Consumers Turn to Herbs over Prescription Medications

Kristen Kemp, right, gives her 1-year-old son Soren some black elderberry extract at their home in Montclair, N.J. Kemp uses home remedies and herbal medicine for her kids’ sore throats and colds instead of prescription medications to cut costs.

According to this story from the Associated Press, more and more consumers are turning to herbal remedies over prescription medications, in part to save money in this down economy.

“The doctors are so much higher (in cost), the insurance isn’t paying as much,” said the 61-year-old self-employed bookkeeper and notary. Her husband, a retired dispatcher, has high blood pressure and seizures. Recent changes in their health insurance coverage resulted in $1,300 in monthly premiums, double what they used to be.

The story also points out an important safety factor: most people who use herbs are self-medicating. While herbs themselves are quite safe, people may end up hurting themselves if they use them without guidance. Most of the time this comes from taking something long-term that is only meant to be taken for a short period of time.

For instance, many people know Yin Chiao as the product to take when they feel the first symptoms of a cold (银翘解毒丸 Yin Qiao Jie Du Wan). This herbal remedy works so well that some of my friends started to take it all the time, thinking that it would work as a sort of herbal prevention. A daily dose of Yin Chiao is actually indicated for people with herpes, to prevent outbreaks. Taking Yin Chiao when you're not sick at all can lead to a chronic stuffy nose.

The best way to take Chinese herbs safely? Consult a licensed acupuncturist (L.Ac) - nearly all of us have extensive herbal training. Hate needles? Ask them for an herbal consultation, sans acupuncture. Most will be happy to oblige.

Doc Hay

Today we bring you the story of Ing Hay, an herbal doctor from China who lived in Oregon in the late 1800's. He established an excellent reputation as a doctor despite the violent racism of the time.

He was the most famous Herbalist between San Francisco and Seattle in his day. He was a master of pulse diagnosis. Doc Hay could tell his patients what was wrong with them just by feeling the pulse in their arm. Then he would prepare an herbal mixture from local plants and herbs from China. Doc Hay was blind. When he shut the building up in 1948 to go to the nursing home, Doc Hay left behind over 500 different herbs, many that have never been identified.

-Kam Wah Chung Museum

What's interesting to me is that Doc Hay used both "local plants and herbs from China." An important part of Chinese medicine is to use an appropriate treatment according to your geographic location. For instance, what happens when your grandma who's lived in Queens all her life retires? She moves to Florida! Because the winters are too harsh in New York. Florida is much warmer and easier on the joints. All living things are a part of their environment and respond to their environment in different ways.

Doc Hay didn't only use Chinese herbs, he educated himself about the local herbs in his environment. In this way he was a naturalist as well as an herbalist. In southern California we have many native healing plants, sage being one of the most well-known.

You're Sitting in a Chair - IN THE SKY!!!

This is somewhat off-topic, but I really like this video of a comic named Louis CK on Conan O'Brien's late night show... he says some excellent stuff about how amazing life is right now. On the internet it's been named "Everything is so amazing and nobody is happy." It brings some much-needed perspective to our modern lives. Do we really need to do everything faster?

Enjoy!

Licorice and Green Tea Save Me a Call to the Poison Control Center

Yesterday morning I took pity on my dog's relentless scratching and dosed her up with imidacloprid, the topical anti-flea medication known as Advantage. It comes as a liquid in a little vial that you put on the skin up and down the dog's spine.

You're supposed to let it dry before touching the dog again. Not only did I violate that rule, somehow I also got the stuff in my mouth just before we left the house for the morning walk. As we walked, I could feel a dry sensation in my mouth spreading from the point of contact with the insecticide. Oh God, I'm going to die, I thought, before more rational thoughts took hold - chemicals are unavoidable in the modern world, you're going to die eventually anyway - and I decided to head home and call the poison control center, as the package suggests if you get the stuff on your hands or in your mouth.

As I got closer to home, I tried to think about what I could use from Chinese medicine. Finally I thought of licorice root - 甘草 Gan Cao, the "sweet herb" used in almost every Chinese medicine formula for its gentle harmonizing properties. Gan Cao affects all twelve major meridians of the body and has a detoxifying effect when used with herbs that have extremely drastic actions.

Glycyrrhizin, generally considered to be one of the main constituents of Gan Cao, has a marked detoxifying effect to treat poisoning, including but not limited to drug poisoning (chloral hydrate, urethane, cocaine, picrotoxin, caffeine, pilocarpine, nicotine, barbituates, mercury and lead), food poisoning (tetrodotoxin, snake and mushroom), and others (enterotoxin, herbicides and pesticides). On the other hand, Gan Cao is not effective in treating poisoning caused by atropine, morphine, and sulfonmethane. It may increase the toxicity of ephedrine. The exact mechanism of this action is unclear, but is thought to be related to its regulatory effect on the endocrine or hepatic systems. Oral ingestion of Gan Cao reduces the absorption of toxins via direct binding, an effect similar to that of activated charcoal. Gan Cao significantly reduces the toxicity of Fu Zi (Radix Aconiti Lateralis Praeparata) when the two herbs are decocted together. (Zhong Yao Tong Bao Journal of Chinese Herbology, 1985; 11(10):55)

-Chinese Medical Herbology and Pharmacology, p. 869

I also decided to use green tea. Green tea is another gentle herb with detoxifying actions. I boiled a small handful of Gan Cao for about ten minutes and used the liquid to make tea. I felt immediate relief from the dry mouth, but I skipped breakfast anyway.

