Bellyache In School Going Children

The back to school regimen is incomplete without the usual groan about the pain in the stomach that disappears as soon as the school bus passes by .

It is that time of the year when the summer vacation ends and the showers of monsoon herald the onset of another academic year. It is a time of anxiety, stress, nervousness and restlessness for the child seeing the mountain of books to be studied. Th e same pressures can create a lot of vague bodily and mental symptoms and one of the common expressions is the belly-ache.

Any illness which occurs due to the impact of the mind on the body is termed as psycho-somatic. Though the anxiety in a child at the doorstep of the school is wished away by parents with a pat and a smile it does have an impact on the body and more often than not it is expressed in a symptom like abdominal pain.

Common complaint

It is no surprise that about five to ten percent of children during the first couple of weeks of school seem to complain of belly-ache.

It is a pain which children complain that comes and goes suddenly and is not necessarily related to eating or bowel habits or for that matter of type of food they eat.

This pain is also not associated with fever, weight loss or any other symptom.

As such investigations do not reveal any pertinent change and there is no tissue or organic change revealed. For example there is no evidence of worms in stool examination or abdominal ultrasound does not reveal any changes etc.

That is enough clue that it is due to a nervous cause.

Serotonin is a chemical known to transmit the messages of pain to the local nervous system around the stomach and also to the brain which results in the typical response of pain in the abdomen. A study also reveals that about 95 per cent of this serotonin is in the gastrointestinal tract.
So it is ultimately the stress which the child is under which provokes the release of this chemical and pain is experienced.

Once it is recognised that there is no organic cause for the pain a child should be observed for relation of the pain to any particular type of food. There can be no remedy for stress but homoeopathic medicine will help in seeing that the individual can face stress in a much better way. That is why Nux vomica helps in a child when with the pain there is an urge for stool. A hurried and harried child will respond better to Arg. Nit and Ignatia will help a child prone to anxiety.

A nervous temperament of the child is helped with Ars. Alb and Phosphorus while Chamomilla helps an irritable and restless child.

When there is no organic cause and it is only a functional abdominal pain, Mag phos gives immediate relief. To keep the child in a good mood and does not fall prey to nervous causes, homoeopathy is the best bet even as the mother is hopeful of the child coming back to her in the afternoon with newfound world of numbers, letters, teachers and friendships.

Cirrhosis of liver

I used to drink alcohol for about twenty five years and have developed cirrhosis of liver. Though I have been symptom-free for about five years of late there is swelling of the legs and breathlessness on climbing stairs etc.
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A liver function test would determine if the cause is the liver or other investigations need to be done to find the probable cause. To see that the liver cells do function at the optimum even as efforts are made to see that there is no further degene ration is the need of the hour and homoeopathic medicine has good remedies like Nux vom, Lycopodium, Natrum sulph etc. which work on those lines. Consult a homoeopath.
Ingrowing nails

I suffer from pain in the toes on and off. It was determined to be due to ingrowing toe nail. The right big toe the nail had to be surgically removed. But the other big toe is now source of trouble with the same pain.
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The acute problem of pain should be helped by Belladonna and if there is formation of pus already, Hepar sulph, Echinacea should help in curtailing the infection and to see that the recurrence is restricted, Silicea should help. Consult a homoeopath.