Some Frequently Asked Questions, first published in SAGA Magazine (7)
Professor George Lewith
I have reacted badly to several medications my doctor has prescribed for raised blood pressure. Would homeopathy help?
Raised blood pressure is something that needs to be considered carefully, as it may result in life long treatment. Before making any decisions a clear history is needed. Is your blood pressure very high, perhaps the lower reading is 100 or more, or is it just mildly raised, perhaps the lower reading (the diastolic blood pressure) is just above 90? If it is very mildly raised, has it been raised consistently, or is just the last one or two readings that have been raised? Have you been going through a period of emotional turmoil for any particular reason?
If your blood pressure is raised significantly and consistently, and it is not just a question of it “going up every time you go to the doctors”, then you may well need long term conventional medication, so the best advice would be for you to continue trying to find a conventional medicine that you can tolerate. If it is just one or two blood pressure readings that have suggested that it is mildly raised, then you might consider losing a bit of weight, taking some regular exercise, and thinking about the life events that could be “winding you up”.
There is no hard evidence that homeopathy will help lower blood pressure, but there is some evidence to suggest that homeopathy can deal with mild anxiety and depression and this may have been aggravating mildly raised blood pressure. Meditation and yoga are known to diminish blood pressure, so using “mindfulness techniques” can be a real help. There is some evidence, although again not definitive, that mildly raised blood pressure can be helped with herbal medicines and drugs such as Hawthorn, as well as individualised traditional Chinese and western herbal prescriptions. Acupuncture also lowers blood pressure, but sometimes the effect of acupuncture is only transitory so you may need to keep going back for more treatment in order to keep your blood pressure down.
Managing blood pressure is really based on how severely raised it might be and how long it has been raised. Think what you can do to help yourself first, but if it is a persistent problem I am afraid that you will no option but to use conventional medicine. The evidence available suggests that managing your blood pressure will certainly diminish the likelihood of catastrophic circulatory events such as a stroke, so it would be very unwise just to ignore it, unless of course the adverse reactions from the medication are terribly severe. You can usually find a conventional medicine that will help.
Are there any non-surgical treatments for wrinkled skin and age spots that have been shown to work?
This seems to be a bit of a loaded question and could potentially put me “in dispute” with the cosmetics industry! It also depends exactly what you mean by “non-surgical”, because botox is an injection based therapy that certainly works for wrinkled skin, but most doctors wouldn’t describe injection based therapies as surgical interventions.
I think most women know that the majority of cosmetics that they buy to protect themselves against the ravages of ageing only have limited and transitory effects. However, it is clear that if you protect your skin against intense sunlight it is much less likely to become wrinkly and aged, so the first piece of sensible advice is to use sun blocks appropriately. Make sure that you have a good supply of essential fatty acids (cod liver oil, evening primrose oil, etc) and take these supplements orally; this seems to be particularly beneficial after the menopause. These essential oils certainly help to make the skin smooth and less inflamed in eczema, so having a good balance of essential oils is likely to keep your skin in the best possible health. The claims for various essential nutrients, in particular Vitamin E, are much more difficult to prove, and there is very little evidence that putting creams on your skin that have items such as “collagen” and ‘Vitamin A’ does very much good. However, we all live in hope! One of the major factors that makes skin look old and wrinkly is smoking, so the most sensible advice to give any smoker is to stop; it makes you look older!
There is very limited evidence that the use of cosmetics and moisturisers has any permanent long-term effect, although, certainly in the short term, they seem to give people a healthy glow. There is some suggestion that lasers may help, particularly with some of the very superficial skin veins, but there is not a huge amount of evidence that low dose lasers help with wrinkles. If you are kind to yourself and use sun block appropriately, that is almost certainly the best way to manage your wrinkles.
My daughter tells me that bottled water would be better for me than the tap water I’ve drunk all my life. Is she right and, if so, is there anything special I should look for in terms of mineral content and so on?
The use of bottled water seems to me to be a multi-billion pound industry, based on some of the cleverest marketing that I have ever encountered. There is absolutely no evidence that bottled water is any safer, better, or more “energising” than the water you get from the tap. One of the great triumphs of Victorian England was the development of a safe and infection free drinking water supply, and consequently water borne disease are now a rarity in the United Kingdom, although occasionally disasters happen, as it did in Camelford. Equally, disaster may strike bottled water manufacturers; there was a major problem with the phenol contamination of bottled Perrier water some years ago, which had a disastrous impact on Perrier’s premier place as the ‘fizzy bottled water’ on every restaurant table. Tap water provided by the UK water companies is safe, and there is absolutely no clinical trial evidence to suggest that bottled water is any better or safer for you.
I seem to be very sensitive to all kinds of insect bites and stings – even ordinary ants cause red weals. Are there any natural remedies that will prevent these skin reactions?
You obviously have a very acute inflammatory reaction to bites, possibly an allergy. This might mean that you are also allergic to quite a lot of other things, and may also suffer from eczema and asthma. Sometimes you can use a variety of different nutritional supplements to settle these allergies down; often taking magnesium and essential fatty acids, such as fish oils, strengthens the cell walls, and this can make the inflammatory reactions less acute. It depends very much on whether you have any nutritional deficiencies, but appropriate supplements based on sensible blood tests may be one way forward. The other remedy that has great traditional use within homeopathy is Apis Mel. It is an extract from bee stings, which was initially used as a poultice by North American Indians to treat the throat inflammation associated with diphtheria. It is now used by homeopaths and is said to help all sorts of acute inflammatory reactions to stings. Unfortunately, there isn’t any hard evidence for either of these suggestions, but the condition is fairly benign and you might find both these approaches helpful.
Following radiotherapy treatment, my digestive system seems to tolerate only very bland food. A friend recommended slippery elm supplements – would they help, or if not, what other supplement would you recommend, if any?
The first thing to find out is what bit of your body the radiotherapy was directed at. If it is possible that your digestive system was irradiated (perhaps because you had radiation to your tummy) you need to have this part of your body checked very carefully by the doctors who prescribed the treatment. Just sometimes you can get radiation colitis if the colon receives too big a dose or is very ‘reactive’ to the treatment. This can be quite serious and will need to be diagnosed conventionally. If there was no radiation to the gut the treatment may have had a more generalised reaction on your body. You will almost certainly have had radiotherapy for cancer, so your system may also be very “out of balance” after the diagnosis and treatment of the cancer. The first thing to do is to take some good gut bacteria (probiotics); this should help the gut sort itself out. Slippery Elm can be helpful, as can Aloe Vera, and indeed anything that can be used to settle down inflamed gut. Turmeric is another herb that has been used to treat both candida and irritable bowel, and seems to settle down an inflamed digestion.
I think your first port of call is to make a proper diagnosis, then take some probiotics, and if things don’t settle down in a few weeks use the herbal supplements, which are in general a very safe and effective way to address the problem.
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