Combating “Weather change sickness” with Homoeopathy

Dr Kajol Gupta

Abstract:
This abstract summarizes the key points related to “weather change sickness,” encompassing its definition, proposed causative factors, treatment modalities, prevention strategies, and the role of homoeopathy in managing symptoms associated with weather fluctuations.

Keywords: Weather change sickness, humidity, immunity, germs, seasonal, homoeopathy

Definition:
The term “weather change sickness” refers to how abrupt changes in the weather affect our physical well-being. Even though these shifts don’t directly cause illness, they are connected to a number of things that can make us feel exhausted at different times of the year. The idea of “weather change sickness” is intriguing. It’s crucial to realize that variations in temperature, humidity, and exposure might lead to illness instead of the weather itself.¹

Causation: The real cause is unclear.

There are three main reasons why humidity is susceptible to variations in the weather: –

• Dryer air
• Cold
• Exposure to germs and viruses

It is also believed that our immune system weakens in winters due to less exposure to sunlight but then “Weather change sickness” happens even during summers. For that enteroviruses have been blamed.⁴

However, one of the main causes is that we now live in a very safe and regulated environment, which has made our bodies less able to withstand changes in the atmosphere.

Stated differently, the addition of appliances such as air conditioners, coolers, and heaters has weakened our bodies’ ability to withstand sudden changes in temperature.³

Clinical features:
Runny nose, congestion, headache, sore throat, cough, muscular discomfort, sneezing, poor energy, headache-pressure, hemorrhagic conjunctivitis, swelling and redness in one or both eyes, fever, and coughing are some of the symptoms.²

The usual treatment:
It might be limited to over-the-counter drugs that ease symptoms, such as cough suppressants, antipyretics, decongestants, and antihistamines.²

Differential diagnosis:
Depending on the symptomatology, it can be differentiated with:

• Sinusitis – Acute or Chronic
• Hay Fever
• Myalgia
• Typhoid fever
• Upper Respiratory Tract Infection (URTI)
• Lower Respiratory Tract Infection (LRTI)
• Pyrexia of Unknown Origin (PUO)

The guiding factor can be observing regular patterns of developing symptoms and realising if they happen when the weather changes.

Prevention:
Even as a preventive mode of treatment, Homoeopathy can work wonderfully and save one from going into troubles of “Weather change sickness”.

Apart from that, taking a balanced diet and taking care of your health can prevent you from falling regularly sick, though it can’t always be well maintained given the amount of stress and hustle, our culture has grown into.

Do’s and do not’s:
There are certain things one can do to maintain a good level of health when the weather changes.¹

• Drink plenty of water.
• Active walking, mild stretching or yoga at home or in nature.
• Eat balanced diet.
• Get plenty of sleep and meditate to reduce anxiety or stress levels.
• Use handkerchief/tissue while sneezing or coughing.
• Try to avoid over the counter painkillers on regular basis – they do more harm than help.

Homoeopathic approach:
A successful remedy can be found in the homoeopathic medical system. For every change in weather, there are many medications available.

For instance, Rhododendron is useful when rheumatic symptoms worsen during or before overcast weather, and Allium Cepa is a highly efficient homoeopathic medication for people who notice an increase in nasal allergies when the weather turns from cold to hot.

Homoeopathy recognizes and addresses weather-sensitive individuals based on their unique symptoms.

For example, a homoeopathic medicine prescription for someone whose symptoms worsen when they step outside after being in a warm room would be different than one for someone whose condition worsens when they enter a warm room after being outside.

The “high degree of individualization” that homoeopathy possesses over the traditional system in treating this kind of condition is what sets it apart from the latter.³

Few homoeopathic medicines:
There are different homoeopathic remedies for different kinds of symptoms different individuals develop during change of weather.

For clearning my point, I have hereby attached two images⁵ listing number of remedies that are known to be helpful in such cases.

Since there are many remedies to choose from, it’s always advised to visit a homoeopath near you, rather than taking any remedy based on your own biased knowledge.

Moreover, taking a good prescription from a homoeopathic doctor not only helps you in alleviating your current troubles but he/she can also suggest you to take remedies to control your tendency so that the frequency of “weather change sickness” reduces until it stops completely and sets you free.

