Herbal medicine has its origins in ancient cultures. It involves the medicinal use of plants to treat disease and enhance general health and wellbeing. In fact, many pharmaceutical medications are based on man-made versions of naturally occurring compounds found in plants.

Some pharmaceutical medications are based on a single active ingredient derived from a plant source. Practitioners of herbal medicine believe that an active ingredient can lose its impact or become less safe if used in isolation from the rest of the plant.

For instance, salicylic acid is found in the plant meadowsweet and is used to make aspirin. Aspirin can cause the lining of the stomach to bleed, but meadowsweet naturally contains other compounds that prevent irritation from salicylic acid.

According to herbal medicine practitioners, the effect of the whole plant is greater than its parts.

In addition herbalists of today have been accumulating knowledge and combining herbs for many generations and have learned to enhance specific functions of certain herbs and hide or mitigate some other qualities or side effects of other herbs.

For example using blood building herbs such as dang quei or rehmannia will often be combined with ginger or liquorice to warm up the formula and assist with digestion of the heavier blood building herbs as they tend to be dense and heavy.

In the Practice of Chinese Herbal Medicine we will usually use or recommend a herbal formula for this exact reason, it has typically been combined and recombined over centuries to formulate the best possible combination to treat specific problems or diseases.

All in all the practice of Modern herbology is very safe and we can resource formulas and companies with sterling reputations of authenticity as well as quality herbs that have been grown without the use of pesticides or other chemicals.

While we can offer herbs in many forms, Treating any internal condition properly with herbal medicine requires a consultation and diagnosis with one of our Qualified TCM Herbalists.