This fall and winter, there was a high incidence of coughs that did not resolve quickly. Pertussis cases were high this year (cyclical), and Whooping cough can look like bronchitis in adults. This cough is known as the 100-day cough for a reason. 

It was a weird year for coughs, and I received a lot of questions about how to treat coughs in the past three months. Before deciding on treatment, one must understand the difference between an acute cough and one connected to a chronic condition.

An acute illness lasts 3-7 days and is self-limiting. With an acute you either get better or you die, the symptoms resolve, and life continues. (One exception to this is pregnancy, an acute that lasts around nine months). An illness that resolves quickly indicates a healthy person. The symptoms produced by our body are part of a cleaning mechanism to remove toxins, which are better out than in.

How can you tell if your cough is part of an acute illness or an indicator of a chronic condition? This determination can be a little tricky; it is not uncommon for coughing and congestion to remain after an acute. Ask yourself if it interferes with sleep or everyday life. (Pertussis lasts a few months; it is an exception to the definition of an acute.)

A cough that interferes with daily life and does not resolve quickly indicates a susceptibility.

Chronic has a different meaning to a homeopath than to a conventional doctor. When people hear the word chronic, they get concerned. Allopathic medicine uses names for chronic conditions: diabetes, colitis, asthma, etc. In homeopathic terms, a chronic issue is an energetic imbalance that includes susceptibilities. That’s it, nothing scary. We all have a chronic imbalance; we are all born with Psora. Don’t be scared off by the word chronic.

If a cough interferes with your life and lasts more than a few weeks, it indicates a susceptibility, and this is chronic.

If you are interested in addressing the susceptibility with homeopathy, the best way is a chronic consultation. A chronic consultation is nearly two hours long, and it is thorough. A homeopath will look at your personal history and all the symptoms of your case. A homeopath will consider physical and mental-emotional symptoms: fears, dreams, sensations, trauma, aversions, cravings, digestion, respiration, perspiration, salivation, hormones, and even the color of your tongue. 

An acute consultation is approximately twenty minutes long, and the homeopath uses physical symptoms (mostly) to find a remedy. If it is a cough, the homeopath will want to know if there are accompanying symptoms, the locations of the symptoms, when it started, what makes the symptoms worse or better, and the sensations. (CLAMS).

With an acute consultation, the homeopath uses a small totality of symptoms to determine the remedy.

With a chronic consultation, a homeopath looks at a larger totality of symptoms, a pattern that fits the case, the golden thread that connects all the symptoms you experience. A homeopath uses a homeopathic program for a chronic case, but the analysis is thorough. (Family history may be relevant.) There is a reason the consultation is two hours long, and analyzing the case is a longer process.

If your family faced health challenges this winter, you might want to consider a chronic consultation with a homeopath. Low-cost consults in the teaching clinic are available at homeopathyhelpnow.com.

A consultation with a student practitioner will cost a little more, but a sliding scale is available for families that need a low-cost option. To consult with Keri Hessel click here. (Be sure to request me as your practitioner).

I hope this clears up some of the confusion about acute vs. chronic.