Recently a friend of mine was in pain due to inflammation of her big toe. The first thing to suspect if you have severe pain in joints is gout. Isolated pain in just the big toe seems kind of strange but it could often indicate the beginning of gout and one needs to get the uric acid levels checked. And if they are higher than the normal, you need to treat for gout.Sometimes acute gout attacks may also be triggered by unusual activity or illness. In my friend’s case, it seemed to have been triggered by Chinese massage and acupressure of the foot. While normally these could be beneficial, in her case it triggered a severe inflammation of the big toe.
When the uric acid levels were checked, the results came out to be normal. But since there had been inflammation and pain following unusual activity, the patient was treated for vata rakta. The treatment would encompass gout and other inflammatory conditions brought about by vitiation of blood and vayu.
In Ayurveda, excellent medicines are available for treating vata rakta. While this is not an easily treatable disease, it can be controlled by the use of kashayams such as balagudichyadi kashayam, a classical preparation. There are patent medicines, which contain extracts from the tuber of Gloriosa superba and Alpinia galangal. Dasamoola Kashayam is yet another combination of herbs, which is very beneficial in addressing the issue of swelling and inflammation.
People, who are prone to vata vitiation, should avoid foods such as tubers, beans, rajma, chana, and cruciferous vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage. Now, you may wonder what vegetables are there to eat then. They would mostly be traditionally-grown vegetables such as snake gourd, ridge gourd, okra, drumsticks and brinjals. Carrot and beetroot can also be included as they do not aggravate vayu.
So with diet restrictions and medicinal treatment, one can get rid of the disease. But it depends on the roga bala (how strong is the disease)—it is of recent origin or it has taken a hold on you. Many people come to an Ayurvedic vaidyar as a last resort and expect miracles to happen. The beauty of Ayurveda is that it can treat the cause and prevent further aggravation of the disease and perhaps cure it fully. So, if you were to approach an Ayurvedic vaidyar when you have cold, cough and headache, the vaidyar can treat you. But if you were to approach a vaidyar when your headache had become a severe migraine and your cold had affected the sinus and your lungs, it could be more difficult to cure and the treatment could be prolonged.
Ayurveda describes the progress of disease in Kriya Kala, perhaps warning both practitioners and patients that the time to treat a disease is at the stage of poorva roopa, which is when the first prodromal signs appear. Or it is best treated at the next stage, which means you consult our vaidyar about your aharam and viharam, that is diet and lifestyle.Yet another factor that could affect the prognosis of disease is rogi bala (condition of the patient)—he is fit and young because the old and very young patients would be difficult to treat. So it could be worthwhile to consult a vaidyar when diseases are simple and when vitiation of the doshas can be corrected easily. After a few consultations, the patient himself would learn to manage the recurrence of the disease. For no disease suddenly appears; the body gives fair warnings, which
are often ignored by us.The writer is retired Additional Chief Secretary of Tamil Nadu. She can be reached at sheelarani.arogyamantra@gmail. com/arogyamantra.blogspot.com