Chinese Herbal Formulas
Why take Chinese Herbal Formulas?
Chinese Herbal Formulas are often prescribed for patients who do not tolerate acupuncture needles well or to help extend or augment acupuncture treatments.
Are Chinese Herbal Formulas safe?
When taken as directed, Chinese Herbal Formulas can be very safe. Many of the problems reported with any herbal remedy are usually caused by people taking them in higher than recommended dosages, for longer than the recommended time, for non-indicated conditions, or with incompatible herbs or medications. Working with a qualified practitioner is important to avoid these complications.
How are Chinese Herbal Formulas taken?
Traditionally, an herbalist would prepare a formula based on the patient’s condition. Using various combinations of twigs, roots, stems, flowers, animal parts, and minerals, an appropriate formula would be concocted that the patient could take home. Home preparation would involve making a tea or tisane -- soaking the herbs in water in a non-metal (e.g., glass) or stainless steel pot, cooking for a while, straining, and then drinking the resulting remedy.
These days, most patients take their herbal remedies in the form of pills and powders; a more convenient and accessible alternative for people without the time to process their own herbal formulas.
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Which of the methods of taking herbs, traditional or modern, is the most effective?
The most effective formula is the one the patient will actually take. Even the modern tea pills and powders do not help if they stay in the bottle. The traditional remedies using cooked herbs are considered to be the most effective as they can be precisely tailored for the patient’s condition. These remedies are usually based on time-tested formulas, some in use for hundreds, even thousands of years. Most practitioners use the older classic formulas as guidelines, custom fitting the formulas for their patients.
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What are these modern tea pills and powders?
Tea pills are small, pea-sized pills made of ground herbs compressed and usually coated with a licorice-based outer shell. Licorice or gan cao is added to many herbal formulas to help harmonize the herbs, getting them to work well with each other. Powders are like the instant coffee version of Chinese Herbal Formulas. The formula is cooked then freeze-dried after straining, resulting in a powder that can be reconstituted with hot water, yielding a tea similar to what you would have if you had made the same formula from raw herbs.
Why would someone choose tea pills or powders over raw herbs?
Although the raw herbs are infinitely more customizable, they are time-consuming to make. Two days worth of tea can take up to two hours to prepare. In addition, the herbs in some formulas can make for a bitter brew, and one less likely to be consumed.
Powders, like raw herbs, can be tailored to the patient and condition. However, the practitioner cannot remove components from a formula powder the way they could if preparing the formula with raw herbs. In addition, tea from powders can have a more bitter taste than one made from raw herbs.
Tea pills, swallowed whole, circumvent the bitter taste issue, but the practitioner has no ability to alter the components of the formula. For that reason, depending on the condition, the patient might end up taking two formulas, or sets of pills, at a time.
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