Abstract

EFFICACY OF VARMAM THERAPY IN MUGAVAATHAM (BELL’S PALSY) – A SINGLE CASE STUDY

Uthrapathi S.*, Karthik Nagarajan S., Mahalakshmi V., Muthu Kumar N. J., Banumathi V.

Abstract

Siddha system is one of the ancient systems of medicine in India, which is performed to cure and conservation for diseases by internal and external medicine, external therapies. Mugavaatham is one kind of vaatha disease. In Siddha system vaatha diseases are one of the major type of diseases which are classified into 80 types. According to Sambasivampillai dictionary mugavaatham is compared to bell’s palsy. The bell’s palsy is defined as an idiopathic acute non-suppurative inflammation of the facial nerve with in the stylomastoid foramen. In Modern medicine, approximately the bell’s palsy may be curable within 3-6 months along with steroids and physiotherapy or may persist. The aim of the study is to evaluate the efficacy of varmam therapy in the treatment of Mugavaatham (Bell’s Palsy) A single case study was done on a 37 years male patient who had come to OPD No 3, Dept. of Sirappu Maruthuvam, Ayothidoss Pandithar Hospital, National Institute of Siddha, with the complaints of deviation of mouth in left side, ptosis of right eye, redness, drippling of tears in right side of eye, difficulty to wrinkle of forehead, inability to blow or whistle, drippling of saliva and difficulty to chewing for 2 days. These symptoms were correlated with Mugavaatham (Bell’s Palsy) which undercomes in Vaatha disease. The case was treated by our OPD medicine along with varmam for 15 days and the improvement was assessed by House-Brackmann Scale. At the end of the study, all the signs and symptoms were back to normal and the House-Brackamann Scale score that had been 5 at the start of the study became 1. The varmam therapy can give best results in the treatment of bell’s palsy.

Keywords: Single case study, Mugavaatham, Varmam, House-Brackmann scale.