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The Herbalism Thread

Mad dog weed; herbal blend???

Has any one bought this? I recently spent quite a bit of money on it and I can't feel anything from it... Does anyone have any experience with this? The only reason I keep trying is because I lost my job and spent like the last bit of my money on a bag of this because they people and reviews on google said it worked....
 
No one knows what that is. Do you mind listing the names of the ingredients in the blend?
 
I don't know anything about it, but google says leguminosae scutellaris wrightii is a skullcap relative. If true, that would make it sedative and relaxing in nature.

What you thought you were buying was in the alisma family, but it's not one I'm familiar with. The only alisma I've worked with is in TCM, and it's called ze xie in Chinese. It's basically a diuretic that also clears heat from the body via urination.

Sorry I can't be more helpful than that. My intuition says you were sold snake oil.
 
While searching online I found this:

<snip>

Is this the one you are pertaining to OP?
 
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Maya said:
My night will not be complete without drinking Peppermint tea or Green tea. I prefer Peppermint tea though amongst all others because it is naturally caffeine-free and adds a soothing and calming effect to my body in addition to the magnesium supplement intake.
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i enjoy this, as well as tarragon and chamomile
 
I made an ointment using glycerin, turmeric and ginger tincture, cannabis, myrrh, frankincense and cinnamon for my knee which was swollen before. Turmeric is an amazing herb and was no doubt instrumental in helping my knee get better a couple of months ago along with with ginger, pineapple juice, cannabis, myrrh as well as urine therapy.

I also use the ointment I made for skin problems, healing wounds, arthritis, anti-swelling, anti-septic, anti-inflammatory qualities wherever required, whether on my girlfriend's aches and ankle swellings or recently on an old gentleman's foot, on which a persistent swelling disappeared in a few minutes. I will have to see him again soon because it probably came back again.

My knees are fine now. I was advised by several people to see a doctor and have an operation etc, syringing the fluid off my left knee, but I got better quickly using simple techniques like keeping my leg above the level of my heart three times a day for twenty minutes with ice on my knee, using turmeric and ginger internally and externally with olive oil, drinking pineapple juice throughout the day and urine in the morning too. I believe I solved the knee problem using herbs mainly but urine played its part funnily enough.
 
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Foreigner said:
I also take rhodiola rosea daily to help with cortisol and serotonin levels.
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Can you please inform me exactly how (in your experience/research/expertise) rhodiola helps with cortisol/serotonin levels? How often you "should" take it, and in what amount? And, finally, the best source of rhodiola on the open market.
 
Rhodiola is just an adaptogen, similar to ginseng and jiaogulan which I've already mentioned. The issue with adaptogenic plants is that it takes a period of consumption before your body begins to take to them. Personally, I've found the negative effects of ginseng and rhodiola to be too pronounced (contraindications and causing rise in BP) whereas jiaogulan makes for a nice mild tea to have any time of day.
 
ilikestims said:
Can you please inform me exactly how (in your experience/research/expertise) rhodiola helps with cortisol/serotonin levels? How often you "should" take it, and in what amount? And, finally, the best source of rhodiola on the open market.
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I don't know the mechanism, I just know the end result. AFAIK research into how rhodiola works is still ongoing.

As for brands, it doesn't matter what brand you use as long as on the back it says there are 3% rosavarins.
 
I asked the last question in particular because of this:

Rhodiola extracts vary substantially in potency and purity. Most common are extracts that contain 1% to 3% total rosavins. Occasionally, you might find 9% or even 10%.

However, as mentioned earlier, this inconsistency has historically been the problem with Rhodiola, the problem that prevented it from becoming the supplement superstar it really is.

BIOTEST® Rhodiola rosea, on the other hand, contains on average 16% total rosavins (label claim is 15%), making it the most potent and most-pure Rhodiola extract available anywhere.
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But then I read you don't necessarily want 16% total rosavarins. Your thoughts? (I plan on experimenting with both, as I s'pose that's the only way to know for sure, but I'm still curious.)
 
