It’s May, springtime in Nashville and allergies are in full swing. Henry’s been in a flare for the last few months which has been hard. It started back in February after a birthday party at a trampoline park. He hasn’t been well since.
His current symptoms are: dark circles under his eyes, blood shot eyes, tired, irritability, whiny, social anxiety, very clingy resistant to doing whatever I need him to do. Loss of appetite, not taking his vitamins, overall his coloring looks off. Normally olive in complextion, he now it just looks punky.
The last two weeks he’s had the following symptoms, strawberry tongue, red ears, body warm to the touch, low grade fever. He’s been complaining about his throat hurting, his stomach hurting. He thew up last Tuesday most of the day and the same pattern repeated the week before. I kept him home from
co-op because he didn’t feel well.
We did an OATS test, comprehensive stool, mito and mycotox test with a new MAPs doctor we’re working with. After managing his health the last couple years, I decided that I needed to get another set of eyes on his seemily cyclial symptoms I couldn’t get to the bottom of.
His OATS testing revelealed he’s currently fighting a colonization of Asperilligus mold. Our last OATS test in 4/24 was all clear, but this one looks more like his first one we did back in 2021.
Our MAPS doctor wants to put him on Sporonox, a heavy hitting antifungal but that option doesn’t feel right to me. Part of choosing alternative medicine has been replacing all use of antibiotics with herbals and homeopathy. I have found herbals to be very effective and less harsh on the body and specifically his sensitive microbiome. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to protect it at all costs. easier and quickest way out of the flare but keeps us stuck on the symptom -> drug treatment (albeit herbals) -> health, until his next trigger from the enviornment.
We’ve been treating his Candida and Clostridia with herbals for about 18 months now. Although it has given him a level of stability we previously didn’t have with to his autoimmunity, it hasn’t solved the underlying root causes of the chronic gut infections, mito dysfunction, immune dysfunction, impaired methylation and oxidative stress in his body. More about my thoughts on root cause.
Previously herbals had given us health for the first time in 5 years which was great. But now that his current lab test is back to his 2021 state, I think it’s time to reevaluate the use of herbals all together.
The thought I had is perhaps intervening with herbals, propping up his immune system artificially much like how antibiotics do, we were unintentionally making the innate immune system weaker. Homeopathy works the opposite of suppression, though the use of remedies teaching the body how to recognize infections and stimulating the body’s own innate immune system to mount a response on it’s own. Ward off infection, fight bacterial, viruses, parasites, and create homeostastis for the body.
We’ve been using homeopathy with Henry since he as 4. So a while now. He’s definitely had some symtom resolution. Particually to mollescum, eczema and a case last August of Hand and Foot. We’ve also worked through a broken collar bone, mending and healing it beautifully last February when he rolled out of bed in the middle of the night. Detoxing form x rays and strep. He’s definitely a carrier of strep, I don’t know that we’ve cleared enough of that however.
So overall he’s tolerated well with homeopathy. It was something we’ve used in parallel with herbals and SCD diet.
I spoke to Sarah, his homeopathist on Monday and I think his current flare is looking more like mast cell. It can be really challenging parsing out which symptoms are being caused by what bug in the body, because they all contribute to his soup of chronic illness. But I have identified it’s pattern, there’s usually some enviornmental trigger, mold, strep exposure at his co-op, allergies, hand foot from his camp. It’s becoming harder and harder to have him participate in group activities he’s liked to do in the past because his immune system gets activated again causing a flare. So for now, homeschooling, no camps, or indoor birthday parties have been the way I’ve been able to keep him out of being chronically sick.
I’ve been working with Sarah since December of 2023 when I started homeschooling Henry in kindergarten. Her intuition and instincts with prescribing homeopathy are crazy accurate and quite frankly I think she’s brillant. Our conversations are similar each 6 weeks or so, I tell her all the strange and odd symptoms he has from including emotional, behavioral, physical as she intently listens taking copious notes. And within a day or two I have remedy prescription and treatment for his overall state. It takes about a week to order the remedies because they come from a dispensary in Oregon, but each time I’m amazed at how much relief they provide for Henry. In a day or so, his state softens, he’s more relaxed, the agitation is gone, the irrtability is gone, the push back over homeschool. His body relaxes and he starts the healing process once again. She lives in Australia, and through zoom we are able to connect 12 hours and 2 continents apart.
he prescribed Silicea to clear his congestion and allergies. Along with Belladonna, Apis Mel and Histaminum to reduce neuroinflammation and allergy sensitivity. He’s also on his constitutional remedy of Carcinosin which has done wonders for him.
Antidotal, my own symtoms of allergies have been quite bad the last few months I too have been in a flare. I trialed his same prescription hoping to give myself some relief from my allergies and within an hour, my runny, itchy nose and throat and sneezing was completely gone. It still amazes me how a diluted molecule can give such much needed relief in such a short time, but it does. Homeopathy continues to fascinate and amaze me.
So after much discussion, we decided to go all in on homeopathy. Instead of suppressing the immune system and treating his current GI infections with herbals, we’re going to instead treat with homeopathy.
My goal is to strengthen his immune system so that eventually his body will be able to recognize offenders and be able to fight it off on it’s own, without the support of herbals.