The Herbal Alternative
~ Frequently Asked Questions ~
When should a Medical Herbalist be consulted?
What does a consultation involve?
What form does the medication take?
What evidence is there to support the use of Herbal Medicine?
What formal (evidence based) research is there on common herbal medicines?
Someone bound by a strict code of ethics who has completed a four year, full-time BSc honours degree specialising in Herbal Medicine. The degree will include as much standard medical diagnosis as a traditional medical degree - combined with the treatment of illnesses with scientifically validated plant medicines.
First Consultations: £55 per hour.
Follow-up consultations: £30 per half hour.
Medicines: On average, no more than £10 per week.
When should a Medical Herbalist be consulted?
Whenever you're suffering from something you'd normally consult a GP about - but want its root causes as well as its symptoms determined and treated with lasting results and natural plant-based medicines.
What does a consultation involve?
First consultations are at least an hour long. Relevant past and present medical and drug histories are recorded. Lifestyle and diet are discussed. System (lungs, joints, heart, etc.) enquiries are made which may well require a physical examination, e.g. a blood pressure check. Everything is documented and filed securely in total confidence.
What form does the medication take?
Any combination of teas, tinctures and creams of plant-based ingredients, with lifestyle and diet recommendations where necessary. N.B. "Tinctures" in the sense used here are extremely pure extracts of plants' medicinal constituents, suspended in alcohol. The alcohol can be "burned" off if it is undesired, tolerated or allowed.
What evidence is there to support the use of Herbal Medicine?
The short answer is... "Most of the history of humanity". Anecdotal evidence of which herbs actually work to cure common ailments is the result of hundreds of thousands of years' trial and error.
Slightly more recently, herbal medicine has been subjected to modern scientific methods - and generally fared very well indeed.
Herbal Medicine is constantly questioned for a whole host of reasons. Usually there's a lack of understanding about its definition; its scientific basis; the often ridiculous and over-simplified way it is written about in the media; the poor quality, strength and dosage recommendations of some shop bought products; the misapplication of modern medicine's "magic bullet" idea i.e. one cure (one herb) for one problem, for all people.
The failure of the "magic bullet" approach along with a general lack of funding means the ability to set up double blind placebo, medical-science-format clinical trials is not always possible. This in itself leads to questions about herbalism's validity, particularly from the medical field.
Herbal Medicine can be trialled (and has been, with good results) but not in a way representative of how Herbal Medicine is practiced or prescribed therefore proving very little to Medics and scientists and more importantly to those that use it day to day.
The undisputed facts are: Herbal Medicine is successful and can bring real and long term positive change to peoples’ lives. Individuals are questioned and listened to at great length by the Medical Herbalist during a consultation, which means that diagnosis is as accurate as possible and prescriptions are optimally suited to the illness and the individual with it. In this way rarely will two people with the same illness get the same prescription; one of the things that makes Herbal Medicine practically impossible to research in a medical-format clinical trial and have its subtleties formally proved. But every time you take aspirin, rememember it first came from willow bark.
All in all, Herbal Medicine used in the correct way by correctly trained, well qualified individuals is highly effective and safe and has negligible side effects. It can only be fully appreciated by witnessing its benefits first hand.
What formal (evidence based) research is there on common herbal medicines?
