Homeopathy and Isopathy in the periodontal maintenance therapy of aggressive periodontitis patients

Abstract

Periodontal maintenance care is an essential part of periodontal therapy for patients diagnosed with Aggressive Periodontitis, being, however, hard to instruct and to motivate these patients to follow a careful and effective program of maintenance for all their lives. A literature review was done, by means of relevant papers published on the last four decades, pointing out the importance of individual susceptibility for the appearance of aggressive periodontitis and to discuss the importance of a maintenance therapy on its treatment, applying Homeopathy and Isopathy. Homeopathy consists on a complex therapeutic system mainly based on the “Law of Similarity”, that is, the illness may be healed by drugs that produce similar symptoms in a healthy organism and, in this conception, the disease is understood as an energetic unbalance, in which internal and external factors acting on the subject’s susceptibility are considered and can be expressed by an individual symptomathology that goes from the rational sphere to the somatic sphere. On the other hand, Isopathy is the method of treatment with therapeutic agent, which actions on a healthy subject consist on pharmacodynamic manifestations similar to those observed in a sick person. Based on these concepts, the authors establish a hypothesis of the effectiveness of Homeopathy and Isopathy, the latter through auto-medications or auto-biotherapies, that are products which the active principal is obtained from the patient himself (gingival tissue and secretions), and that may be used as auxiliary treatments in the maintenance therapy of Aggressive Periodontitis.