Reply To: Herbal Therapeutics
In regards to the recent Herbal Therapeutics class, some questions have come up.
This morning I created an herbal blend for an infusion and a tincture for my friend that is quite allergic to his roommate’s cat. He is stuffed up all the time and has become prone to ear infections since moving in. He drinks a ton of water and the condition is moist so I’m not too concerned about using drying herbs with him.
The question is about doses eg. minimum doses of parts of the formula that are of lesser amounts and how to do the math to determine overall doses.
For a 50 ml bottle there is
20 ml Urtica dioca
10 ml Plantago lanceolata
10 ml Solidago canadensis
5 ml Echinacea
5 ml Curcuma (which is 5-10% piper nigrum)
Rational
Nettles and Goldenrod for the allergy itself, the plantain to help clear the URT, the Echinacea is the only immunomodulator as far as I know that I have on hand but would also consider Reshi instead for future “re-fills” and the Turmeric again for inflammation.
I wanted to add Galium aperine as well because I have a lot of it and think having the lymphatics clear would be of benefit preventing the inflammation in the ear canals. Perhaps some other ingredient in the tincture could be removed in its place being that the others are available in dried plant material whereas I only saved G. aperine in tincture form.
In my notes there is a min dose for Urtica at .5 ml and max at 3 ml.
For G. aperine the min is 1.5 ml and max at 3.5 ml.
I wanted the formula to be mostly Uritica because of its anti-allergy action, however, if I have less of other herbs, and still need to clear their minimum dosages I may have to compromise the formula’s ratios.
So in the future would I have to make sure I had enough Galium in the overall formula to reach the min 1.5 ml /dose?
The 2 ways to achieve that would be to have Galium take up a significant percentage of the formula or the other way would be to raise the overall dose of the formula since Urtica has such a wide range.
Any suggestions, comments, or corrections in my thinking would be greatly appreciated.
The Infusion is similar to the Tincture and includes
Nettles, Goldenrod, Mint (for taste), P.lanceolata as well as Mallow blossom (for beauty)