Store some sunshine for next winter: Home Medicine Cycle 15

In the heart of winter, the sun doesn't rise here until 8:00 and it goes down promptly at 4:00 in the afternoon. Add to that the thick, smothering cloud cover that blankets the land eight months out of the year, and seasonal mood disorder isn't just a theory in this land. It's a fact of life.

Oh, to be able to bottle a bit of the precious summer sun that is so intense just now!

St. John's Wart in my herb garden

Wait a minute. You can do just that or the next best thing. There is a plant that does a very good job of capturing and preserving the essence of the sun.

That's St. John's Wart. As if to cue herbalists to start watching for sunbursts in the grass, the Christian calendar made June 24 the feast of St. John. And that's about right. By mid-July St. John's Wart is in full bloom--little five-petaled bursts waving back to the sun. 

St. John's Wart has many uses but it's signature use--the thing it does that few other plants do is lift spirits in the dead of winter, just as if it preserved the rays of the summer sun. Whether as a tea or a tincture, St. John's Wart in small doses is the herb for low-energy depression, fatigue and sagging passion.

A cup of tea or a few drops of tincture can be taken daily in the cold season to energize you and preclude depression that is chemically or biologically based. It can even help with depression caused by problematic circumstances. However, a strict schedule has to be kept where the herb is used for three weeks and then there is a rest of one week before using it for another three weeks. It's an herb with intense compounds that can be harmful if overdone. 

Note the distinctive clumps of St. John's Wart on both sides of the Atlantic.

St. John's Wart is also one of the best antiviral herbs. The tincture (look here for the recipe) can also be used to fight viral infections that antibiotics can't touch. If using St. John's Wart for depression or to increase energy, you want to take about a spoonful per day (with the three weeks on, one week off schedule). For an anti-viral dose, take three teaspoons per day for no longer than a week and stay out of intense sunlight. (High doses of St. John's Wart will tend to make you more susceptible to sunburn. In winter, this may help to increase the benefit of what little sunlight you get but you should still be careful.) 

St. John's Wart is also used as a salve for burns, particularly sunburns, and for wound disinfection. I shy away from using St. John's Wart for sunburns, even though I am sure it is effective in its own right. The fact that one has a sunburn means that one is likely to go out in the sun again soon and St. John's Wart salve on the skin will also make you more sensitive to the sun. But I do put infused St. John's Wart oil in my salve for immediate first-aid use on wounds. (See here for an infused oil and salve recipe.)

My photo of red St. John's Wart juice came out too blurry. I'll try again later, but for now here is a picture where you can see that my fingers are stained red from gathering just this little bit of St. John's Wart. No, I wasn't picking berries.

St. John's Wart is relatively easy to identify. It grows in sturdy plants in meadows and grassland where there is full sun. It has clusters of yellow flowers and the lower part of the flower head is a distinctive mix of brown and purple. But when you're beginning there is a  foolproof test for identifying St. John's Wart. If the plant looks like St. John's Wart and you take a blossom between your fingers and squeeze it, the yellow flower will bleed a deep crimson liquid that will stain your fingers.

Historically herbalists noted that the tincture and the tea of St. John's Wart isn't yellow like the flower but rather a deep beautiful red, and they associated the energizing and cleansing effects of the herb with being useful to blood disorders. I haven't seen a lot of modern evidence between St. John's Wart and blood issues but the color that comes out of the yellow flowers is very startling. 

Enough musing. It's the height of herb season! Now get to gathering.

Before you go, share your herbalist experiences and ask questions below using the comments icon or share this article with your friends. 

Please note that I'm not a doctor and this is not a prescription for treatment of a specific medical problem for a particular person.

Time to harvest a power herb to fight coughs: Home Medicine Cycle 14

My husband grew up with two chain smokers in the house, and then he lived in a Eastern European metropolis heated by coal in a particularly smoggy hollow for another ten years. He drives a lot on clogged freeways for his job as a surveyor. Of course, he has a chronic cough.

Common Thyme flowers - Creative Commons image by Magnus Manske

He's been to a string of specialists. He's had his share of infections and sometimes it takes antibiotics to clear up the infections, but for the first six or seven years we lived together he always had a chronic cough from October to April. He'd get tested and often as not he was told that there was no infection detected.

"You're airways are just oversensitive," the specialists said. They gave him synthetic pharmaceuticals and none of them helped appreciably. 

Yes, this is another one of those stories. It is worth noting how many times herbal medicinals work in precisely those areas where modern pharmaceutical medicine is weakest - immunological issues, chronic disease and systemic health problems. It is not so much a question of which type of medicine is "better," but a question of informed choice and using both pharmaceutical and herbal medicine to compliment each other. 

