in damp weather.
Caladium: Alternates with itching rash.
Sticta P: Cough dry, worse in evening and night. Cannot sleep or lie down; the more he coughs the more he wants to cough. It is indicated in women with scanty milk supply.
Bromine: Asthma of sailors when they go ashore. It is relieved as soon as they go at sea. Asthma worse by dust or draughts.
Silicea: Is indicated in sycotic and chilly patients. Inveterate cases of catarrh of the chest, asthmatic wheezing, tremulous suffocation, inability to move, brought on by overheating and over-exertion with chronic bronchitis and dilatation of the bronchi. Humid asthma; coarse rattling, and the whole chest seems full of mucus, as if he would suffocate. Comes on after suppressed gonorrhoea. Emphysema where the elasticity has diminished and fibers are relaxed up to the breaking point. Worse during new or full moon.
Ignatia: Asthma aggravated by emotions, by cares and repeated griefs.
Medorrhinum: Is an intercurrent remedy in asthma when other well indicated remedies fail to act or give complete relief. Choking cough, larynx stopped so that no air could enter, only improved by lying on face; deep hollow cough, worse by lying down, better lying on stomach, difficult respiration, wants to be fanned, feels cold yet throws the covers off, also is made worse by warmth, worse by wet damp draught and thunderstorms, worse from daylight to sunset, always brighter in the evenings. Better at sea or near sea-shore and worse inland. (Reverse of Bromium). Alternate or co-existence of asthma with rheumatism.
Actea Race: Violent spasms aggravated during menses or when talking and at night. Expectoration is rare.
Rumex: Violent attacks of cough coming on at any change of temperature from warm room to cold air outside and vice versa, and by talking and laughing. Feeling of rawness under the clavicles. Cough shaking the chest and head, expectoration scanty and difficult to raise.
Senega: Asthma with loud coarse rales of mucus, tough and ropy which cannot be raised; gasping and coughing with dry throat. Chronic bronchitis. Covers catarrhal condition of respiratory organs.
Acid Sulph: Asthma with short dry hacking cough, frequently finishing up with a belch or vomiting. Chest weak and full of burning and stitching pains; frightful oppression and suffocation of the chest which is relieved by hanging the legs down.
Carbo Veg: Asthma which is reflex from accumulation of gas in stomach.
Pothos: Asthma brought on or made worse from inhalation of dust. Relieved by stool.
Colocynthis: Asthma accompanied by indigestion and flatulence. Worse at sea-side. Feels cold even in hot weather.
Psorinum: Feels marked relief by lying down with arms wide apart, thrown across the bed to relieve breathing; worse when the arms are brought near the body. Aggravation in winter and cold season. Secretion tenacious and offensive. Asthma of old men.
Hypericum: Asthma worse in foggy weather; the attacks are relieved by copious expectoration and profuse perspiration.
Dulcamara: Asthma during wet weather or caused by living on wet basements.
Chromico Kali Sulphuricum: Is said by Germans to be specific in asthma with great oppression and thick expectoration, difficult to detach.
Sabadilla: An important remedy for hay asthma with oppression, sneezing and watery discharges.
Hydrocyanic acid: Severe attack of nervous asthma with intense constriction of chest.
Sanguinaria C: Particularly suitable for asthma, worse by or due to odours. Cough is hoarse, hard and dry.
Syphilinum: Asthma returning every summer. Give in IM potency.
Pulsatilla: Asthma in persons who are timid and irritable, changeable mood, laugh and cry easily; fear of dark of death, suspicious, loath fat; dreams of cats. Give only one dose of IM potency and wait for some time.