Indications of few common homoepathic remedies, that show weather change sickness phenomenon:-

• Aconitum napellus – Acute, sudden, and violent invasion, with fever, call for it. Complaints and tension caused by exposure to dry, cold weather, draught of cold air, checked perspiration, also complaints from very hot weather, especially gastro-intestinal disturbances, etc.
• Allium cepa – Specially adapted to phlegmatic patients; colds in damp cold weather.
• Ammonium carb – Fat patients with weak heart, wheezing, feel suffocated. Very sensitive to cold air.
• Arsenicum album – Ars should be thought of in complaints that return annually. Periodicity marked with adynamia. Septic fevers. Intermittent. Paroxysms incomplete, with marked exhaustion. Hay-fever. Cold sweats.
• Bryonia alba – Bryonia affects especially the constitution of a robust, firm fiber and dark complexion, with tendency to leanness and irritability. It prefers the right side, the evening, and open air, warm weather after cold days, to manifest its action most markedly.
• Calcarea carb – Persons of scrofulous type, who take cold easily, with increased mucous secretions. Affections caused by working in water. Great sensitiveness to cold; partial sweats. Worse, from exertion, mental or physical; ascending; cold in every form; water, washing, moist air, wet weather; during full moon; standing.
• Calcarea phos – Worse, exposure to damp, cold weather, melting snow. Better, in summer; warm, dry atmosphere.
• Causticum – Worse, dry, cold winds, in clear fine weather, cold air; from motion of carriage. Better, in damp, wet weather; warmth. Heat of bed.
• Chamomilla – Worse, by heat, anger, open air, wind, night. Better, from being carried, warm wet weather.
• Chelidonium majus – Ailments brought on or renewed by change of weather. Serous effusions.
• Dulcamara – Hot days and cold nights towards the close of summer are especially favorable to the action of Dulcamara, and is one of the remedies that correspond in their symptoms to the conditions found as effects of damp weather, colds after exposure to wet, especially diarrhœa.
• Gelsemium sempervirens – General depression from heat of sun. Sensitive to a falling barometer; cold and dampness brings on many complaints.
• Graphites – Tendency to skin affections and constipation, fat, chilly, and costive, with delayed menstrual history, take cold easily.
• Hepar sulphuris – Chilliness, hypersensitiveness, splinter-like pains, craving for sour and strong things are very characteristic. Feeling as if wind were blowing on some part. Worse, from dry cold winds; cool air; slightest draught, from Mercury, touch; lying on painful side. Better, in damp weather, from wrapping head up, from warmth, after eating.
• Ipecacuanha – Especially indicated in fat children and adults, who are feeble and catch cold in relaxing atmosphere; warm, moist weather.
• Kali carb – Sensitive to every atmospheric change, and intolerance of cold weather. Tendency to tuberculosis; constant cold taking; better in warm climate.
• Kali sulphuricum – Cough; worse in evening and in hot atmosphere. Croupy hoarseness.
• Mercurius solubilis – All Mercury symptoms are worse at night, from warmth of bed, from damp, cold, rainy weather, worse during perspiration. A human “thermometer”. Sensitive to heat and cold.
• Mezereum – Pains of various kinds, with chilliness and sensitiveness to cold air.
• Natrium carb – Great debility caused by summer heat; chronic effects of sunstroke. Mental weakness and depression; worries; very sensitive to noise; colds, change of weather. Anxious and restless during thunderstorm.
• Natrum sulphuricum – A liver remedy, especially indicated for the so-called hydrogenoid constitution, where the complaints are such as are due to living in damp houses, basements, cellars. They are worse in rainy weather, water in any form. Feels every change from dry to wet; cannot even eat plants growing near water, nor fish. Always feels best in warm, dry air.
• Nux moschata – Worse, cold moist wind, cold food, cold washing, lying on painful side, motion, jar. Better, warmth, dry weather.
• Nux vomica – Nux patients are easily chilled, avoid open air, etc. Chilly; must be covered in every stage of fever.
• Petroleum – Ailments are worse during the winter season. Worse, dampness, before and during a thunder-storm. Better, warm air; lying with head high; dry weather.
• Phosphorous – Great susceptibility to external impressions, to light, sound, odors, touch, electrical changes, thunder-storms. Suddenness of symptoms. Worse, touch; physical or mental exertion; twilight; warm food or drink; change of weather, from getting wet in hot weather; evening.
• Psorinum – Psorinum is a cold medicine; wants the head kept warm, wants warm clothing even in summer. Extreme sensitiveness to cold. Often gives immunity from cold-catching.
• Pulsatilla pratensis – The weather-cock among remedies. The patient seeks the open air; always feels better there, even though he is chilly. Mucous membranes are all affected. Discharges thick, bland, and yellowish-green.
• Ranunculus bulbosus – Shocks throughout the whole body. Sensitive to air and touch. Worse, open air, motion, contact, atmospheric changes, wet, stormy weather, evening. Cold air brings on all sorts of ailments.
• Rhododendron ferrugineum – Rheumatism in the hot season. The modality (worse before a storm) is a true guiding symptom. Worse, before a storm. All symptoms reappear in rough weather, night, towards morning. Better, after the storm breaks, warmth, and eating.
• Rhus toxicodendron – Rheumatism in the cold season. Sneezing; coryza from getting wet. Limbs stiff paralyzed. The cold fresh air is not tolerated; it makes the skin painful. Worse, during sleep, cold, wet rainy weather and after rain; at night, during rest, drenching, when lying on back or right side. Better, warm, dry weather, motion; walking, change of position, rubbing, warm applications, from stretching out limbs.
• Rumex – Cough provoked by change of air, cool or warm, or change in the rhythm of respiration.
• Silicea – Lack of vital heat. Prostration of mind and body. Great sensitiveness to taking cold. Silica patient is cold, chilly, hugs the fire, wants plenty warm clothing, hates drafts, hands and feet cold, worse in winter.
• Sulphur – When carefully-selected remedies fail to act, especially in acute diseases, it frequently arouses the reactionary powers of the organism. Complaints that relapse. Better, dry, warm weather.
• Tuberculinum – Lax fiber, low recuperative powers, and very susceptible to changes in the weather. Worse, motion, music; before a storm; standing; dampness; from draught; early morning, and after sleep. Better, open air.
• Veratrum album – Worse, at night; wet, cold weather. Cough on entering warm room from cold air.⁶

