#cases in homeopathy

[drsauravarora]

Enhancing Homeopathy Through Quality Case Reports: Insights from Dr. Saurav Arora's Webinar

Recently, Dr. Saurav Arora, an internationally acclaimed medical homeopath, conducted a webinar titled “The Art of Writing Scientific Cases in Homeopathy“. This enlightening session, available on this channel, delved into the critical need for high-quality, evidence-based case reports in homeopathy. (Link – https://youtu.be/399HlkzIGAo ) ##The Importance of Good Case Reports There is a…

[dedoholistic]

Asthmatic Bronchitis in an 18- Month-Old Child

Maria Teresa De Donato, Ph.D. - Traditional Naturopath, Homeopath, Author

[shettyhomeopathy]

Homeopathy treats challenging cases. It treats the person as a whole and not as parts.It believes in individualisation. It removes diseases from its roots. It increases the vitality of the patient and treats challenging cases

[pocket-deer-boy]

it's just a massive scam- see, because it's fucking nothing, people selling homeopathic medicine will often claim that for it to start working you just have to keep taking it. You have to be patient. You haven't been patient enough yet, buy some more. Or that sometimes the symptoms get worse before they get better. Which means you have to keep buying the medicine of course! And by the time the patient realizes the medicine doesn't do anything, it might be too late to consider conventional treatments (and in the case of the US, they've already forked over probably hundreds of dollars to nothing treatments, which means they're even less able to afford conventional treatments over the relatively cheaper homeopathic ones.)

almost worse than someone putting a single snide comment in a salient post you otherwise agree with: a post with good medical advice you know to be true where it slowly becomes clear that op also practises homeopathy or something

[spartanmemesmedical]

Can Ayush doctor (BAMS),Homeopathy,Naturopathy ,Dietician,Physiotherapy Doctors work in the UK. Useful courses and vacancies in UK

Hello everyone ,i hope you are doing good . well,the topic is about Ayush (BAMS),homeopathy,naturopathy ,physiotherapist ,dietician doctors work in the UK and Useful courses and vacancies in UK. so answer is yes ,definitely they can work in uk .but the position may same or different if you compare with your own country .so now the question is about how they can work and what they have to do for…

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

Im doing a project about disinformation (specifically pseudoscience) and I've found a great paper that is trying to define pseudoscience by one common characteristic.

"Boudry and Braeckman (2011) have distinguished between ‘immunizing strategies’ and ‘epistemic defense mechanisms’, documenting how these appear in various guises in practically every pseudoscience (the relationship with Popper’s “conventionalist stratagems” will be discussed in 4.1). Immunizing strategies are defined as generic arguments or tactics that serve to protect a belief system from critical scrutiny and adverse evidence, while defense mechanisms refer to the special cases in which the immunizing tactics form an integral part of the belief system itself. (...) In many pseudoscience, core concepts are either ambiguous and amenable to a range of interpretations, or they are retrospectively redefined whenever threatened with refutation. Such strategic vagueness is characteristic of creationism and Intelligent Design theory, astrology, Freudian psychoanalysis, graphology, homeopathy, and various forms of alternative medicine." - Diagnosing Pseudoscience – by Getting Rid of the Demarcation Problem, Maarten Boudry

I just thought it might be relevant in your fight against astrology/anti-science crowd. Science doesn't try to immunize itself against scrutiny, only pseudo-science does.

I want to be so clear here that I do pretty vigorously disagree with the notion that everyone working in the sciences is a noble intellectual who's always open to new data and loves being proven wrong. anyone can be a shithead and I never made the claim that every psychologist in the world is a beacon of perfect, unbiased research and is above reproach. of COURSE some scientists try to immunize themselves against scrutiny, for any number of reasons including biased ones because people in any field can be real shitheads who 100% let their own bigotries color their work. that of course includes psychologists, given that psychologists are human and therefore fallible.

my stance is not and has never been "psychology is superior to astrology because it's an academically unblemished field of study," it's "psychology is more credible than astrology because it's a.) a field of study that is at least held to some standards and b.) dedicated to studying something that demonstrably has an effect on human behavior, unlike planetary movements."

