PLANT Medicine 101

Did you know that there are between 50,000 and 70,000 medicinal and aromatic plants?

Around 28,000 of these have reported medicinal value. In Australia, as a Western Medical Herbalist, we have access to around 300.

In my clinic, I use around 100 different plants as medicine every day for a range of complaints. 

Humans have used plants as medicine for millennia!

In fact, Barbara Griggs in her book Green Pharmacy talks of Neanderthal man laying eight different flowers around the grave of a loved one, seven of which are still used for medicine today.

I am sure you have heard me say, many of the pharmaceuticals we use to save lives were founded in plants. Plants synthesise hundreds of different chemical compounds we call constituents. These constituents provide a range of functions to the human body when taken medicinally.

The liquid medicine that I use is not just picked out of my garden and juiced!

These herbs are methodically grown, picked, transported, stored and pressed. They are tested numerous times with deliberate and stringent methods and are held to higher testing standards than some pharmaceuticals. The medicine that results has a measured and known activity within the body, which is calculated from the active constituents.

I believe that herbal medicine is one of the best possible ways to prevent and treat ailments before they need pharmaceuticals. I am a big believer in taking conventional therapies when you need them, but if we can look after the little stuff naturally before it gets to that, why wouldn’t we?

Herbs have such a far-reaching hand.

Here is just a few of the things I have used herbal medicine to assist in clinic already this year:

  • Insomnia

  • Depression, anxiety, addiction

  • Fertility, PCOS, Endometriosis

  • IBS and food intolerances

  • Autoimmune diseases

  • Thyroid dysregulation

  • Fatigue.

If you would like to experience the benefits of plant medicine, make an appointment with me today!