Seven Situations In Which Herbal Treatment Is Best                                                                                                       

 

1) Disorders and symptoms in older adults
Older people often have disorders affecting several organs. Their symptoms may change from day to day and from week to week. To cover the broad range of complaints they experience, doctors often give elderly patients six, eight or even a dozen different prescription drugs. Side effects result not just from the drugs individually but from their combination. Treating symptoms with herbs can allow the doctor to reduce the dosage of some prescription medications or eliminate them entirely. This reduces the frequency and severity of side effects. Herbs can be used as a gentle treatment for new minor symptoms when they arise, making it possible to avoid additional medication.

 

2) Disorders involving abnormalities of the immune system.
Among the most exciting applications of herbal medicine lie in treating abnormalities of the immune system. Clinical studies have shown that various herbal products are effective in treating allergies, asthma, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis (see Allspice). Herbal medicine also has a unique potential usefulness in balancing the immune system (see Noni) in cases of chronic infection, preventing the immune system from turning on the body and causing destruction.

 

3) Psychosomatic and psychiatric complaints
Chosen in consultation with a health-care provider who can recognize the need for emergency treatment, herbal medicine can be a valuable method of treating psychosomatic and psychiatric complaints. The complex herbal formulas of traditional Chinese medicine and Japanese herbal medicine, in particular, are valuable in that they neither depress nor over stimulate the central nervous system. These herbal treatments do not induce drowsiness, tremors, or fatigue. Nor do they trigger nightmares, hallucinations or manic behaviour.

 

4) Subjective symptoms
Herbs can be used to treat familiar symptoms of known conditions that are not quite severe enough to justify expensive medical treatment. Herbs also can be used to treat symptoms that don't quite fit the symptom pattern of diagnosed disease. Some conditions, such as menopausal discomforts (see Cinnamon) and chronic fatigue (see Gora) syndrome, cause very different symptoms in different individuals. With a thorough knowledge of the potential of herbs, the individual and the health-care practitioner can

choose just the right treatment to relieve the annoying symptoms.

 

5) Alternative therapy for persons who have allergic and other adverse reactions to standard treatment
Millions of people who have arthritis develop chronic gastrointestinal problems from taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). For pain relief without this side effect, they have to pay high prices for newer pain relievers known as cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitors. Herbs that relieve pain in the same way as COX-2 inhibitors-without causing damage to the digestive tract (see Cinnamon) are available for a fraction of the price of the prescription drug. Millions of people diagnosed with mild depression (see Gora) can take powerful antidepressant drugs, but the risk of weight gain (see Garcinia) or conversely, anorexia, fatigue or an excessive emotional "high" or loss of libido. Herbal alternatives exist that relieve mild depression without these side effects.

 

6) Combination therapy to enhance the effects of conventional medication.
There are many cases in which herbs strengthen the body's response to prescription medications. In the treatment of lupus with prednisolone, for example, use of a specific ginseng formula from traditional Chinese medicine allows the lupus patient to use a reduced dosage of prednisolone, and thus avoid side effects.

 

7) Combination therapy to reduce the side effects of conventional medication.
For example, chemotherapy drugs are widely used in cancer treatment. While these compounds fight the disease, they also usually result in loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, anemia, kidney damage and hair loss. Herbs and herbal formulas exist that reduce the devastating side effects of many of these drugs and also increase the likelihood of remission (see Serico).