Homoeopathy is a gentle way of healing and conditions like “Weather change sickness” which demands strong immunity to withstand the seasonal changes can be well fought off with its help.

The philosophical approach of Homoeopathy –
Even our master Dr. Hahnemann has mentioned in our Organon of Medicine, about weather change sickness in terms of acute diseases, and how it goes deeper into organism when occurs repeatedly. He has also mentioned the ways to treat it from its roots.

In aphorism 73, he mentioned, “Excesses in food, or an insufficient supply of it, severe physical impression, chills, over heatings, dissipation, strains, etc., or physical irritations, mental emotions, and the like, are exciting causes of such acute febrile affections; in reality, however, they are generally only a transient explosion of latent psora, which spontaneously returns to its dormant state if the acute diseases were not of too violent a character and were soon quelled.”

Homoeopathic rubrics related to the condition
The weather change sickness finds its equivalent representation in almost every general repertory. Our master, Dr.Kent has given in Generalities sections of his repertory, “Repertory of Homoeopathic Materia medica” different rubrics, like,

• Air, draft, agg.
• Air, sensation of, as if fanned.
• Air, open, agg.
• Air, open, amel.
• Cold, becoming, agg.
• Cold, becoming, amel.
• Cold, after, agg.
• Cold, a part of body, agg.
• Cold, feet.
• Cold, hand, out of bed.
• Cold, head.
• Cold, dry weather, agg.
• Cold, heat and cold.
• Cold, place, entering a, agg.
• Cold, tendency to take.
• Dry weather, agg.
• Periodicity, annually.
• Periodicity, complaints return at same hour.
• Spring, in.
• Walking, in open air, agg.
• Walking, in open air, amel.
• Warm, agg
• Warm, air agg.
• Warm becoming in, open air, agg.
• Warm bed, agg.
• Wind
• Wind, cold.
• Wind, riding in, amel.
• Wind, warm, south
• Wind, sensation of.
• Wind, blowing on covered parts.
• Windy and stormy weather.

The purpose of mentioning such rubrics is to signify the superiority of Homoeopathy over modern medicine in curing the weather change sickness.

CONCLUSION
Whatever the cause be, the aggravating factor, or the tendency to get affected from sudden change in weather, one can find a firm solution of Weather change sickness in homoeopathy.

REFERENCES:

1. What is weather change sickness? patient.info. Available from: https://patient.info/news-and-features/why-does-a-change-in-the-weather-give-me-a-cold
2. Weather Change Sickness: Symptoms And Home Remedies. TheHealthSite. 2023 [cited 2024 Jul 8]. Available from: https://www.thehealthsite.com/home-remedies/weather-change-sickness-symptoms-and-home-remedies-963290/
3. MD DVS. Weather Changes and homeopathy. Homeopathy at DrHomeo.com. 2007 [cited 2024 Jul 8]. Available from: https://www.drhomeo.com/weather-changes/57/
4. Weather change sickness. HealthKart. 2022 [cited 2024 Jul 21]. Available from: https://www.healthkart.com/connect/weather-change-sickness/
5. Synthesis app, Version 2.0, Radaropus.com
6. William Boericke, Homoeopathic Materia medica

Dr. Kajol Gupta
MD Scholar, Dept Of Homoeopathic Repertory and Case Taking
Govt. Homoeopathic Medical College and Hospital, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh
Email id – officialkgupta21@gmail.com