[rainbowsky]

I'm so torn. As a tennis fan and as a human I loathe Djokovic almost as much as I love Yibo. I desperately hope Yibo does not become friends on any level with that fool, or become infected with any of his fucked up ideas.

In case you are unaware, Novak Djokovic is an anti-science, passionate anti-vaxxer, who believes in homeopathy and a whole bunch of other really batshit things. For example he has told people that you can clean polluted food and water with the power of your emotions, and he became gluten free because a 'nutritionist' told him he was weaker when he was holding a slice of bread in his hand.

During COVID-19 he refused to get vaccinated and spread a lot of dangerous ideas that likely cost lives, and he himself personally infected a whole bunch of people. I can't stand that guy. He's the Gwyneth Paltrow of tennis.

I'm really glad that Yibo is having fun, and I'm glad that he is having an exciting experience, but I hate that he is being associated in any way with Djokovic.

[wiisagi-maiingan]

So just to be clear, and in case anyone truly did not know, anything that's labeled as "homeopathic" is a placebo. It's either water or sugar pills. This is not an exaggeration, that is literally what homeopathy is. It's not a natural remedy, it's not a form of traditional medicine, it's not something your ancestors practiced, it is a placebo.

[tuulikki]

Ooohhhhh my god I can't believe

Homeopathy? For real? You're telling me to take a pill/cream from the people who believe that water has a memory?

Just in case anyone needs a refresher on this bullshit:

Homeopathy is based on the law of similars (‘like cures like’) which states that a substance that causes specific symptoms in a healthy person can be used to treat those symptoms in a sick person. Remedies undergo a process called ‘potentization’ which describes stepwise dilution from the ‘mother tincture’ combined with ‘succession’ (vigorous shaking). The underlying assumption is that the more dilute a remedy the greater its potency, even though according to Avogadro's number, with potencies beyond 12C (12 centesimal dilutions) the chance of a single molecule remaining in the final solution tends to the infinitesimal.

TL;DR: If you were bitten by a snake, homeopathy would try to cure you by giving you the venom from the snake. But don't worry! They also believe that diluting the active ingredient makes it more potent!

"As world-renowned scientific skeptic James Randi put it: 'this would be tantamount to grinding a grain of rice into tiny particles, dissolving it in a sphere of water the size of our Solar System, and then repeating this process about 2 billion times.' One of the ways by which followers of homeopathy deal with such criticism is their claim that water retains a memory of the substance: even after it is gone its properties are embedded in the water molecules."

[drsauravarora]

The Art of Writing Cases in Homeopathy Podcast

Listen to the excerpts of the talk on – Art of Writing Cases in Homeopathy by Dr Saurav Arora. This important topic discusses the need of writing the cases methodically so as to add a value to evidence based homeopathy.

[demi-shoggoth]

2023 Reading Log, pt 13

I've been putting off writing this one for a while, because all of these books are... fine? I didn't feel very strongly about them any way, either positively or negatively. Plus, I've been strongly burnt out on writing in general, and it's been hard for me to push myself to even write little 100 word blurbs about books.

61. Strange Japanese Yokai by Kenji Murakami, translated by Zack Davisson. It’s rare that I get the opportunity to read a yokai book originally written in Japanese, seeing as I don’t speak the language, so I jumped on the chance to get a copy of this when I found out it existed. It’s cute, with cartoony artwork and little data file sidebars that remind me of a Scholastic book… except the content is far weirder than what American kids books contain. The theme of the yokai stories here is that a lot of yokai… kind of suck. The stories told about the big hitters, like oni, kappa, kitsune and tanuki, are about them being foolish or having easily exploited weaknesses, and a lot of the other stories are about gross or pathetic yokai more than scary or impressive ones. The book is overall charming, but a very quick read. More of a supplement to other yokai books than a one-stop shop.

