Herbal medicine is used to treat the whole person.
Herbal remedies create balance in the body, enabling the body’s self healing abilities, so that the body an fight and reject the illness, therefore allowing good health to prevail. Herbs can also be used to help to prevent illness and promote good health.
They are therefore synergistically holistic. Herbal medicine do not simply reduce the pain of an illness; they work on the mind, body and spirit of the client.
After taking herbal remedies, the client will have a greater feeling of personal well being. The aim is to heal the underlying cause of the illness, therefore enhancing the body’s natural self healing abilities. Modern drug often relieve the symptoms of the client’s illness rather the overall problems. It is known that treatment or suppression of symptoms will not rid the body of the disease itself. . This should lead to increased vitality, longevity and optimal well being.
Herbal medicine consist of more than one active compound. This is why they are essentially different to pharmaceuticals. Herbal medicine work holistically. They treat the whole body. Some people say that the herbal medicine do not work as quickly as drugs and so are not as effective. They couldn’t be more wrong: herbal remedies often do not produce quick relief, what they do produce is a more longer lasting cure.
An example would be in western medicine, doctors often prescribe synthetic diuretics to patients who have trouble passing urine, as these drugs increase the flow of urine. However, this drug also seriously reduce the patient’s potassium level. The counteract this, the doctor has to prescribe a potassium supplement. In comparison, a herbalist would use dandelion leaves, which are a potent diuretic, but also contain potassium to naturally replace that which is lost.
Herbal medicines taken in normal therapeutic doses are safe and produce minimal risk. However, as a herbalist we need to be careful when suggesting herbs for children, pregnant an nursing woman, the old and the critically ill.
The benefit of herbal medicine is that most of them are gentle in action, and most not produce any toxic side effects when used over a long time.
