IgA Deficiency and Homeopathy ?

[mamato2yeah]

Hi there
My daughter was diagnosed with Immunoglobulin A Deficiency last Sept. She's mostly well, but any time she catches a cold a terrible cough follows and lasts until we treat her with antibiotics. Wondering what experiences others have had with homeopathy or other alternatives? Any preventative advice? I've been reading a bit about immune support options.

As an aside, IgA doesn't run in the family...hadn't heard of it until DD was diagnosed. My husband and I were both tested and have normal IgA levels.
Docs say she may have been exposed to a toxin that caused the deficiency.

I welcome any info.

[kavamamakava]

I wonder if bovine colostrum has it? I know you can buy that at health food stores. IgA is abundant in human breastmilk so maybe you can get a prescription for it. I don't know how old your daughter is or if she is nursing or has nursed, sorry if I assumed incorrectly.

[mamato2yeah]

Thanks for the idea. I will look into it. My daughter is 4.5 (nursed until 19 mos) and I'm still night nursing my 2 year old, so I could try pumping for her. I need to figure out how much milk she'd need to clear an infection.
A cup of breastmilk a day keeps the doctor away?!

Could be our new tagline.

[2boyzmama]

We're dealing with a different type of immune deficiency here (PID, t-cell deficit) but even though my son has normal mitogen function (which is great!!) he still gets sick very often, and frequently the illness turns bad fast. I truly can't count how many times he's had antibiotics

I have been trying some basic supplements, including Vit C, Vit D, Omegas, and he's still breastfed. And I pumped some colustrum when my last baby was born and stored it to give to my immune compromised son throughout the winter. It seemed to help, we had a lot of little illnesses, but no hospitalizations!! (it's the first time we made it through a winter with no hospitalizations!)

I also cook with a lot of garlic, and I've gotten really good at hiding vegetables in a lot of foods (just last night I hid brussel sprouts in his dinner!) I have specifically asked his drs, including his Infectious Disease specialists, about prevention measures, and the response has never been helpful

[Satori]

A Dr told you exposure to a toxin caused a genetic defect? Must have been some weird toxin I would question this Dr's credentials to be honest. As for the rest, with IgA def your going to see tons of abx use, all you can do is help support the immune system but your still going to need lots of Abx with IgA problems.

ugh, this thread just reminded me, was supposed to do dd's IG infusion 2 days ago, guess I know what were doing today. At least were still in the 3 day window

[mamato2yeah]

I guess I have more research to do - I didn't question the toxin theory. Can't toxins affect genes? I don't know.

Thank you all for responding. If I learn anything on my journey I'll share.

2boyzmama - I think your prevention idea via good nutrition and lots of garlic is good thinking.

[DaughterOfKali]

You or your husband may have had an immune deficiency when you were younger. Many children can outgrow an immune deficiency by the time they are 8. So, you may not have even known you had a deficiency.

I was ALWAYS sick as a child so I'm guessing I had an immune deficiency. (I seem to have outgrown it.)

My son won't take oral meds so it makes dealing with this very difficult.

[AllyRae]

Originally Posted by Satori

A Dr told you exposure to a toxin caused a genetic defect? Must have been some weird toxin I would question this Dr's credentials to be honest.

Yeah, no kidding. My daughter has selective IgA deficiency (and she's still nursing! Talk about a rip off! : ) and I ate a completely organic diet while pregnant with her (and that's all I've eaten while breastfeeding her, and that's all she's ever eaten), we clean with all natural cleaners, she had 2 vaccines and had severe reactions to them (but her IgA was low then already). Even our mattress is organic. The level of toxins she is exposed to has always been extremely low. So, I don't buy that theory at all.

Neither my DH nor myself have low IgA, but autoimmune disorders run in my immediate family and I have something called essential thrombocythemia which also has no familial history. So, perhaps there is a link, maybe not. But, I don't think you have to actually have IgA deficiency to actually carry the genes for it. And my ped says that some people with Iga deficiency go on to have normal levels of IgA as an adult (not all, some). Oh, and some people with IgA deficiency develop celiac, or have a genetic tendency towards celiac. I have celiac.

So, I guess if you look deep enough, you might find the connection, and it might not have anything to do with toxins.

As for the original question, no, we don't do homeopathy because honestly, I doubt it works (at least not for us). We do things that are proven to boost immune systems (goji berries, whole foods diets, green smoothies, bone broths, probiotics), but only because her immune system can use all the boosting it can get. With an immune deficient child, you might be relying on western meds a lot more than you'd care for. Thankfully, we've only had to do antibiotics once (my DD gets viruses every 2 weeks, so antibiotics don't help. We just have to ride them out and keep her isolated so that she doesn't develop secondary infections from others). But we won't try homeopathy because in the past, it hasn't done anything to help any one of us in the family. And with IgA deficiency, it can go from bad to terrible in hours, so with our little one, we know that western meds work fast and can be life saving if necessary.

[purplepaisleymama]

My youngest has an IgA deficiency and we do use homeopathy. We have used it for the past 10 years for our whole family. I will say that when he is sick it can be very fast from well to not at all okay.... so we try to use a constitutional to keep him balanced and we eat an almost completely organic diet. We avoid all of his allergens and make sure that he is kept as healthy as we can, we avoid people who have been sick recently and he wore a mask for 3 months last winter to keep from his usual horrible sickness over the nasty months.
I would suggest finding a homeopath who is very competent and practices classical homeopathy... this way you can start on the path of finding your child's constitutional remedy, this is what we use when he is not doing as well and it has helped so far ( it also helps me with my issues, which currently are thyroid).

~laura