62. Mythical Creatures of Maine by Christopher Packard. This is a bit of an odd duck, seeing as it combines multiple monster traditions (fearsome critters, cryptids and Native American lore) under the same set of covers. It’s a pretty typical A-Z monster book, with some good information about obscure fearsome critters and Wabanaki monsters. There are, however, two things about the book I actively dislike, that keep me from strongly recommending it. The art is terrible. The illustrations by Dan Kirchoff are done in a style I can only describe as “fake woodcuts with flat colors” and are ugly (and in some cases, difficult to decipher). The other is that most, but not all of the monsters, get little microfiction epigrams in the character of Burton Marlborough Packard, the author’s great-great grandfather who worked in the Maine lumberwoods. It’s a weird touch, especially since the epigrams are only a sentence or two, and are typically pretty pointless.

63. Mushrooms: A Natural and Cultural History by Nicholas P. Money. There have been a number of books about fungi for the educated lay audience that have been published in the last couple of years. This one doesn’t really stand out from the crowd. The photography is nice, and there’s some coverage of the history of mycology and some of the prominent people in the field. But the book isn’t very well organized, bouncing from one topic to another within the same paragraph, and there are a number of passages that feel more like rants (the chapter on culinary uses for mushrooms, for example).

64. The Lives of Beetles by Arthur V. Evans. This book serves as an introduction to entomology in general, and beetles in particular. It covers core topics like insect body plans, introduces cladistics and covers the evolution, ecology, behavior and conservation of beetles in broad strokes. These strokes feel particularly broad because there are a lot of beetles; much of the book covers groups on the levels of family, which makes it feel a little bit shallow. These are alternated with descriptions of individual species, and this is where the book shines, as it gives good information about both well known species and some pretty obscure ones. The real value of the book, to someone who has been around the entomological block as I have, is in its production values—this book is quite simply gorgeous, and there are lots of nice photos of many different species.

65. Hoax: A History of Deception by Ian Tattersall and Peter Névraumont. This book has an identity crisis. You would think, with a title like that, that the main topic would be about hoaxes and cons. Some of it is. Some of it is about people who believed what they were pushing, even if it wasn’t true (apocalypse prophecies, homeopathy). Some of it is about misconceptions in archaeology, even if nobody was intentionally lying (the Piltdown Man is an actual hoax. Mary Leakey misidentifying rocks as human artifacts isn’t). And the organization is frankly baffling—it’s arranged in chronological order for some part of a topic, regardless of how much of the chapter is actually about when it’s set. For example, a chapter on fixed games is set at 260 BCE, but spends more of its length talking about modern pro wrestling than gladiator matches. The book is a somewhat bizarre reading experience.

[prince-simon]

Hi I was reading one of your fanfics and I came across this bit "he felt trapped, and scared, and was reminded of the times this would happen to him as a child, touch starved but scared to be touched" and I have never related to anything more. Do you know what that is? I'm sorry I'm only asking because I hope you know more about it than i do as you included it. Is it normal? Sorry for bugging you, it's ok if you don't know. Also your fanfics are AMAZING and have brought me a LOT of comfort

hi friend! first of all, i totally had to go through my recent fics to figure out which one you're referring to hahaha

but okay. story time! (disclaimer: the story sounds very scary in the beginning, and i'd be lying if i said it was comfortable but i decided to tell the whole story to hopefully give you some comfort? so. content warning for a bit of medical talk and medical conditions and mental health stuff under the cut)