In this case, I didn't immediately try my own home herbs. I was a beginning herbalist at that time (about ten years ago) and I didn't have enough confidence in my own local herbs. I assumed that cures to big problems had to come from rare and powerful sources. So, after we had been through the wringer of mainstream medicine, we went to a professional herbalist. He suggested one extremely expensive herbal product and then another. The second one was the magic bullet.

It was an Ayurvedic mix of exotic herbs in capsule form from a foreign company. It had a hefty price tag, but it worked. If he took it for several weeks, the cough subsided. When he stopped taking it, the cough returned. It wasn't coincidence. For two winters my husband kept his chronic cough at bay with this mixture... and then the company stopped exporting to our country. 

I spent a small fortune finding and ordering the product abroad one year, but by then I had become a bit more skilled in herbs and I started to wonder if I might be able to come up with a formula of local herbs that would work. I had noticed that my husband's cough responded a bit to thyme tea, so I started giving him doses of thyme tincture every day. I added various other herbs to this (including plantain, ground ivy, marshmallow and mullein). After a few months, I hit on something that worked in his particular case - a combination of thyme and mullein tinctures. 

Wild Thyme flowers - image by Summi of German Wikipedia with GNU Free Documentation License

The lesson in this experiment is much bigger than the fact that thyme and mullein are generally good for chronic coughs. Every individual is different and the underlying causes are varied. So, it may not always work the same. The greater lesson is that you can often find a local source of herbs that are much fresher, safer and less expensive than the herbs sold in shops. A good professional herbalist can also help with this. I don't trust "professional herbalists" who will only sell you expensive formulas rather than consult with you and help you figure out which herbs you can grow yourself.

You do need time and patience to test out various combinations like this. And in most cases, you need to remember to take herbal medicinals consistently, according to the schedule for that particular herb. My husband's chronic cough has come back at times - always when he neglected to take the tinctures. And once started it takes as long as a month to go away again after he resumes taking the herbs. 

Still, this was also the case that has proved the extraordinary power of thyme to us. GreenMed Info reports 25 studies indicating the therapeutic value of thyme in treating bronchitis. We use thyme for other things as well - in tinctures, salves and teas.

Thyme is one of the herbs most widely used in pharmaceuticals in Europe, so here at least there is a blurred line between synthetic and herbal medicine. I am still convinced that fresh, homegrown thyme is far superior for medicinal use.

In the Czech language the common name for wild thyme translates as "mother's soul." Some people find the smell of thyme unpleasant or even just too intense, but my family loves it, especially the purple wild thyme. Thyme is one of my favorite teas and we rarely have enough to be able to just drink it for the enjoyment of it. I have to save it for my husband, so I only drink thyme tea when I'm truly sick and then I really enjoy it. Thyme tea is good for coughs, sniffles and sore throats as well as aches and pains.

Thyme makes a good tincture (see the recipe here), which is useful for:

• Chronic coughs and bronchitis
• A pain killer for menstrual cramps (Here's a study on this one. It appears to mention consuming highly diluted essential oil internally. But that is never a good idea outside of a doctor's supervision. Essential oils, particularly those of intense herbs like thyme, can be very dangerous and even fatal when taken internally. I suggest using tincture instead.)

Bundle of thyme - public domain image

Thyme infused oil (recipe here) is one of the best oils to use in making a salve for cuts and scrapes because it is mildly disinfectant. There are studies showing the antibiotic action of thyme and its constituents in laboratory tests, which may account for how helpful thyme is in salve. 

It is useful to note that when gathering thyme the most potent part of the upper plant is the flower. We always gather our thyme when it is flowering. Sometimes we get two cuttings. My favorite type of thyme is the creeping wild variety with purple flowers. Some herbalists believe the common white-flowered variety is stronger and I haven't had enough experience to compare directly. The common thyme tends to have a somewhat less inviting smell for tea, but may be actually somewhat more effective in disinfectant salve.

Feel free to comment, ask question and add your own experiences using the icon on the lower left. And please share this article with your friends using the icon on the lower right. 

I would like to invite you to my hearth-side email circle. This is a small group of readers with whom I share the occasional virtual cup of tea and links to my latest writing. This is my protected, spam-free corner of the internet, so that's all you'll receive. 

Note: This does not constitute medical advice for a specific person with a specific problem. We are all individuals and I'm not a doctor who can prescribe treatments for you personally. 

