I personalize Chinese herbs for my clients. In many cases you will need to come in for a consultation in order to get the best herbs for you.
As a major part of Traditional Chinese medicine, Chinese herbal medicine has a unique characteristic of mixing herbs together to produce an effective formula. In other forms of herbal medicine, especially Western herbal medicine, herbs are often delivered individually or combined into very small formulas of herbs with the same function. In contrast, Chinese herbalists rarely prescribe a single herb to treat a condition. They create formulas instead. A formula usually contains at least four to twelve herbs.
Decoction is the traditional method of preparing herbal medicine. A decoction is a concentrated form of tea. The practitioner weighs out a day’s dosage of each herb and combines them in a bag. (I put two days dosage in one bag, so you only need to cook every other day.) The herbs are then boiled in water by the patient at home. The boiling process takes about 60 minutes and the resulting decoction will be consumed several times during the day.
Another modern way of delivering herbs is through granulated herbs, which are highly concentrated powdered extracts. These powders are made by first preparing the herbs as a traditional decoction. The decoction is then dehydrated to leave a powder residue. Practitioners can then mix these powders together for each patient into a custom formula. The powder is then placed in warm water to recreate the decoction. This eliminates the need to prepare the herbs at home, but still retains much of the original decoction’s potency.
It is our sincere belief that our Creator put herbs upon the earth to maintain and restore our health. We believe instead of simply masking symptoms as many pharmaceuticals do, herbs get to the real cause of health problems by feeding the body the nutrition that it needs complete the healing process that God created into each of us.