so this whole thing about wille's legs/body spasming when touched (unexpectedly) is actually taken from personal experience. i haven't always had it, not that i know of at least, but there was a point when i was maybe. 16? maybe a bit younger? where i got slight tremors in my legs and over one or two weeks it just got more intense so my parents set up an appointment with our family doctor who referred me to a neurologist where i got a brain scan and everything. bc i - and my parents - went to the worst case scenario which to me was like wondering if this was some form of parkinson's disease i was developing (the thing i remember most about this is that we waited in the neurologist's waiting room for four hours even though we had an appointment only to be in the actual office with the doctor for like. 5 minutes) my brain scans came back fine and i guess i was too young to fully pay attention or understand what the doctor was saying but he's a doctor so he went with the natural solution of prescribing me meds. i ended up taking beta blockers for idk how long which worked for a bit to suppress the symptoms before the tremors came back. the doctor upped the dosage and again. it worked for a bit but i and my parents were like. am i gonna have to take these for the rest of my life? what's going on? i didn't wanna do this so my mum suggested going more of a natural route so we tried homeopathy. that guy slowly weaned me off the meds and instead gave me a bit of therapy which. lo and behold. helped. again. for a bit. at least i didn't have the tremors frequently anymore

in hindsight, i now know that it's very likely a symptom of anxiety and overstimulation in moments where my whole body just gets overwhelmed - i've had social situations in which i had just socialised so much and was also just really tired where a close friend would touch me and i'd just start spasming and just generally when i'm in stressful situations it can happen. sometimes it happens when i'm driving and something unexpected happens which is a fucking grim time bc i kinda need my legs for driving lol

so uh yeah. this was a lot of rambling i'm sorry. but tldr; for me personally those tremors are anxiety related

i hope this helped! you're also always welcome to slide into my dm's if you wanna talk more about this/your own experiences

either way i'm glad my stories bring you comfort!

[lacefuneral]

thing that sucks about fibromyalgia is that it really only started to be taken seriously by doctors the last couple of years so there isn't much information about what treatments are effective and what aren't

so a lot of people lean into like. pseudo science bc they think it will fix their pain

which is frustrating because it's like. i want to know what is actually helping people. not some anti-vax person covering themselves in arnica montana (which is a poison at best and absolutely nothing at worse, which is the case of homeopathy) and guzzling laxatives (i shouldn't have to explain why is this an issue)

the scary thing too is seeing ppl on reddit say "no yeah my doctor just mixes me a special lotion with opiods and ketamine and gabapentin" or people saying they're taking all of these medications orally. ARE YOU INSANE.

other people are like "ya my routine is simple!" and then lists no less than 10 very expensive supplements

like. okay. i do take some supplements. i am intending on trying another. but like..... can we get some actual medical professionals running trials on fibro that don't rely on extremely addictive drugs? y'know, during a fucking opioid crisis. and stop having doctors shrug at their patients and say "idk maybe go for a swim? get stabbed with needles?"

[woodsdyke]

my most recent skill is getting people to listen to my favorite weird sort-of political podcasts. im annoying enough on instagram that at least 2 people have told me they started listening to:

-maintenance phase (health misinfo debunking/diet culture)

-conspirituality (about the intersection of new age spirituality and right wing conspiracy theories)

-you're wrong about (stuff that you got the Wrong Story On. the mcdonalds hot coffee case, homosexuality in animals, the satanic panic. etc)

-books that kill (analyses of fucked up pop psych and political books and why they're absolutely wild)

and im telling u: go listen to these. conspirituality gets into some more theory heavy territory but is still lay person accessible and they once talked about whether homeopathy was vegan for 15 minutes. tws for all sorts of bad shit but everything is fully transparent at the beginnings of the eps or in the show notes

also runner up shoutout to life after MLM I just started listening but it's really good

[drbased]

It drives me mad how a typical argument is 'you should be more open minded!' in response to not believing in things like alternative healing, UFOs, etc. I've fortunately not experienced this one IRL but it's a common argument I've seen elsewhere.

First of all, I don't think that being 'open-minded' to, say, homeopathy or dowsing or ghost experiences or fucking sightings of bigfoot is really all the virtue that you're claiming it is. It has very limited real-world application and little to do with my life. So, say I'm open to the possibility that someone really did see an alien: what do I learn from this, and what wisdom do I gain from this? I used to be 'open-minded' to things like that and, if anything, in hindsight it felt like a distraction from developing real, actionable wisdom - and also it meant that I was putting money into the pockets of a people who turned out to be kinda exploitative (I don't think those things are unrelated, by the by).