A balm for bruised spirits, cold sores and sore throats: Home Medicine Cycle 13

My mother and I are running a bit of a competition between lemon balm and her antiviral prescription medication. The issue is that we both have the herpes virus which causes periodic cold sores. In my twenties and early thirties I used to have terrible cold sores every other month. I just slathered on Carmex (to very little effect),  tried not to touch them and felt depressed at the idea that this was to be my fate for the rest of my life.

Lemon balm leaves - image licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Then I read that lemon balm, that most mild and unassuming herb is specifically indicated to combat the herpes virus. I was initially very skeptical, needless to say. Modern medicine would love to be able to conquer herpes and here the answer is supposed to be in a neglected corner of our herb gardens. 

Well, nothing gets my attention like dramatic results. So far, I've had one cold sore that got away in the past ten years. My mother has been using pharmaceutical antivirals during the same period and she has had only two or three bad cold sores that she's mentioned to me. So, both of us have seen vast improvement.

The fact that she has had more cold sores than me can't necessarily be entirely put down to lemon balm being better than pharmaceutical antivirals, because both are very dependent on how quickly you manage to apply the medicine. The pharmaceutical antiviral is a pill that you swallow. Lemon balm is either a salve or a mashed-herb poultice. I have found that lemon balm salve is definitely most effective if applied at the first tingling feeling that a cold sore is on its way. The same thing holds true for my mother taking pharmaceutical antivirals. A cold sore can be prevented but she has to take the pill immediately as soon as she notices the first sensation. 

I now carry a small jar of lemon balm salve everywhere with me because if a cold sore starts to develop, I have usually no more than two hours to put the salve on or I'll suffer the consequences. Certainly, lemon balm salve is helpful even with run-away cold sores. Even the one that broke out because I didn't put the salve on quickly enough was small and dry (rather than large, brilliantly red and pussy, like they are normally). But still I'd rather not have a cold sore at all. 

Whether or not my mother and I ever resolve our difference of opinion over which is absolutely more effective, I can say for certain that lemon balm salve works well enough for me.  The lemon balm grows in my herb garden for free, while the antivirals are quite expensive. I know what's in the lemon balm and none of it is bad for you. I can't guarantee the same thing about the antivirals (and I wouldn't trust their manufacturers at the end of a ten-foot poll). And if I did have any doubts, the fact that lemon balm is applied topically rather than taken internally is always preferable. I usually only have to apply the salve once to prevent a cold sore, so there are really no disadvantages to the salve that I can think of.

This illustration of lemon balm can help you to identify the plant - public domain image by Gideon Pisanty

Now there are several clinical studies to prove that lemon balm is effective against herpes. This one is unequivocal in stating that lemon balm is effective. (Even though it calls it balm mint, which is a less common name, it is correctly botanically identified.) And that is actually surprising given that the lemon balm treatment given during the study was a very diluted and heavily processed cream. A salve made at home by my recipe (click here to get it) is likely to be a bit more dramatic in effect.

Other studies have indicated that lemon balm may actually have wider antiviral uses, including against HIV-1 and HSV-2 viruses. I would use lemon balm tincture, if I were trying to fight a system-wide viral infection.

Traditional herbalists claim that lemon balm syrup is helpful with strep throat. I haven't personally seen clear effects with strep throat and strep isn't a viral infection, though it may be exacerbated by viral infections. Even so lemon balm is soothing on a sore throat. Given that strep throat piggybacks on a lot of viral infections and other types of sore throat often are viral, taking lemon balm either as tea or syrup when you have a sore throat may help to relieve symptoms. (Check with a doctor if you have a sore throat for more than three days.)

Lemon balm is also useful as a tea or tincture (recipe here) for the following problems:

• Stress and anxiety (Studies confirm it)
• Sleep problems, particularly in menopause (A study)
• Radiation protection (Radiology operators have used it for protection.)
• Alzheimer's disease (A study)
• Infant colic, diarrhea and irritable bowel syndrome (in this case the nursing mother should drink lemon balm tea herself and the effects will be transferred to the infant through breast milk.)

Take altogether, I've had to seriously reevaluate my assumptions about this mild and humble member of the mint family. It will always be a staple herb for my family and I eagerly await further research into its uses.

Feel free to comment, ask question and add your own experiences using the icon on the lower left. And please share this article with your friends using the icon on the lower right. 

I would like to invite you to my hearth-side email circle. This is a small group of readers with whom I share the occasional virtual cup of tea and links to my latest writing. This is my protected, spam-free corner of the internet, so that's all you'll receive. 

Note: This does not constitute medical advice for a specific person with a specific problem. We are all individuals and I'm not a doctor who can prescribe treatments for you. 

