Herbal Preparations

I took the day off yesterday because I got a little behind, and I had been working on an extensive list of herbal preparations which can be viewed now on my "Herbal Preparations" page to the left. It describes the different types of preparations and what they do. It's still under construction as I need to add a few things to make it complete, but it is still very useful if you are thinking of making your own herbal preparations.

Herbal preparations are different ways of preparing medicinal herbs to be used a medicine. There are a large variety of ways to use herbs the two biggest ways of course being ingestion, which is usually orally, and topically, or applying to the skin.

Depending on the herb and the ailment or illness you can determine the best preparation to make.

For example, if someone has a cold or the flu, an ointment or cream might help skin irritation, or a eucalyptus rub might help chest congestion but you would generally want to treat a cold internally. The most common way of doing this would be as an Infusion, Decoction, or Maceration. All three of these are different ways of making what we commonly refer to as tea. Water steeped with herb material to bring out it's medicinal properties.

Typically a cream, balm, salve, or ointment would be used if you or the person you were treating had some sort of skin problem, such as a rash, allergic dermatitis, bug bites or stings, or minor burns. These can also be treated with Poultice and Compress, which are faster preparations, by applying the herb almost directly to the skin. You can also apply it directly if using Aloe vera, by cutting open a fleshy leaf and applying the inner gel directly to the affected area.

There are infused oils, typically used for skin ailments as well. Especially strong oils can be used for aroma therapy.

Capsules are of course a form of internal medicine, as well as suppositories, all can be rather easily made at home.

The biggest issue with any preparation is dosage, which I will talk  about later. Dosage is extremely important when dealing with any kind of drug or medicinal herb as one could just as easily under-dose with little to no effect or overdose to very ill effect. So before administering or creating your own herbal preparations I strongly advise finding a very reliable source for dosage information, and make sure you keep up on it. Dosages can change very quickly, especially as more and more research on herbs is being done, so make sure to look for articles or sources published rather recently for dosage information (Within the last 3 years if possible.)

~Lindsey Shemwell (The Budding Botanist)