Second of all, I don't think any of you really know what you mean when you say 'open-minded' - I am open-minded. I watched a very long video on UFOs today and found it fascinating and intriguing. But more importantly, I recognise that a number of things that used to be considered alternative health quackery have since become acknowledged by medical professionals - meditation, the importance of gut health, etc. I do not believe that science is necessarily 'dogmatic', and it is important to be skeptical of how studies are carried out, who is funding them, and how the media interprets them. This isn't a case of either being close-minded and pro-science, or open-minded and pro-whatever-else. But you aren't actually asking us to be 'open-minded' - you're specifically arguing that we should believe what you believe: that's the *opposite* of being open-minded. I'm the real open-minded one, here: I stay skeptical of all things and but also stay open to things that are not proven, including those that are incapable of being proven. Outside of that, I'm not really invested in these things in my day-to-day life. If bigfoot turns out to exist, then I'd be like, hey that's cool - in exact the same way as if scientists bring a predicted element into existence.

But that's kinda the problem: the 'believers' of these things have created an arbitrary split between 'science' and 'not science' when there isn't one, and then decided that we're the ones who believe in science and are close-minded to other ideas. But, in reality, we're merely approaching 'science' and 'not-science' with the exact same principle. Sure, some people are probably too willing to give too much credit to anything accepted by 'science', but that is exactly why I advocate for education in scientific literacy. For a start, 'science' isn't real! 'Science' is a catch-all term for the scientific method, the people doing the method, the results produced, the institutions that champion and collect research, the organisations funding the study, the news article sharing the study's results, etc. etc. There is no uniform body that comprises the totality of 'science' - it's a functionally meaningless term.

I apply 'science' to UFOs as much as I do antibiotics. But to the believers, 'open-minded' means willing to make exceptions so that their personal beliefs are validated. It's insecure, entitled and vain: you're assuming something about me based on criteria you made up specifically to make you seem like the intellectually superior party. You're boring, and people like you are a dime-a-dozen. The human ability to believe in random shit is exactly why we have to have the scientific method in the first place.

[dr-smita-goel-homeopathy-clinic]

*Dr. Smita Goel Homeopathy Clinic*

www.thehomeopathyclinic.co.in

A person with short stature, or restricted growth, does not grow as tall as other people of the same gender, age, and ethnicity. The person's height is below the 3rd percentile.

Short stature can be a variant of normal growth, or it may indicate a disorder or condition.

Growth rate is an important indicator of overall health. Children who do not reach the 5th percentile by the age of 5 years are said to be small for gestational age (SGA). A pediatrician will look out for signs of "failure to thrive."

Early intervention can prevent future problems in many cases.

Normally, at 8 years of age, a child's arm span is around the same as their height. If these measurements are out of proportion, this may be a sign of disproportionate short stature (DSS), sometimes known as "dwarfism."

Fast facts on short stature

Here are some key points about short stature. More detail is in the main article.

• Short stature can happen for a wide range of reasons, including having small parents, malnutrition, and genetic conditions such as achondroplasia.

• Proportionate short stature (PSS) is when the person is small, but all the parts are in the usual proportions. In disproportionate short stature (DSS), the limbs may be small compared with the trunk.

• If short stature results from a growth hormone (GH) deficiency, GH treatment can often boost growth.

• Some people may experience long-term medical complications, but intelligence is not usually affected.

Causes

Growth depends on a complex range of factors, including genetic makeup, nutrition, and hormonal influences.

The most common cause of short stature is having parents whose height is below average, but around 5 percent of children with short stature have a medical condition.

Conditions that can underlie short stature include:

• Undernutrition, due to a disease or lack of nutrients

• Hypothyroidism, leading to a lack of growth hormone

• A tumor in the pituitary gland

• Diseases of the lungs, heart, kidneys, liver, or gastrointestinal tract

• Conditions that affect the production of collagen and other proteins

• Some chronic diseases, such as celiac disease and other inflammatory disorders

• Mitochondrial disease, which can affect the body in different ways, including growth

Sometimes, an injury to the head during childhood can lead to reduced growth.

