What is herbal therapy

Herbal therapy is essentially a healing method that relies on the active ingredients of flowers, stems, leaves, roots, fruits and other parts of various herbal plants to adjust the physical condition and relieve discomfort through oral administration, external fumigation, application, bathing, etc. It belongs to the category of traditional alternative therapy.

Don’t think it is some mysterious thing floating in the tradition. Many of the Western medicines we commonly use today can be traced back to herbal applications - salicylic acid, the active ingredient in aspirin, was first extracted from willow bark, and anti-malarial quinine comes from cinchona bark. Extracts of loquat leaves and licorice are even added to many commonly used cough syrups. These are actually modern extensions of herbal therapy.

However, the public’s controversy over herbal therapy has always been considerable, and both sides of the argument are supported by actual cases. Two summers ago, I was greedy for cold weather. I blew my shoulders in front of the air conditioner every day. I was so stiff that it was difficult to lift my arms. When I went to a community hospital for physical therapy, the doctor from the Traditional Chinese Medicine Department prescribed a small bag containing dried ginger, wolfberry, and mugwort leaves. He asked me to boil water and soak my shoulders for 20 minutes every day. After soaking for about a week, most of the stiffness was gone, and the soreness on rainy days was reduced a lot. There are friends who suffer from seasonal allergic rhinitis. They don’t want to spray hormonal sprays all the time, so the doctor prescribes a nasal fumigation prescription of magnolia and Xanthium vulgare. I smoke it for five or six minutes every time, and the ventilation effect is indeed obvious.

But the objections are completely valid. The biggest problem is that many people have misunderstandings about herbs. They always think that "natural ones have no side effects." There are many cases of misuse. There was a social news story a while ago. In order to reduce uric acid, someone searched online for folk remedies and boiled plantain water and drank it every day. After drinking it for more than a month, he suffered kidney damage and was hospitalized. ； There are also many so-called "herbal whitening drinks" and "herbal fat-reducing formulas" peddled by Internet celebrities. Even the specific ingredients and dosages are not clearly labeled. Many people have elevated liver enzymes after drinking them and have problems eating them.

In fact, the herbal prescriptions used in regular medical institutions are strictly processed and dose-matched, which is completely different from the unsubstantiated folk remedies spread among the people. If we ordinary people want to use herbs to regulate the body, it is best to first find a professional Chinese medicine practitioner or pharmacist to identify the constitution and ask about contraindications. Don’t try blindly on your own. After all, it is something that is taken into the mouth or comes into contact with the skin, so it never hurts to be cautious.