Can Homeopathy help with the treatment of ADHD?

“If a child came into my clinic who was severely hyperactive, easily terrified, and inclined to violent agitation and fits of rage I would consider the remedy Stramonium”.

While the levels of ADHD continue to rise in Ireland the need to look at alternative treatments is ever more pressing. This is especially true if you consider the disturbing evidence from studies on laboratory rats that giving Ritalin-type drugs to adolescents may cause mental health problems when they are adults.

Common side effects of ADD/ADHD medication are restlessness, anxiety, tremors, headaches, allergic reactions, dizziness, abdominal discomfort, heart arrhythmia, increased blood pressure and psychosis (including hallucination).

Children who take these drugs are also known to experience a reduced appetite, and in part as a result of this, some children experience a dramatic reduction in height. When a drug can have such harmful systematic effects as reducing a child’s height, one has to acknowledge that such drugs can create other significantly serious impacts on the lives of the children who take them.

Clearly, it makes sense for parents and doctors to explore and even exhaust safer methods of treating ADD and ADHD before resorting to conventional drugs.

Homeopathic medicines provide one viable alternative, and several double-blind studies published in medical journals have confirmed good results and much safer treatment.

Homeopathy is a gentle form of medicine with none of the side-effects of conventional medicine. Homeopathy works on the premise of ‘like curing like’.

For example, if a child came our clinic who was severely hyperactive, easily terrified, and inclined to violent agitation and fits of rage I would consider the remedy Stramonium.

Stramonium, like potatoes, is from the nightshades family. This plant contains the mental and emotional states listed above. Homeopathic remedies do not contain any chemical residue of the original substance, but through a method of succusion holds onto the energetic picture of the substance.

By giving the body Stramonium in homeopathic potency, the body cannot have the same symptom twice, so the body responds to the incoming stimulus and therefore cures itself of it’s own ailments.

Homeopathic remedies are rich in mental symptoms and emotional states.  There are thousands of homeopathic remedies to choose from, so the experience of the homeopath in choosing the right remedy will determine it’s success.  Sometimes you have to try a few remedies before you find the magic pill!