Effectiveness of Homeopathy and Management of Post Monsoon Allergic Rhinitis: a Panel Study on the Patients Visiting Iit Kanpur Health Centre

Background: Allergic rhinitis is a chronic disease that severely affects the quality of life of the patient. Symptoms and severity of allergic rhinitis for a patient may depend on various factors. Effect of exposure to different allergens may trigger different kinds of symptoms among the subjects. Seasonal allergy may be attributed to exposure to bioaerosol present in the ambient environment. Common inhalers used in Allopathic system of medicines provide only short term symptom relief to patients. At times, short term or no significant relief from the allopathic medicines is followed by several side effects. Methods: This study was carried out at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IIT Kanpur) campus, which is considered a clean and green campus. This study tries to correlate the symptoms observed among the population studied and the effectiveness of homeopathic medicines on the sub-set of patients suffering from post monsoon allergic rhinitis. Efficacy of Homeopathic medicine on the studied participants suffering from seasonal allergies over a period of up to 7 days was recorded. The record of medicines prescribed by doctor was also considered in the study. Forty patients with written consent for participations were enrolled for follow up of seven days during medication. Twelve predefined homeopathic medicines were selected for the study Results: More than sixty five percentages of patients following the prescribed medications, reported a moderate to better improvement in health. By day five, 38% of patients were cured of allergic rhinitis and 43% showed marked improvement. Conclusions: Homeopathic medicines are effective in treatment of allergic rhinitis. Proper observation of the symptoms and choosing the proper medicine provides an early relief to the patient from the allergic rhinitis. There is a further need for study with a larger cohort and inclusion of related air quality parameters to tease out potentially good Vs. poor performing medicines within the study.