Irritable Bowel? Ulcerative Colitis? Help at hand? Medical science suggests an antidepressive drug might be helpful!

The nonsense coming out of the pharmaceutical medicine establishment is constant. The latest the news that medical science is going to see if an antidepressant drug, amitriptyline, can treat irritable bowel disease (ulcerative colitis). What is more frightening than this trickle of nonsense is that this is dangerous nonsense; and we are not being told about these dangers.

The BBC, always willing to support medical science, and the pharmaceutical industry, in any way it can, is at the forefront of this propaganda campaign.

               "A medical trial is being held to see if a drug developed as an anti-depressant could become a common treatment for Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). Amitriptyline has sometimes been prescribed to people with IBS when other treatments have been ineffective."

Pharmaceutical medicine could certainly do with an effective treatment for IBS, or Ulcerative Colitis, and such headlines will certainly raise the hopes of the 12 million people that the IBS Network estimates suffer from this condition, in the UK alone.

And certainly, the drug amitriptyline (as with all other antidepressant drugs) have a hopeless record in treating depression. So perhaps a new use for the drug would be welcomed by the pharmaceutical industry.

BUT AMITRIPTYLINE IS A DANGEROUS DRUG. It is already known to have the most atrocious side effects. It carries warnings about suicidal thinking and behaviour, as well as other major side effects, including abdominal and stomach pain (sic), confusion, convulsions and seizures, irregular heartbeat, depression and anxiety (sic), and much else.

NO-ONE SHOULD TAKE AMIPRIPTYLINE WITHOUT READING THIS FULL LIST OF KNOWN SIDE EFFECTS! And don't be fooled by the 'incidence not known' cover up. These side effects are common, but just how common doctors don't want us to know.

So did the BBC tell us about this? Of course not. They never do. The BBC sees itself as a drug sales outfit, willing to tell patients about the 'good' news, but keeping the 'bad' news to itself.

Irritable Bowel is a deeply painful and distressing condition, and it is best treated with homeopathy. I have written about the homeopathic treatment of IBS here, comparing it with conventional medical treatment. Patients with IBS are already sick enough, without being asked to risk the dreadful side effects of antidepressant drugs like amitriptyline.

Bowel Cancer - An operation - Then 5 years of alternating diarrhoea/constipation - Then a complete cure - Thanks to homeopathy!

When treating illness with homeopathy you sometimes hear of cases of cure that are really quite amazing. I got to know about this case when a colleague posted a serious illness on the ARH (Alliance of Registered Homeopaths) members' discussion group. It concerned her husband, who had bowel cancer over 5 years ago, and who subsequently suffered from alternate periods of diarrhoea and constipation that changed their lives.

I asked whether I could post her experience on this blog and she and her husband agreed to do so. More than that, she provided me with this short synopsis of the case history, which is given here in bold italics. My comments are interspersed.

I am a qualified homoeopath. I graduated in 2003, after a 4 year part-time course at the College of Homoeopathy (Midlands). 

In late July 2013 my husband was diagnosed with bowel cancer and surgery was performed in late August 2013. The cancer was located in the sigmoid colon and during surgery 18 inches of colon was removed. Doctors decided that neither chemotherapy or radiotherapy was needed. The surgery was considered a success in that all the cancer had been removed. For the next 5 years he was monitored by the surgeon’s team and the cancer did not return.

Post SurgeryWhilst still in hospital symptoms of painful, alternate diarrhoea and constipation began. He was in extreme distress (especially with the diarrhoea). The day after surgery, and unable to reach the bathroom in time, he pulled a red cord for assistance from the nursing staff but none came. 

He was discharged on about 2nd September. I cannot remember whether it was that first evening back home or the next that he experienced severe diarrhoea. He spent the evening having diarrhoea. The washing machine was in use all that evening since he had to change his pyjama trousers several times! The experience was very distressing for him. We had not been warned by the surgeon to expect such extreme post surgery symptoms so we thought them to be something that had to be expected.

