Herbal Formularies for Health Professionals

Arrived ahead of schedule, excellent reference - used as reference by 7Song.

REALMENTE ES UN LIBRO MUY UTIL Y ESPECIFICO

Comprehensive book.

I'm a serious self-taught herbalist who got into herbalism out of necessity to try to help a seriously ill family member. Western medicine was out of useful ideas. My patient has a complex mix of stomach, gallbladder, liver, and pancreas problems...which, after immense amounts of study and searching and deep pondering, I finally realized were all being aggravated by hyperthyroidism. At this point, new problems arose, because it's very difficult to get help with HYPER thyroidism--most of the attention is on the HYPO (underfunctioning) versions. Then there's the famous Hashimoto's and Graves diseases--if your patient doesn't happen to have one of those versions of thyroid malfunction, good luck trying to find help. Root cause is everything, of course, so you're not going to get very far treating the wrong issue (such as trying to get the immune system to stop attacking an organ when that's not even what's happening). I then came across this set of books, and thought "finally, here's some real help!" I bought Volumes 1 (the digestive organs) and 3 (which covers the thyroid). I dove in expecting this woman to be a true herbalist--meaning someone who believes in the body's ability to heal itself and is firmly against using methods that permanently cripple the body. I was therefore extremely disappointed to find her recommending procedures in which an overfunctioning thyroid is being intentionally poisoned/damaged/partially destroyed to try to calm it down. She at least acknowledges that such procedures toxify the body and create long term problems, as well as increasing the risk of cancer (so why are we doing it??). She also recommends some herbal formulas...including some that will help try to mitigate the damage done by the destructive (and very Western) methods. Serious disappointment.I use TCM for my diagnostic approach because IMO it's a thousand times better than the Western approach. So I was especially hopeful when it was clear this author has some familiarity with Chinese herbs. I also appreciated her acknowledging that many Chinese herbs are difficult or impossible to obtain in the West, and it was nice to see her ideas of substitutes (although I was already familiar with most of them: good old Milk Thistle & Turmeric).Regarding her herbal recommendations: some of them are just too extreme. For example, in her advice for stomachs (Vol. 1), she recommends having patients consume an entire bowl of slippery elm porridge. That is not only extremely expensive, it would be extremely distressing for anyone who does not like eating a bowlful of glue. While I knew better than to blindly follow her advice here, it did inspire me to do some browsing on Amazon which led me to another product with only 2% slippery elm in it which helps a ton of people. So I got that instead and it's working very nicely for my patient.Books that inspire you are worth buying as much as books that actually deliver solid advice. I've come to view this author as a source of inspiration, but she's definitely lost too much of my trust to directly take any of her advice on board. Instead, I'll be noting down her suggested formulas, but I'll be doing my own revisions. To her credit, she says she wants to encourage people to think for themselves instead of acting like the final authority. I appreciate her lack of arrogance, but it's also clear she's not my idea of a true herbalist. Instead, she sounds like someone who has been fully indoctrinated in Western medicine philosophies and who is then trying to supplement with herbs. This is a very different approach than my own, and explains why she's promoting body crippling measures alongside restorative ones. No one's perfect.A technical note for other Western based herbalists: this book will drive you crazy with how it refers to plants ONLY by their botanical names in the main text. On the one hand, hooray for clarity (because it's equally crazy making when people don't specify which species they are using, right?). But on the other hand, why can't she just include the common English name as well? To use this book, you'll have to constantly flip to the back where she has an index that helps you match the botanical name with the common English where you'll realize that the mysterious sounding "Carduus marianus" is simply Milk Thistle. This makes it hard to retain any information in the moment. You read a formula full of strange names, and it won't sink in until you look up each and every Latin name in the cross reference to find the names you're familiar with. With plants having so many names, I can appreciate why she went botanical...but she really should have included the common English name as well. It would make the book far more accessible.Another note: cautions aren't included with formulas, so you really need to check each and every herb's profile before using it. For example, when she was recommending eating mountains of Slippery Elm porridge, she didn't comment on the fact that if you start downing loads of heavy mucilage herbs, you'll end up swinging your GI out of balance (what TCM calls too much "Damp"), which will bring on a host of new problems (such as chronic diarrhea--the very issue she is trying to fix with her porridge idea). I don't know if she just doesn't understand these issues, or if she assumes you understand them, but I was surprised that she doesn't make any mention of them in the moment.I'm an American living in the UK. This book is written from the view of an American working in America, hence you'll find references to some herbs that are impossible to get in the UK, such as the famous Oregon grape root. So you'll need to be ready to come up with your own subs depending on where you live.Doing your own herbal research is essential before trying anyone's formula. In TCM, there is an obsession with Bupleurum root (aka Chai Hu) as having a fantastic balancing action IF it is used in a formula setting. So they put it in a whole host of formulas for liver/thyroid issues. This author talks about Bupleurum, which I appreciated, but she doesn't point out that if used on its own, the herb could make a lot of liver/thyroid issues worse. The Chinese are far advanced in their understanding of formulating and how combining herbs is often far superior to using them individually.I find it very tedious when herbal books over-caution--meaning they try to emphasize fear at every turn or put in the ridiculous phrase of "ask your doctor first" when they know full well that your doctor likely isn't educated on herbs enough to know how to advise you. So I really appreciate the authors who don't over-caution. But if you don't give any cautions, that comes across as rather sloppy (and potentially dangerous). This author is perhaps the first I've come across who seems too light on cautions. So that was surprising, and another reason I'm not going to just run with any of her advice.In conclusion, I'm still glad I got these books. As anyone dealing with complex problems knows, you get pretty desperate for help, and clinic level herbal books are the only ones worth buying IMO. The ones aimed at the general public are just not detailed enough for those of us trying to sort out complex issues where the risk level is very high, so the margin for error is limited.If, like me, you're a Westerner trying to apply the wisdom of TCM using Western herbs, check out Peter Holmes' "Western Energetics" 2 book series--that will give you invaluable profile help for most of the herbs this author is going to refer to in her texts. Holmes profiles herbs according to Western AND Chinese viewpoints: an invaluable resource with useful cautions and some excellent guidance as well.As for this author, I'd suggest you try just buying the volume that's relevant to your current concerns. That will give you an idea of her style and emphasis. You can then invest in other volumes if you feel they are useful enough. I am glad I got them, because it is incredibly difficult to find clinic level Western herb books. So something is better than nothing, and I do think this author will provide more inspiration for me as I go along. But it wasn't at all the salvation I was hoping for. Instead it's clear that I'll have to continue to figure this out for myself instead of having an "expert" swoop in and hand me the right answers. (Wouldn't that be nice??)

I was hoping this book would touch on a lot of info about diabetes, which a family member has. It’s so informative but be aware that the ingredients can be obscure or hard to source but totally worth it.