The raw power of sage: Home Medicine Cycle 12

Sage is ancient and helps ground me in those things I love best. Sage reminds me of the land where I was born in dry Eastern Oregon. And now it recalls years of cooking for my family. When in doubt, toss in a handful of sage! Beyond that it has antioxidant properties and can help build strength and energy.

In 2007, a medical study found that smudging with sage for an hour can clear 94 percent of bacteria from the air in a closed room. Not only is this useful in preventing the spread of disease when someone in your household is sick, it also helps to fight lower levels of bacteria that build up in the air. They might not make you overtly sick, but you may be more tired than you need to be because your immune system is battling a blend of cooped up bacteria.

As it turns out, indigenous cultures that smudge with sage to purify a sacred space were on to something. That's the way it often is. Empirical studies end up confirming what ancient herbalist practices hammered out over the centuries.

Sage flowers - image by Kurt Stuber with GNU Free Documentation License

The common garden sage that we use most for medicine and cooking is actually native to the Mediterranean area of Europe and the Middle East. In mid-June it is finally starting to really get going in our climate a bit further north. It is a low plant with soft, gray-green leaves and woody stems. It's smell is distinct and, to me, instantly comforting. I believe that ancient people must have known instinctively that sage would be a beneficial herb because the smell is so enticing. 

The most common way that I use sage is simply in cooking. It is pungent enough that you don't want to put it in everything, lest all of your dishes taste the same but when I use sage I use at least three times the amount called for in cook books. It is one of those things like garlic. Some people consider it a spice to be used sparingly. I consider it to be a vegetable, if a strongly flavored one. Bland chicken noodle soup for sick days will become instantly fantastic with a handful (or two) of sage. Essentially any gravy or broth can be vastly improved with generous amounts of sage.

One of my favorite busy-mama recipes for weekday nights when we've run out of leftovers is to make a thick gravy out of some chicken stock from the freezer (easiest way is to heat the broth, mix 3-4 tablespoons of flour in a cup of sour cream and add the sour cream to the boiling broth while stirring briskly). Also add generous amounts of fresh or dried sage to your gravy. Cut long strips of red bell pepper and let them soften a bit in the gravy. Then pour the finished sauce over whole-grain noodles. Kids love it and it' s very fast. Like mac and cheese, but a bit more healthy.

Sage leaves - image by Jonathunder of Wikipedia with GNU Free Documentation License 

For a bigger dinner I will often rub a chicken or half a turkey with butter, garlic, salt, pepper and copious amounts of sage, thyme and rosemary. There are people who will eagerly come a hundred miles or more for one of my turkey dinners based on this recipe. (For best results, melt butter and combine with crushed garlic, salt and pepper to taste depending on size of the turkey and a couple of handfuls of crushed sage and then lift the skin of the turnkey and rub this mixture in everywhere you can reach before baking.)

All this delicious cooking has more medicinal benefit than you might think. Sage contains exceptionally high levels of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory compounds. Cooking with sage can help protect the cells of your body from damage caused by free radicals, those nice-sounding but ultimately unfriendly atoms that cause cell death, poor immune system response and chronic disease. Tossing sage in your soup is more than just yummy. It's like taking an expensive antioxidant, immune-support supplement from a high-end health food store (except, of course, that many of those supplement are over-processed and don't actually work very well).

Sage can also be used as a tincture and is useful in that form for three primary purposes:

- to mitigate or prevent Alzheimer's (There has been a clinical trial showing its effectiveness.)

- to lower harmful cholesterol levels and support "good" cholesterol

- to regulate glucose in people with diabetes or to prevent diabetes

- to raise dangerously low blood pressure (I have tried this personally to good effect.)

This painting of the sage plant and its parts (from Koehler's Medicinal Plants - 1887) is particularly helpful in correctly identifying sage. (Public domain image)

Dosage with sage tincture should be small (half a teaspoon daily) and closely monitored. Any of the conditions listed here should be discussed with a doctor as well. To make an effective tincture for these problems, see my post on making vodka tinctures. 

As is made clear by the study on cleansing harmful bacteria out of the air using sage smoke, this herb also has antimicrobial and antiviral properties that make it useful in treating sore throats as well as cuts and scrapes. In Europe, sage is used in many pharmaceuticals for the treatment of sore throats. You can make your own at home which will be far more effective, if you make honey syrup or candies including a lot of strong sage tea. In a pinch, just brewing a strong sage tea and adding honey will also help. 

Stubborn sores or cuts on hands or feet can be helped by soaking in a strong sage infusion (tea). And finally, I always make a disinfectant salve during my annual salve making bonanza, which includes a large portion of sage infused oil.