A lack of growth hormone can also lead to delayed or absent sexual development.

Rheumatologic diseases, such as arthritis, are linked to short stature. This may happen because of the disease, or as a result of the glucocorticoid treatment, which can affect the release of growth hormone.

Disproportionate short stature (DSS) usually stems from a genetic mutation that affects the development of bone and cartilage and undermines physical growth.

The parents may not have short stature, but they may pass on a condition that is linked to DSS, such as achondroplasia, mucopolysaccharide disease, and spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia (SED).

Types

There are different types and causes of short stature, or restricted growth, and they will present differently. Because the range of conditions is so broad, restricted growth can be classified in various ways.

One categorization is:

• Variant restricted growth

• Proportionate short stature (PSS)

• Disproportionate short stature (DSS)

Each of these categories includes a number of types and causes of short stature.

Variant restricted growth

Sometimes a person is small but otherwise healthy. This can be referred to as variant restricted growth. It may happen for genetic or hormonal reasons.

If the parents are also small, this can be called familial short stature (FSS). If it stems from a hormonal issue, it is a constitutional delay in growth and adolescence (CDGA).

The limbs and the head develop in proportion with the spine, and the individual is otherwise healthy.

Growth happens throughout the body, so the legs, for example, are in proportion with the spine.

In most cases, the individual's parents are also small, but sometimes small stature happens because the body does not produce enough growth hormone (GH), or the body does not process growth hormone properly. This is known as GH insensitivity. Hypothyrodism can lead to low hormone production.

Growth hormone treatment during childhood may help.

Proportionate short stature (PSS)

Sometimes, overall growth is restricted, but the person's body is in proportion, and the individual has a related health problem. This is known as proportionate short stature (PSS).

If the individual is heavy for their height, this can suggest a hormone problem. The problem could be hypothyroidism, excess glucorticoid production, or too little GH.

A person who is small and their weight is low for their height may be experiencing malnutrition, or they may have a disorder that leads to malabsorption.

Whatever the underlying reason, if it affects overall growth, it may impact development in at least one body system, so treatment is needed.

During adulthood, a person with this type of restricted growth is more likely to experience:

• osteoporosis

• cardiovascular problems

• reduced muscle strength

Rarely, there may be cognitive problems, or problems with thinking. This depends on the cause of the short stature.

Disproportionate short stature (DSS)

Disproportionate short stature (DSS) is linked to a genetic mutation. The parents are usually of average height. As with other types of short stature, a range underlying causes is possible.

An individual with DSS will be small in height, and they will have other unusual physical features. These may be visible at birth, or they may develop in time as the infant develops.

Most individuals will have an average-sized trunk and short limbs, but some people may have a very short trunk and shortened, but disproportionately large limbs. Head size may be disproportionately large.

Intelligence or cognitive abilities are unlikely to be affected unless the person has hydrocephalus, or too much fluid around the brain.

Achondroplasia underlies around 70 percent of cases of DSS. It affects around 1 in 15,000 to 1 in 40,000 people.

Features include:

• an average-sized trunk

• short limbs, especially the upper arms and legs

• short fingers, possibly with a wide space between the middle and ring fingers

• limited mobility in the elbows

• a large head with a prominent forehead and flattened bridge of the nose

• bowed legs

• lordosis, a progressive development of a swayed lower back

• average adult height of 4 feet, or 122 cm

Hypochondroplasia is a mild form of achondroplasia. It may be difficult to differentiate between familial short stature and achondroplasia.

Achondroplasia and hypochondroplasia result from a genetic mutation.

Genetic conditions, such as Turner syndrome, Down syndrome, or Prader Willi syndrome, are also linked to DSS.

