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Homeopathic Remedies for Ulcerative Colitis

Ulcerative colitis, or UC, is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease that is characterized by ulcers and inflammation throughout your colon. Symptoms can include diarrhea, blood in your stool and bleeding or pus-filled bowels, anemia, fatigue and weight loss, skin lesions and joint pain. Because the disease is chronic, allopathic medicine is focused on reducing frequency and duration of flare-ups through behavior modification and immunosuppressants. However holistic treatments have shown promise in this area as well.

  1. Background

    • The most common theory of homeopathic treatment is that "like cures like." This means that an extremely diluted form of a usually poisonous substance-- usually in the form of a tablet that quickly dissolves when placed under the tongue--that produces similar symptoms can trigger your body's natural defenses to heal you. This is tricky for patients who suffer from UC because the disease is a disorder in which the immune system is overactive to begin with. Some homeopathic physicians will instead attempt to correct UC by looking at other factors in your life, such as stress, fears and neuroses, to help resolve underlying factors that may precipitate the cause, while at the same time soothing the symptoms of UC.

    Remedies

    • There are a number of specific homeopathic remedies for UC. They may include colocynthis (bitter apple or bitter cucumber), lilium tigrinum (tiger lilly), argentum nitricum (silver nitrate), asafetida (stinking gum), lycopodium (club moss), natrum carbonicum (sodium carbonite), nux vomica (strychnine), podophyllum (mayapple) or sulphur.

    Dosing Instructions

    • Most homeopathic remedies come as pellets that dissolve under your tongue, liquids that you add to water, or tablets that you may swallow. For UC, you should use homeopathic medicines that are of lower potency (less diluted). Most homeopathic physicians suggest that a patient should take one dose and wait for a reaction. If there is improvement, you should let the remedy continue to work. However, once the improvement lags, you may take another dose. For a chronic condition such as UC, you can take doses of lower-potency medications several times an hour to several times a day, depending on your homeopathic physician's instructions.

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