Hi Lindy,
My expertise is in homeopathic medicine, which is different from naturopathic medicine. Naturopaths tend to be the ones who prescribe a lot of supplements and vitamins. I'm really not a big advocate of them myself.
Don't get me wrong--I am not advocating a steady diet of junk food. But, I feel eating should remain one of the pleasures in life. I try to encourage moderation in everything.
As I said, I am not a nutritionist or herbalist, though I have studied both of those some. But, I'll give you my off the cuff recommendations.
For ITP, as well as any auto-immune disease, I think you should definitely optimize your Vitamin D levels. There are a lot of particulars that you should be aware of with this, and I recommend googling Dr. Joseph Mercola's website, specifically on Vitamin D. He has some very good information on it, compiled from many sources.
Both Vitamin C and Vitamin K are very good for supporting the integrity of the blood vessels and for clotting. I'm not so sure these should be taken as fractionated vitamins, though. I prefer to get them from whole foods and/or drinks in the diet, such as juicing, or through one of the whole food supplements, such as Standard Process.
Nettle leaf tea is very high in Vitamin K, and is also recommended for osteoarthritis by many, so that may be something you may want to incorporate in your diet. I used to drink it during my pregnancies, and found it quite tasty made up into iced tea.
I do like the cell salts, aka tissue salts or biochemic remedies, for any nutritional deficiencies. I have seen these really make a huge difference in a very short time, in those who have malabsorption issues. You can do a search online to find out the indications for the 12 tissue salts, to choose which might be more appropriate for you. There is also one called Bioplasma, that contains all 12 of the tissue salts. That might be a good option for you, since nearly all of the cell salts have as a symptom, falling out of the hair. These are homeopathic remedies, but in very low potency (6X).
My experience is that they do not seem to interfere with the constitutional remedy, which is typically given in a much higher potency. The tissue salts seem to work as a very effective mineral supplement. Calc-phos 6X and Ferrum-phos 6X are very effective for anemia. Calc-phos 6X is excellent for both preventing and treating osteoporosis.
Here is an interesting article on the effectiveness of the cell salts:
CELL SALTS FOR MALNUTRITION by DAVID LITTLE
These comments on the 12 Cell Salts are from David Little. He is a very well regarded Homeopath with extensive clinical experience and Knowledge.
Hello Everyone,
Hering suggested studying the relationship between the nutritional minerals and homoeopathic signs and symptoms. The symptoms of the minerals, plants and animals remedies reflect a very sophisticated view of the nutritional actions in the MM. This includes malnutrition (nutrition based disorders) and mal-assimilation (lack of absorption) which have similar yet opposite affects. Schlussler got the idea for his biochemical system from Hering but made his own system of 12 biochemical remedies call the "cell salts". These nutritional elements make up several important homoeopathic remedies. Homoeopaths who work with malnutrition have collected a large amount of information on the relationships of homoeopthic remedies to malnutrition and mal-assimilation. The cell salts is a more limited system but the idea that malnutrition and mal-assimlation produced a syndrome of signs and symptoms similar to certain homoeopathic remedies is well founded. The remedies for these conditions can be found among the remedies of mineral, plant and animal worlds.
Many years ago a friend of mine in Nepal was treating some very ill people with just the 12 cell salts. He was testing to see how far one could go just on those indications. The reason for this was that many of the simple villagers could use such a simple medicine as an alternative to the crudest, worst allopathy in the world. He told me that these remedies really worked well although not as deeply nor successfully as homoeopathic remedies. The point was he could teach a lay person in the village the system in a reasonable amount of time. As I was a homoeopath with experience of the 3rd world, he asked me to help him run a study with him.
I helped him develop his project and taught him the deeper aspects of the materia medica related to nutritional minerals. For several months, I give my test cases that used the 12 cell salts, in all cases where it was not too serious to delay homoeopathic treatment. I was shocked with how well we did! We treated 100's of cases in this manner and followed them for months. As this was a study of nutritional minerals, I noted the possible vitamin and mineral deficiencies, and the homoeopathic signs of malnutrition and mal-assimlation. I was amazed to see malnourished children, with many classical signs of malnutrition, protein deficiencies, and low resistance, suddenly begin to show signs of deep healing *without any change in the diet*.
We tried orthodox vitamins and minerals on other children who were ill in general and showed classical signs of deficiency. The supplements made many of these children sick and they could not assimilate them. Supplements made little over all change in most cases except some of the more gross signs of deficiency. The children on homoeopathic nutrition gained weight, strength, vitality, and resistance although they all ate the same diet, lived in the same poverty, under the same poor hygienic conditions. I saw this with my own eyes. I had seen better results with the homoeopathic materia medica but this was done with only 12 mineral remedies by lay persons, under my direction.
Such a thing is hard to believe but I studied this for 6 months in the worst of conditions in one of the poorest countries on earth. I do not use the cells salts in such a manner in my daily practice, as an experienced homoeopath can do far more with the complete MM, but this study opened my eyes to the power of homoeopathic nutrition. I wrote up the essence of the information and presented it to the gentleman who had initiated the research in Nepal. Since that time, I have paid close attention to the effects of the nutritional minerals in the homoeopathic materia medica and their provings, as well as their plant and animal analogs. The nutritional aspects of homoeopathy have not yet been completely understood. I wonder what Hering would tell me to do next?
The cost of the 12 cell salts in this study was minimal, the knowledge needed moderate, and the benefit was maxim. Compare this with expensive allopathic medicine and nutritional supplements that have a much more limited therapeutic range. Also compare the side-effects and suppression. The number of aggravations was low and only a few cases responded with negative reactions which needed intervention. How did these people, on a meager diet of white rice, a little over-seasoned dal, and little else, gain strength, health, and recover from many acute and chronic complaints? Remember, we used only 12 cell salts in *General Practice in Asia* and did not specialize in "nutritional cases". We only specialized in homoeopathic nutrition. I treated virulent acute diseases like typhoid, amebic dysentery, bacillary dysentery, unknown fevers, as well as, all the degenerative diseases of the elderly. The quality of life in the young, the chronic, and elderly increased greatly. I did not think such a thing was possible with 12 nutritional mineral remedies in 6x.. This shows just how adaptable the human organism is when given dynamic nutrition. This is not possible with orthodox supplements.
April
Topic Author
. I get my next blood draw in a couple of weeks.