Sage salve is particularly helpful with raw scrapes that are likely to be a bit dirty (such as if you fall off your bike on gravel). Disinfectants such as iodine often won't go deep enough into the skin if small particles of dirt have been embedded in the skin. Wash the cut or scrape out as best you can and use a liquid disinfectant (iodine is good but so are a lot of tinctures I describe in these posts - sage, St. John's Wart or Yarrow tinctures are all good choices for emergency disinfectants) . Then dry the area and rub in sage salve to reach a deeper layer of skin.

See my infused oil and salve making recipe to learn how to make your own homemade healing salve that is less-processed and thus far more effective than those you can buy commercially.

I hope these herbal recipes and tips are helpful. My goal is to take back my health and live on the earth in a sustainable way. I am happy to share what I'm learning on the journey with others because the more of us who do it, the better our future will be. Feel free to add your own experiences using the comment icon on the lower left and share this article with your friends using the icon on the lower right.

I would also like to invite you to join my hearth-side email circle. This is a small group of readers with whom I share the occasional virtual cup of tea and links to my latest writing. That way you won't miss the next post in my Home Medicine Cycle. As with every part of my website and communication systems, I have invested in strong protection from both Squarespace and Mailchimp, in order to make this my spam- and virus-free corner of the internet where you and I are both safe.

Please note: This doesn't constitute medical advice for a specific ailment in a specific individual. It is always a good idea to discuss your health problems with a doctor because we're all different.

Amid the glory of early summer, have a care for the winter cold: Home Medicine Cycle 11

The Home Medicine Cycle isn't just a collection of herbal remedies. And it certainly isn't a shopping list. I started with and continually find myself returning to the key element in this practice of "taking back your health." That is growing or gathering and making your own herbal medicines. 

Why grow or gather your own?

1. The fresher the herbs the more medicinally potent they are.
2. You know where you got them and have at least a chance to ensure they aren't full of pesticides or heavy metals pollution. 
3. You can keep processing to a minimum to preserve the medicinal potency.
4. You know every ingredient and screen out allergens. 
5. The process of growing and making your own medicinals is a powerful way to connect you to natural rhythms and the earth.
6. Some herbal medicinals are specifically more effective if they are locally grown.
7. You can be a part of local, sustainable habitat and community development.

Elderflower - Creative commons image by J. M. Garg

This week I have an herbal tip that is often easy to gather and you may not need to grow it. It is also a perfect example of an herb that will root you in natural rhythms and cycles of the earth and sun. That's elder flowers.

I know you can make elderberry wine and syrup later in the season and these have their own medicinal qualities and significant vitamin content. But I want to spotlight elder flowers because they bloom for only two or three short weeks each year in May or June, depending on where you live. And they are so essential to the home medicine cabinet.

The primary way we use elder flowers is in tinctures and teas to treat colds, sniffles and sinus problems. Elder flower is the single most effective herbal cold medicine I know of and it often works almost uncannily well, drying up serious congestion in a couple of hours with the rapidity usually reserved for unhealthy pharmaceuticals that block the body's production of mucus. Elder flower has a much gentler mechanism with better long-term effects. Sometimes it isn't as dramatic but it should be helpful with colds and sinus problems unless you are actually allergic to elder flower pollen.

Elder flower - Creative commons image by Kurt Stuber

Some people are allergic, so I recommend caution if you suffer from pollen allergies. I do know people who actually treat pollen allergies with elder flower tincture effectively, but due to their allergies they have to have a friend or family member process the elder flower for them and make it into a tincture with all the pollen and petals filtered out. This is likely to be one case in which the local origin of the herb will be an aid in allergy mitigation. 

Here is a link to the instructions on tincture making. You can use that recipe to make elder flower tincture and bottle a little bit of the June sunshine for next fall and winter when the inevitable sniffles will come around. 

I also recommend drying some elder flower blossoms for tea. The flower can be very effective for children too, but it can be difficult to give children tincture without exposing them to alcohol. 

Elder flower - Creative commons image by Hardyplants at Wikipedia

It may be difficult to get motivated to go out and search for elder flower to treat colds that are unlikely to strike for another six months. This is why it's such a good herb to connect us with natural rhythms and remind us that we are in the cycle of the earth's seasons. Now is the time for gathering and producing food and herbs. The time of need will come soon enough.

Wild elder trees often  grow in empty lots and on the edges of towns in thick bushy clumps, Look for elder flowers in areas that aren't sprayed with pesticides on vacant land or along the edges of forests.

However, if you need a little added motivation, there are ways to make elder flower into a delicious and healthy summer drink, in fact an excellent replacement for pop and other over-sweetened drinks. I posted this recipe last year. Look here for the post on how to make a delicious drink concentrate with elder flowers.