Healing Notebook

[Blaundee]

So, how are all these notebooks coming along? ... My notebook is coming right along! How about yours?

Between springtime arriving and all the other things going on, I haven't had ANY spare time lately LOL. I honestly probably wont get to work on my herbal notebooks until this winter- that's when I get to do indoors stuff. But the medical history folders are already started.

 

[Marianne]

I'm late to the party as usual, but somewhere around here I have notes with the basics - home remedies that actually worked for me using things that were common to this area. I'm like others in believing that it does no good to store info on the computer (thinking it will always be there). I also think that I better have the back up plan in case I can't order stuff online.

But I also believe in the power of corporate greed. If there's a way, they'll figure it out.

 

[heatherlynnky]

Well so far I have gathered violets for tea. Strawberry blackberry, and raspberry leaves for medicinal teas. I am in the process of making a plantain salve. I already made a rosemary, lavendar and teatree salve ( good for the little moscullum bumps the little one caught from her cousins swimming pool). I have to gather pine shoots stills for pine honey for colds. What I got, how and where I gathered. Everything is hand written down so I have it as a reference guide to what I am doing and what works.

 

[DeniseCharleson]

My list is probably shorter than many others, since I only rely on those plants which have been shown in controlled studies to have medical benefit. I eschew those which only come up in a search engine query as "good for calming the liver" or other such claims. My list:
- St. John's Wort (depression)
- German chamomile (IBS, anxiety, insomnia)
- Feverfew (fever, headache, arthritis)
- Echinacea (microbial & viral infections, anxiety)
- Ginseng (heart disease, angina, diabetes)
- Plantago major (Orally: ACE inhibitor. Topically: antibiotic & coagulant)

My methodology is simple: select a candidate plant, and run the name through the search engine at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
As an index of 22,000,000 citations of biomedical literature ... if the plant in question has been scientifically studied, the citation for the article is likely to be there. It is not a foolproof system but one more likely to return credible results than relying on random articles from the interwebs.
YMMV.

 

[ORChick]

Denise, sounds like a very scientific way to go about it, and if that is what you need to be comfortable using the herbs then I say "go for it, and have fun". I am a little more loose in my needs. For one, DH and I hardly ever get sick, so most of my research is done more from a theoretical standpoint, and I just love the history and folklore associated with herbal medicine. However, I am not so laissez faire as to just go with what some unknown on the internet happens to say. I go to many different sources to see what sort of overlap there may be, and also to find out how safe the herb in question has been shown to be over time. That way, if some sources say that it is, for example, good for sore throats, and a majority opinion says that it won't do me any harm to try it, then I can happily take a bit the next time I have a sore throat and determine for myself if it works or not. That is just my way, however, and not a comment on how you or others do it.

 

[heatherlynnky]

I go mostly on information from older folks I have gathered or from studies in other countries. The US is so stuffy about herbal medicine. My mother is from Austria and you get prescribed herbs. My mom does fennel for her tummy and st johns worth. A german friend of ours propagates stinging nettles if you can imagine such a thing. Swears by it for arthritis. An adopted Oma from an alps region would take me walking to pick tips off pine trees for honey. I still remember her showing me which ones to get and her getting a bit of pitch for me to chew on. Fond memory. Anywho but these are also things I am writing down. We have a farmer friend that has been a bit of a mentor to me. She is in her late 90's now. Only so long she will remember everything I need to learn from her so when she says stuff I write that down too. Its a very slow process.

At this point I just worry. There are so many of us for me to take care of and no one is getting any younger. I need more knowledge to take care of my family. I am also taking whatever first aid courses I can get my hands on. I am soon taking a 16 hour wilderness first aid course. FUN All of this is in an effort to be more self sufficient health wise. I would prefer not to be dependent on the medical profession for our continued good health.

 

[ORChick]

Heather, you are so right about the Europeans being more open to "the old ways" than we "scientific" Americans are. My German sister in law (and her DH, of course) bought a retirement home in the Austrian Alps some years ago. When we went to visit she was all excited about her neighbour who was teaching her about the local plants. So far as I know she had never had any interest in such things before. And I remember well that herbal products are standard fare in German and Austrian pharmacies. The English are also more interested in such things, though the only thing I remember about the English pharmacies dates from a few decades back - my cousin, who lived there for a few years while her husband was stationed there, was very concerned about an open blister on my heel. My cousin was a pharmacist in the States, though obviously not practicing while in England. We went to the pharmacy for an antibiotic cream, and were told that we needed a prescription. Further back and forth between my (pharmacist) cousin, and the pharmacist on duty, and it turned out that codeine cough syrup was available without a prescription, but we needed a doctor's order to get the equivalent of Neosporin . My cousin was horrified. (The hole in my heel healed up just fine - Kept clean and dry, open to the air, and no tight shoes)