If you've accidentally ingested something suspicious, call a poison control center at 1-800-222-1222.

Acufunkture

Back in the 70's there was a soul group called Acufunkture. It looks like they were so underground their records are now collected by English people (note: this doesn't necessarily mean they were any good). Were they interested in acupuncture? Who knows.

Also, here's an amateur DJ from France who calls himself Acufunkture.

Finally, there is also a contemporary group called Acufunkture that is either the house band for a BDSM club or very single-minded when it comes to making fliers. An image search on google gives some interesting results. No links for that, you'll have to do it yourself.

Happy Monday!

Chuan Xin Lian, Kold Kare, Kan Jang

Joe Graedon and Teresa Graedon write a syndicated column called "The People's Pharmacy." Recently they ran an item from someone who asked about a product called Kan Jang, produced by the Swedish Herbal Institute. Kan Jang not being available on the U.S. market, they recommended something called Kold Kare. The main ingredient in both products is andrographis, known to the Chinese medicine community as 穿心蓮 Chuan Xin Lian.

Chuan Xin Lian is extremely cold and bitter, and goes to the Lung, Stomach, Large Intestine, and Small Intestine meridians. It's often used for its anti-inflammatory and antibiotic effects. One study shows that a decoction of Chuan Xin Lian enhances the immune system and increases the phagocytic activity of white blood cells (Zhong Yao Yao Li Yu Ying Yong Pharmacology and Applications of Chinese Herbs, 1983:824).

Although the People's Pharmacy column discusses the use of andrographis for colds, I recently used a Chuan Xin Lian product to help control an infection that developed after a puncture wound in the palm of my hand. A friend tossed me a key, and as I caught it between my hands, the point dug into the center of my palm, almost exactly where the acumoxa point Laogong PC-8 is located. I ignored for a day or two, but it wound started to throb and get redder. I even started to feel some pain up my forearm. Then I squeezed some yellow pus out of the wound. That worried me, to say the least.

Along with an external application of 三黃散 San Huang San, I took 穿心蓮抗炎片 Chuan Xin Lian Kang Yan Pian. San Huang San, the "three yellows powder," consists of Huang Qin, Huang Lian, Da Huang, Hong Hua, Pu Gong Ying, and Zhi Zi. I mixed a small amount of the powder with green tea, put it directly on the wound and covered it with a band-aid. The pills I took at a high dose for three days, and continued to change the San Huang San each day. After three days my hand and forearm no longer hurt and the wound had almost completely healed over with no redness or swelling.

Chinese herbs have incredible antibacterial and antiviral effects. People sometimes tell me that they canceled an acupuncture appointment because they "felt sick." That makes no sense! Go to the acupuncturist when you get sick! A lot of people only see the acupuncturist for physical pain, but acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine are excellent for treating the common cold, flu, infections and so on.

Chuan Xin Lian Kang Yan Pian and San Huang San are both available from Fat Turtle Herb Company (online shopping coming soon).

Book Review: Keeping Your Child Healthy With Chinese Medicine

My sister had a baby last year, the first one in our lot to do so, and for the last year I have been pre-occupied with pediatrics. As we've noted in some of our past posts, Chinese medicine is very effective at treating most childhood illnesses with little to no side effects. Since we are focused on the physiology and not just the disease, we can help the little ones recover from their diseases at the same time as correct the physiological imbalance that brought on the symptoms in the first place.

I understand that when a child is sick, however, that a parent would want to do everything they can to make sure their child gets better. We are taught in the US that the only way to cure diseases is to take drugs prescribed by a medical doctor. What if we could save those medicines for when they are truly absolutely necessary, making them more effective in turn, and instead adopt a model of graduated care where parents can be consulted to treat their children naturally first and allopathically when needed.

This would require teaching consumers of medicine of all the things that Chinese medicine can successfully do for them and their kids. Being in school for the last four years, and surrounding myself with other students and doctors of the medicine by default, makes it easy to forget that we use a completely different language to describe the anatomy even though we're speaking English. People like my sister, who has little knowledge of health care let alone Chinese medicine, need information that is straightforward, easy to understand, and comprehensive. The book Keeping Your Child Healthy with Chinese Medicine: A Parent's Guide to the Care and Prevention of Common Childhood Diseases does just that.

The book starts with a nice introduction on TCM, and goes into comparing the benefits and drawbacks of both Chinese and Western allopathic medicine. Bob Flaws, the author, does a great job of describing each of the commonly encountered illnesses in pediatrics, including ones that are not in Chinese medicine textbooks from China. He explains that because our lifestyles are different from those in China, including our overuse of antibiotics, children suffer from different kinds of recurring illnesses here in the West. He also advises parents on when to trust the wisdom of Chinese medicine, and when it would be better to see a Western MD for the treatment of more severe cases.

As the title suggests, it is a parent's guide, and does not go into great detail about the actual treatment of illnesses or their protocol. It does provide readers with an understanding of how Chinese medicine would go about treating these diseases, and what to expect from a TCM physician. It has a great chapter on how to go about finding a TCM practitioner, and what kinds of questions to ask when looking for someone to treat your children.