Homoeopathic treatment in a case of co-morbid atopic dermatitis and depressive disorder

Abstract

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a skin disease characterized by itching, typical morphology, and distribution of rash, chronic relapsing course, and personal or family history of “atopic diathesis.” Stress is an important precipitating factor of AD. Stress has also some causal link with depression. Rationale of this case report is to demonstrate the co-occurrence of AD and depression in a patient, and better improvement of AD occurs when homoeopathic treatment focuses on psychological symptoms. Here, a 38-year-old male presented with a 6-month history of eczematous skin lesions with associated symptoms of depression in the background of chronic ongoing stress. A diagnosis of AD with comorbid depression was made. He initially did not show stable improvement on homoeopathic medicine selected on the basis of totality of symptoms and miasmatic background. On changing the medicine giving more priority to psychological symptoms, he gradually showed stable improvement on both the domain of symptoms and reached remission by 3 months. Remission maintained without any recurrence over the next 3½ years. Hence, the main lesson from this case is the demonstration of importance of mental symptoms over other physical symptoms in homoeopathic treatment.