^ For me 3% is good. I tried 5% before and it was too much for me. 16% would probably keep me awake at night. But everyone's different.
 
peppermint tea and the liver

There seems to be a lot of contradicting information on the effect of peppermint tea on the liver.
From wikipedia:
"The toxicity studies of the plant have received controversial results. Some authors reported that the plant may induce hepatic diseases (liver disease), while others found that it protects against liver damage that is caused by heavy metals.[34][35] In addition to that, the toxicities of the plant seem to vary from one cultivar to another[36] and are dose dependent.[34][37] This is probably attributed from the content level of pulegone."

I recently bought some peppermint tea because I wanted more non caffeinated teas I can drink at night. I have an enlarged liver from drinking so I am trying to be very careful, and add as many liver cleansing foods and herbs to my diet as I can. More of the information on peppermint seems to suggest it is beneficial, but I am not sure if I should take the risk of touching it when its so hard to be sure. Is there anyone here that is knowledgable on the subject?
 
Peppermint has many uses, but interestingly, we use it in oriental medicine formulas for the liver. If you combine it with other liver herbs it will aid them in entering the liver channel.

The form that most peppermint tea comes in is fake. The leaves have been ground to a powder and essential oil is added, or even sometimes artificial fragrance.

If you want to deal with real peppermint then you must buy the real leaves, as whole as possible. Once they are crushed their essential oil will oxidize so powdered forms are useless. If you can get whole, uncrushed leaves, the medicine in them will be the most potent.

Peppermint only needs to be simmered for 5 minutes with a lid on the pot to release the medicine. Any longer and the volatile oils will completely boil off.

An enlarged liver is a sign of excess. If you have heat signs in the body like red eyes, inflammed skin or mucous membranes, a subjective feeling of being hot all the time, flushed cheeks, constipation, etc... then peppermint could be called for. You can combine it with burdock, dandelion, milk thistle, and citrus peels as a daily protocol. If heat and toxicity are particularly bad you could add a bit of mahonia (oregon grape) but don't use it constantly.

Keep in mind that if you drink real decocted peppermint by itself while the water is hot, it will send it to your skin, and especially your head. It's great for summer heat or roaring fevers in this way, but if you live in a cold climate and take this cold property medicine it will just cause everything to contract and you'll get one hell of a headache. Combining with other herbs will channel it to your liver instead of your skin.

And one last note.... because your liver is enlarged you don't want to be too bombarding. Whatever herbs you decide to try, start small.
 
Thank you Foreigner, I really appreciate that info. I have stash brand peppermint tea and as far as I can tell it is real peppermint, peppermint is the only ingredient listed plus I looked online to confirm. The leaves are broken up but not powdered. I love the taste of it, but I think I will limit my intake to about once a week to be safe, the information suggesting that it could be harmful to the liver mainly seemed to suggest that this occurred when taking large doses. When I do drink the tea, would you suggest I take the other herbs I choose for my liver at the same time?
I am thinking I will stick to milk thistle, dandelion, and rose hips. I am also thinking of adding piracetam not for my liver but to help my cognition, which feels a little slowed down after my long period of drinking. I may wait and add that after my liver has had more chance to recover. I am currently drinking one yogi detox tea a day as well, but plan to discontinue after I finish the box of 16.

I really like the idea of using herbs to help me recover. I find it frustrating how the FDA usually refuses to acknowledge any of them have medical value and cautions against using them, even though many of them have a ton of history evidence to support their use, such as milk thistle. But there is often a lot of contradicting information about any herb I try to research, and ishues about different cultivars from different parts of the world. I guess I am just going to play it safe and go light.
 
If you're going to experiment with using herb combinations, I recommend first trying each herb by itself without any others. So one week, try just peppermint; the next, try just milk thistle, etc. Then try combining. The benefit of plant medicines is that they are synergistic, but sometimes they potentiate one another. On top of that, every person is different, so I can't recommend a combination to you based on what it has done for me.

Yes, it's true that the FDA stifles the truth about herbal cures, but that's the drug industry for you. Also, the AMA has its roots in the American Civil War, where the ability of industrial medicine (as they called it at the time) to get soldiers back out into the field by mending their symptoms gained them favour with the American government after the war. It was then that their primary herbal competitor, the Ecclectic School of Herbalists, was systematically assaulted with propaganda campaigns and forced to shut down. The modern disdain for herbal medicine in the U.S. has its roots in that rivalry.
 