However, this was to be forerunner of the next five years!
The distress that was caused by this alternating diarrhoea and constipation was considerable, and the hospital were quite aware of the condition, and the stress that it was causing.

At all consultations over the next 5 years the surgical team expressed surprise when he told them about his symptoms. He was told the symptoms were ... unusual!  It was suggested he try 'Loperamide', a conventional medication for diarrhoea, which, whilst relieving him of the symptoms, temporarily, did nothing permanently to relieve the problem. At one such consultation it was even said by a registrar that “mistakes do happen ...”  We were stunned!

So for 5 years, following successful surgery for bowel cancer, he was left with these alternating bouts of diarrhoea and constipation, and which conventional medicine could do nothing.

He has, since surgery, needed always to wear protection, in the home and outside in the wider world - very uncomfortable.  A physical cancer had been removed only to be replaced by over 5 years of a physical and mental misery. It was life changing - for both of us. 

I was, before retirement, a member of a professional association, the Alliance of Registered Homoeopaths (ARH), which has an email forum composed of homeopaths. It is used to give and share advice, especially on difficult and ‘stuck’ cases. I have contacted the forum, a wonderful group of homeopaths, several times over the 5 years, and advice was readily forthcoming. I acted upon it, searching for a remedy that might help relieve the symptoms.

During the past 5 years my husband has taken a variety of remedies, and also consulted another homoeopath.

It is worth pointing out at this stage that homeopathy is not about 'placebo'. This case is proof of this, remedies were given over this time, and none made a significant difference to the condition.

Homeopathy means treating 'like' with 'like', that is, a remedy with a symptom picture has to be found which matches the symptoms of the patient. They do NOT act if there is not a sufficient match. In other words, none of the remedies used during this time were 'homeopathic', in the true sense, that is, they were not remedies which treated 'like' with 'like'.

In January of this year (2019) the symptoms were particularly severe. He experienced a Tsunami of diarrhoea! The condition was getting worse, so I suggested that perhaps it was time for a colonoscopy bag. It would, at least, enable him to have some sort of a life, the freedom to go out without any concern about embarrassing himself. 

I decided I would ask, one final time, for help from the ARH forum. On this occasion a homeopath gave a description of what had happened to one of her patients. The symptoms she described matched those of my husband. She had prescribed the homoeopathic remedy Sulphur. Since I had nothing to lose, and more in hope than expectation, I prescribed Sulphur for my husband... 

The symptoms, which he had been experiencing for over 5 years, immediately stopped! I was flabbergasted! It had been a ‘last chance saloon’ attempt.

The homeopathic remedy Sulphur has, probably, the widest symptom picture of any remedy which we use. Yet for this reason alone we homeopaths are regularly guilty of not using it! I have been guilty of this myself, recently, for an itch that I developed a year or so ago. Nothing I tried worked. Yet Sulphur was the 'obvious' remedy. When I started taking it, within a couple a months ago, the itch had gone!

On prescribing Sulphur, even though I had not repertorised (this is the matching process) his symptoms, the remedy matched his physical symptoms. Indeed, on reading the remedy picture again (in a materia medica of homeopathy) it was obvious that it also matched his other physical symptoms, plus, importantly, his ‘whole’ symptom picture. It was what homeopathy describes as his 'constitutional' remedy! 

It is said - often - by those who do not understand the curative action of homeopathy that, “homeopathy doesn’t work...” It quite clearly does. What this case synopsis shows clearly is that the homeopathic remedy is only truly 'homeopathic' when it matches the symptoms of the patient. Otherwise it is simply a pill. It will do no harm (as can pharmaceutical drugs), but neither will it act curatively upon the presenting symptoms.

I am more than delighted to say that after over 5 years of misery, during which time he received both homeopathic and allopathic treatment, my husband is now one month into a new freedom!

No more diarrhoea, constipation or pain

Incredible! We live again!

There are many lessons that can be learnt about homeopathy from this amazing case. The main one is that homeopathy does work, and works really well. 

However, the second is that homeopathy only works when the remedy used is truly 'homeopathic', that is, the remedy description matches the patients symptoms.