Diagnosis

Some types of short stature can be diagnosed at birth. In other cases, routine visits to a pediatrician should reveal any abnormal growth pattern.

The doctor will record the child's head circumference, height, and weight.

If the doctor suspects restricted growth, they will carry out a physical examination, look at the child's medical and family history, and possibly carry out some tests.

These may include:

An x-ray, to assess for problems with bone development

An insulin tolerance test, to check for a deficiency in the growth hormone insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1).

In this test, insulin is injected into a vein, causing blood glucose levels to drop. Normally, this would trigger the pituitary gland to release growth hormone (GH). If GH levels are lower than normal, there may be a GH deficiency.

Other tests include:

• a thyroid-stimulating hormone test, to check for hypothyroidism

• a complete blood count, to test for anemia

• metabolic tests, to assess liver and kidney function

• erythrocyte sedimentation and C-reactive protein tests, to assess for inflammatory bowel disease

• urine tests can check for enzyme deficiency disorders

• tissue transglutinase and immunoglobulin A tests, for celiac disease

• imaging scans, such as an x-ray of the skeleton and the skull or an MRI, can detect problems with the pituitary gland or hypothalamus

• bone marrow or skin biopsies may help confirm conditions associated with short stature

Treatment

Treatment will depend on the cause of the short stature.

If there are signs of malnutrition, the child may need nutritional supplements or treatment for a bowel disorder or other condition that is preventing them from absorbing nutrients.

If growth is restricted or delayed because of a hormonal problem, GH treatment may be necessary.

Pediatric hormone treatment: In children who produce too little GH, a daily injection of hormone treatment may stimulate physical growth later in life. Medications, such as somatropin, may eventually add 4 inches, or 10 centimeters, to adult height.

Adult hormone treatment

: Treatment for adults can help protect against complications, for example, cardiovascular disease and low bone mineral density.

Somatropin, also known as recombinant GH, might be recommended for people who:

• have a severe growth hormone deficiency

• experience impaired quality of life

• are already receiving treatment for another pituitary hormone deficiency

Adult patients generally self-administer daily with an injection.

Adverse effects of somatropin include headache, muscle pain, edema, or fluid retention, problems with eyesight, joint pain, vomiting, and nausea.

The patient may receive treatment to control chronic conditions, such as heart disease, lung disease, and arthritis.

Treatment for DSS

As DSS often stems from a genetic disorder, treatment focuses mainly on the complications.

Some patients with very short legs may undergo leg lengthening. The leg bone is broken and then fixed into a special frame. The frame is adjusted daily to lengthen the bone.

This does not always work, it takes a long time, and there is a risk of complications, including:

• pain

• the bone forming badly or at an inappropriate rate

• infection

• deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a blood clot in a vein

Other possible surgical treatments include:

• use of growth plates, where metal staples are inserted into the ends of long bones where growth takes place, to help bones grow in the right direction

• inserting staples or rods to help the spine form the right shape

• increasing the size of the opening in the bones of the spine to reduce pressure on the spinal cord

Regular monitoring can reduce the risk of complications.

Complications

A person with DSS may experience a number of complications.

These include:

• arthritis later in life

• delayed mobility development

• dental problems

• bowed legs

• hearing problems and otitis media

• hydrocephalus, or too much fluid in the brain cavities

• hunching of the back

• limb problems

• swaying of the back

• narrowing of the channel in the lower spine during adulthood and other spine problem

• sleep apnea

• weight gain

• speech and language problems

Individuals with proportionate short stature (PSS) may have poorly developed organs and pregnancy complications, such as respiratory problems. Delivery will normally be by cesarean section.

Outlook

Most people with short stature will have a normal life expectancy, and 90 percent of children who are small for their age at 2 years will "catch up" by adulthood.

The 10 percent who do not catch up are likely to have a condition such as fetal alcohol, Prader-Willi, or Down syndrome.

A person with achondroplasia can also expect a normal lifespan.

However, some serious conditions that are linked to some cases of short stature can be fatal.