Herbal Treatment

A powerful, and sometimes overlooked, component of Traditional Chinese Medicine is the use of Herbal Prescription. The equivalent of the role of prescriptions drugs in Western Medicine, herbal pharmacies provide the medicinal treatments that help the body resolve its dysfunctional issues from within. While Acupuncture treatment is most commonly recognized in Chinese Medicine, Herbal treatment is just as important and effective. Many would argue that Herbal Prescriptions play a larger role in the medicine. Nonetheless, Together with Acupuncture, the use of Herbal Prescriptions give the practitioner a two pronged approach to improving the health of the patient, both internally and externally at the same time.

Just like an Acupuncture treatment, an Herbal Prescription requires the same diagnostic procedures to determine which protocol will best address your condition. Your tongue body, coat and pulse will be observed and interpreted by your practitioner, along with physical indicators they are trained to observe. They will ask questions about your diet and lifestyle and a proper herbal formulation will be determined and created for you. Each Herbal Formula that your practitioner creates for you is custom made to your needs at the time of your visit. With each visit that you make the formula may be slightly modified to suit and support your progress. As specific symptoms of your condition begin to disappear, herbal components for that symptom are removed from your formula in order to focus on the issues that remain.

PREPARATION

Herbal formulas are, for the most part, prepared in powdered extract form. The extracts are in a concentrated form allowing us to create larger component formulas into smaller containers that are easily stored and carried by the patient. The powdered prescriptions can be spooned into small glasses of warm water and consumed as a drink or they can be spooned directly onto he tongue and a drink of water afterwards to wash it down. *Herbal Formulas should never be mixed into, or followed by, any other beverages such as juice or sweetened beverages. Doing so will change the properties of the herbs in the formula and quite probably reduce their effectiveness. Many formulas can have a bitter or sour taste to them. But these tastes and other qualities are a necessary part of their effectiveness. "Sweetening" up the taste will change their intended use and reduce their ability to work effectively. Warm water should be the only liquid taken with your formulas, unless specifically instructed otherwise by your Herbalist.

For those of you with sensitive tastebuds that might not appreciate the less than subtle tastes of some Herbal Prescriptions we also offer the option of assembling your prescriptions in capsule form. We fill gelatin, or vegetable based, capsules with the Herbal Formulas allowing you to take your prescription without the accompanying tastes. Just be sure to mention this option to your practitioner.


For those of you who prefer the whole herbal preparation experience, we do offer this approach as well; but most prescriptions must be filled off premises. The area required to store all of these herbs in addition to the extracts would require larger a space than we currently occupy. Only the herbs that we can use individually for specific purposes, such as topical use, are kept on hand.

Because most Americans are unfamiliar with cooking their own herbs, we rely mainly on the powdered ones that are more convenient. We find that, often, when someone is sick or in pain that they're less likely to invest the time and effort to make the tea decoctions and then get past the tastes to drink them. It seems logical to us that it's better to give prescriptions to a patient that they're more likely to comply with. Unused bags of herbs on a counter do no one any good.

Finally, some patients come in with general conditions that can be treated by predetermined formulas. We refer to these as "patents". These patents are used to treat mild conditions that don't necessarily require custom formulas. Through centuries of use from countless experiences of these mild conditions, these patent formulas have come to be relied upon to treat these mild conditions with amazing efficiency. In fact, it's many of these patent formulas that form the basis of many of the custom formulas that most herbalists use. These patent formulas often come in prepackaged tea pills, tablets and capsules. Your practitioner can decide whether this approach will be most beneficial for you.