The contribution of Homeopathic Medicine to the treatment of ADHD

The continuing increase in children suffering from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) ^{(1) (2)} is leading many parents to seek supplementary help from Homeopathic Medicine, in addition to the necessary specialised treatment offered by ADHD treatment centres. In the past ten years, homeopathic doctors have accumulated sufficient empirical knowledge on the disorder to be able to provide considerable therapeutic intervention.

As we know, treatments administered in the context of Homeopathic Medicine are always prescribed on the basis of the patient’s overall neuroendocrine-immunological profile. In addition, Classical Homeopathic Medicine is based on the notion of prescribing the one single remedy which bears the most “resemblance” to the patient’s symptoms at the physical, mental and emotional level. If, however, each one of us considers the totality of our physical and psychological symptomatology, or of our idiosyncrasy, as it changes with time, we will often see that this totality has shifted over the years. Likewise, the symptoms of children suffering from ADHD do not always stay the same; for example, if at the time of the medical examination the hyperactivity component is more pronounced and the child is behaving aggressively, the treatment will be different than if the attention-deficit component is stronger. The child’s most prominent symptoms, together with his/her baseline psychomental profile, will decide the remedy best suited for that specific point in time.

Additionally, in Homeopathic Medicine, serious attention is given to any exogenous chemical interventions that the organism may have been subjected to; many parents report a definite worsening of their child’s ADHD symptoms following the use of antibiotics or vaccines; in such cases the treatment has to be modified. Of great scientific interest is the bibliographically supported observation that ADHD symptoms are lessened during febrile episodes, while they worsen following the suppression of fever with antipyretics or antibiotics; this also calls for a modification of the suggested treatment protocol. The “fever effect”, which is also seen with autistic children, as was recently reported in an article in the “Pediatrics” journal, ^{(3) (4)} reflects the complex immunobiological basis of ADHD. In the everyday homeopathic clinical practice, when a child with ADHD reports that he/she rarely, if ever, experiences fever despite being exposed to all the common infectious factors, that child is given a more dire prognosis compared with another child who suffers from ADHD but frequently gets fevers. After a successful course of individualised homeopathic treatment we see in children a return of older infections, accompanied by fever; if these are treated homeopathically, and the fever is not suppressed, eventually there will be a definite and permanent amelioration of the child’s ADHD symptoms. It is crucial that the homeopathic doctor, the parents and the specialists from the ADHD treatment centre co-operate to this effect.