Foreigner said:
The benefit of plant medicines is that they are synergistic, but sometimes they potentiate one another.
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I am not trying to get caught up on semantics, but aren't synergy and potentiation the same thing? You seem to know a lot about herbalism, so I just want to make sure I understand your full meaning.

I find herbalism fascinating and would love to know more about it, both about medical uses and its history. Are there any books or online sources you would recommend? Recently I have been doing most of my reading on wikipedia, since generally I find the articles there to be relatively unbiased, and they reference and link to a lot of studies. That site does not have the best reputation, but it actually a whole lot better than some of the ridiculous stuff that will come up if you just put any given herb into google. I was just reading how milk thistle supposedly reduces liver function by 75 to 80 % on some suspicious looking site.
 
Potentiation is when two substances are taken and one increases the strength of the other, but does not change its property. Synergism is when two substances of similar action have a net effect that could not be achieved by taking each substance separately. For example, liver herbs can synergize to create therapeutic effects that cannot be accounted for in each individual herb. Taking grapefruit juice before certain medications will make their effects way stronger but not necessarily different, so grapefruit juice potentiates medications.

There is also synergy within single plants that modern science does not account for. If you isolate one chemical in a plant, extract it, and concentrate it at many times its natural amount, and then do biomedical tests with it, the results of those tests are not going to be a reflection of how that chemical would behave if the whole plant was used as a medicine. In modern medicine they call the chemical extract the "active ingredient", but traditional herbalism does not care about this and in fact believes that once you remove a chemical in isolation it no longer has the same function. This flawed approach has been the reason for herbs getting banned, such as comfrey.

Wikipedia is actually the worst source to consult about herbal medicine because pharmaceutical shills and very pro-science types constantly delete and downgrade statements of their therapeutic values based on the above testing methods, or for completely arbitrary reasons. I can't count the number of times that the extremely beneficial effects of certain plants are not even mentioned, while at the same time are referred to as "folk medicine". There is a lot of condescending language on Wikipedia about many herbs, unless of course those herbs have been appropriated by modern medicine and turned into pharmaceutical drugs.

Just keep in mind that whenever you research herbs online there will be competing interests. The natural health industry (worth billions now) will heavily promote herbs without any attempt to differentiate who should be using them; while on the other hand, the pharmaceutical industry will make false claims about their dangers and use condescending language like "folk medicine" to defame the herbal profession. That's why I recommend books over websites.

I'm part of several herbal communities online but regrettably I cannot share them here because I don't want them to be invaded by harmful forces. Here are some books I can recommend:

Anything by Michael Moore
Anything by Stephen Harod Buhner
Anything by Eliot Cowan
Anything by Susan Weed (the Wise Woman's Herbal is a classic)
Anything by Matthew Wood
Thomas Bartram's Encyclopedia of Herbal Medicine

Practical Herbs by Henriette Kress contains accurate information on all the basic single herbs that any aspiring herbalist should know about. I think she also has part II out now too.

The Herbal Medicine-Maker's Handbook by James Green teaches you the basics for turning herbs into medicine (salves, tinctures, ointments, bath stuff, etc.) and also gives a primer on the most common 30 herbs you should look into. I think this book would be my #1 recommendation. He also authors "The Male Herbal" which is great for men.

The Peterson brand field guides based on your region in the world are also handy, and have nice photos.

All of those should be plenty to get you started. Of course, none of these are a substitute for an experienced herbalist going out into nature and teaching you about plants. If you can get first hand experience then that would be way better because you will connect to the plants directly.
 
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Wow, thanks so much Foreigner. Taking the time to answer all my questions so thoughtfully despite my ignorance of herbalism... is really kind of amazing. With those resources you suggested, I should be able to lay off prying you for knowledge a bit. :) I have sensed a lot of the bias you mentioned trying to research the use of herbs online, and it is great to have an idea of some better sources.
I think I may start by getting a Peterson guide and taking a walk in the woods to see what I can identify before New England turns freezing and stuff starts to die (but don't worry I will not be in any rush to find something I can eat or use, the activity is just something I have always wanted to try)

<3
 
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