Herbal remedies and modern medicine may not mix well | News

It all started with a trip to the hospital for bronchitis and the flu. She took the prescribed medicines for three days but just couldn’t kick what was ailing her. So she started to mix up her own herbal remedies to take along with Theraflu. Three days after that, she started to feel better.

That sent her on a mission to learn about the healing power of herbs.

“A lot of prayer and a lot of studying, just trying to figure out what worked for what,” White said of her studies.

She read books. She worked at an herb shop. She learned from other people. She experimented.What she found was that herbs can effectively treat all kinds of ailments.

“They actually work to heal your body, not harm your body,” White said. “Although it may take a little bit of time to actually get that full healing.”

She no longer mixes herbs with chemically created medicines like she did in the beginning. But the herbs have worked for her, White said.

While medicines are often created to treat specific symptoms or ailments, herbs are more holistic, she said.

“Once you start taking the herbs, it starts working with your entire body,” White said. “Just about anything you can think of, herbs can be used for.”

What White discovered is age-old health care. Herbs have been used for centuries to treat ailments. They were displaced by medicines created in a laboratory and mass-produced in factories.

“Over the past 100 years, the development and mass production of chemically synthesized drugs have revolutionized health care in most parts of the world,” according to Herbal Medicine: Biomolecular and Clinical Aspects, second edition, as published on the National Library of Medicine website. “However, large sections of the population in developing countries still rely on traditional practitioners and herbal medicines for their primary care.”

In Africa and India, the majority of the population practices traditional medicine and herbal remedies. In China, 40% of health care is traditional medicine.

In the U.S., almost the same percentage of people were using herbs more than a decade ago. According to the same book, in 2007 about 38% of adults and 12% of children were using some form of traditional medicine. But that number is probably on the rise.

In 2012, the American Botanical Council noted that herbal product sales exceeded $5.3 billion in 2011, up 4% from 2010. By 2013, sales had reached $6 billion.

As they’ve become more popular, herbals are becoming more mainstream. Manufactured over-the-counter medicines are adding herbs such as elderberry or zinc to cold medicines or lavender to sleep aids. And for the last five years, Piedmont Newnan has offered aromatherapy during hospital births.

Herbal medicine is often cheaper than its mass-produced counterparts. People can grow their own herbs and process them at home into tinctures, poultices, teas and creams, White said. Or they can purchase them at herb shops both dried and processed into essential oils or other forms, she said.

Most online resources about herbal medications caution people who use herbal medicines to tell their doctor, their pharmacist and the herbalist they’re working with about any herbal remedies they’re using to make sure it doesn’t have the potential for drug interaction with other medicines they are taking.

Pharmacist Mindy Leech, owner of Lee-King Pharmacy in Newnan, said that is wise advice. There are some medications, such as blood thinners or cholesterol and antiseizure medications, that have a high risk of drug interactions. She would generally recommend avoiding herbal medicines when taking those types of medications, Leech said.

Unfortunately, there haven’t been many studies on the myriad herbs available, and since the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t oversee the herbal medications, there could be other substances in them that might interfere with the medicines, she said.

“There’s not this great database where we can look these up,” Leech said.

White also noted there was a possibility of drug interactions. She tries to keep up on the possible interactions in order to help her customers, White added. And she also is very careful about what she keeps in her shop.

“I read the backs of everything,” White said. “I research the companies. I talk to the companies.”

She added while the FDA doesn’t oversee herbal medicines, there are groups that do, including U.S. Pharmacopeia and the Food Chemicals Codex.

Leech said there are certain herbs that she has recommended to her customers, including elderberry and Oscillococcinum. The elderberry is said to boost the immune system, and the homeopathic medicine Oscillococcinum helps reduce flu symptoms, she said.

“I love the herbal shops,” Leech said. “But I think people need to keep in mind that they need to talk to their doctor and pharmacist about them (just as they would any other medicine).”