Asthma: My daughter is suffering from asthma since many years. She is under homoeopathy for the same for 4 years. Whenever she has an attack she has to resort to allopathy, since homeopathy does not help her to overcome her attacks, so what should I do?

Is your daughter taking medicines on a regular basis? Asthma is an allergic condition where the immune system has to be brought back to its normal sensitivity. Usually patients on regular homoeopathic medicines respond well to it even during the acute attacks. Patients who take homeopathic medicines only for the acute attacks  and not for the immune system sometimes do not respond as rapidly. Many patients who are also on steroids for the control of asthma take longer to respond to homoeopathy

Bed wetting: My child is 5 years old and is still wetting the bed. What can be done?

It is abnormal for a child to continue to wet the bed after the age of 3 years. There are many causes for nocturnal enuresis (bed wetting at night). In some children there might be a history of late bladder control in the family and such children may gradually get over this problem. However it is difficult to say how soon they would be able to gain bladder control. Your doctor will look for all the possible organic causes of enuresis by advising a urine test to rule out urinary tract infection, diabetes insipidus and diabetes mellitus. In female children the cause may be pin worms and so a stool test for the ova of these parasites may help in detecting the cause. A physical examination of the urinary organs will help to rule out any anatomical defects that could cause bed wetting. Emotional causes like fear or insecurity should be dealt with by counseling or treatment.

You should do the following to help your child gain control over the bladder:

1. Make your child urinate before going to bed.

2. No fluids like water, milk, juices to be given to your child at least 2 hours before 

    bed time.

3. Even if the child wets the bed at night, you must wake your child and make

    him/her urinate again in the toilet.

4. During the day, when your child wishes to go to the toilet, ask him/her to control

    the urge for 5 minutes. After about a week, ask your child to control the urge to 

    urinate for 10 minutes. This will help increase the capacity of the bladder and 

    your  child will also learn to improve the voluntary control over the bladder.

5. Make sure that your child maintains good local hygiene.

You may visit your nearest homeopath to treat this problem with the help of constitutional medicines.

High cholesterol: There is a history of high cholesterol in my family. What tests should I go for?

You should get your full lipid profile done. This is a blood test that has to be done after at least 12-14 hours of overnight fasting. The values of the total cholesterol and triglycerides are measured along with the HDL (good) cholesterol and the LDL (bad) cholesterol levels. It is important to have high HDL and low LDL/VLDL cholesterol in your blood.

You should also get your fasting and post lunch blood sugar levels checked to rule out the possibility of diabetes mellitus being associated with your high lipid levels.

Yes, most cases of enlarged tonsils can be treated with homeopathic medicines. Even recurrent infections of the tonsils and enlargement of the adenoids can be treated effectively with homeopathic medicines. There are certain cases like fibrosed and scarred tonsils that may not respond to homeopathy. This is because the disease has been persisting for a long time and certain irreversible changes have occurred in the tonsils that will need the help of a surgeon's knife.