Winter herbs in vaporizer

A wholesome guide

Author: Frank Fuchs

Like every year, the common colds are booming in winter. An old saying goes that flu takes a week to cure in bed. If you take medication, the flu lasts seven days … Especially a viral infection is able to align the liberally with pharmaceuticals generously surrounding conventional medicine little to almost nothing. At least you can alleviate the worst symptoms. Now Mother Nature offers a lot of herbs that can do that too.

By now everybody knows what a vaporizer is. That good vaporizers are not only used for fun is less well known. We produce a device whose utility has convinced us in the self-experiment. Others may care about the medical-ideological superstructure. Our qualified and appointed authors of “Phyto-Inhalation” (The Green Branch 218, ISBN 3-922708-36-6), Bert Marco Schuldes and Richi Moscher, can and should rely on their in-depth research. It is particularly important that the medicinal herbs are vaporized at certain temperatures. The active ingredients have very different boiling points. It could well be that substances decompose at too high temperatures, others at too low will not be released.

I like to tell you what experiences our group has and has had with the vaporizer. As a layman, we have conducted numerous self-experiments under the supervision of friendly doctors. Because of these experiences, fighting my normal winter flu is no longer a problem.

Vaporising medicinal herbs, for which Bert Marco Schuldes found the defining term “phyto-inhalation”, has its foundations in phyto-therapy. Phytos is the Greek medical term for medicinal herbs. Unfortunately, herbal medicine or phytotherapy has been more and more displaced by (more profitable) drug therapy. Various factors are cited for it. Medicinal herbs are difficult to dose, since not every plant – depending on the place of cultivation or local conditions – the same active ingredient content proves. In addition, medicinal plants contained not only an active ingredient, but whole groups, partly of opposite effect. Since the “mono-preparations” (i.e., chemically-produced drugs with an isolated active ingredient) are much better. It has also been repeatedly criticized that some substances from medicinal plants are not in the processed form (i.e., they are processed by the body more slowly than pharmaceutically prepared agents).

Now everyone will have noticed that e.g. a chamomile tea does not have the “chemical club effect” like a cold medicine from the pharmacy. However, when I tasted chamomile in the vaporizer for the first time, I was a bit dumbfounded. The effect on my sore vocal cords was immediately felt, better than I had ever experienced with the somewhat unpleasant camomile steam bath method. In a large part of phyto-drug-treatable symptoms, the vaporizer is thus better in effect than conventional forms of intake.

Certainly, when taking natural remedies, it can not be assumed that a package leaflet attached to the plant will describe the exact amount to be taken. Phyto therapy is more of a holistic experience medicine. The participation of the patient, his self-interest, the understanding of the connections between physical and mental health, are indispensable. Every user of vaporizers should keep this in mind. “Much helps a lot” is a false motto anyway.

I have put together some of our own and traditional experiences effective herbs against the winter Zipperlein such as fever, cold, cough and hoarseness. It must always be remembered that the medicinal herbs used are “pharmacy clean”, i. that cultivation and processing have been carried out medically. Prevention. How do I resist the beginnings?

An old Indian trick helps here. In traditional North American medicine the Red Coneflower plays a big role. It is applied externally during wound treatment and was drunk as an infusion in significant quantities before the autumnal buffalo hunt. Echinaceae Angustifoliae Radix (sun hat root, available under this name in the pharmacy) contains antibacterial substances and also active ingredients that can activate the body’s defense decisively. It is almost the body given help for self-help, the sluggish in the summer defenses are stimulated again to peak performance. Especially with “flu-weather” the sun hat should be taken preventively to facilitate the body’s defense against infections. However, one should know that shortly after taking, especially in the vaporizer, increased temperature can occur and existing symptoms are briefly strengthened. This is an indication of a reaction of the immune system. If this reaction does not subside within a few hours, there may be hypersensitivity or allergy, and treatment should be discontinued. The red sun hat roots are harvested and used as a remedy.

Relief. How are you feeling better?

For colds, coughs and hoarseness is always worth trying to fall back on the available in each pharmacy cough and bronchial tea blends. If you take them in the vaporizer, unlike drinking tea, an effect is immediately noticeable. There are very different mixtures, my favorite is a tea with a high percentage of liquorice root (Liquiritiae Radix), because it tastes so good after licorice. As mentioned, not everyone will feel the same effect, the effect of phyto-inhalation can be used in sensitive people even at very low dose. Initially, at most half of the amount given for a tea should be inhaled.

Apart from my ready mix, I have had good success with the inhalation of a mixture of 1 part of small cut clove (Caryophyllii fructus), 5 parts of parsley root (Petroselini radix) and 10 parts of clary sage (Salviae Sclareae Flos.). Yes, really, parsley! It is hard to believe but this spice herb has a strong antiseptic effect. I learned this in Ayurveda, where you make rooms with parsley incense sticks so to speak “germ-free”. In this procedure, up to 75% of the bacteria present in the room air are killed. The same effect is attributed to the fruits of the clove tree. The clary sage has anti-inflammatory, calming and antispasmodic like all sage species, but at the same time has a mood-enhancing component that Bert Marco Schuldes even perceives as “slightly intoxicating”. This mix also worked well with our friend Howard Marks: “I had lost my voice, and now I also had a coughing fit. A really fat guy, Frank, came to my aid. I sucked a pipe bowl of sage through its precise vaporizer. The coughing stimulus was gone, the voice came back. “(From:” Reefer’s Digest “, Edition Rauschkunde ISBN 3-930442-23-X).

To enumerate all medicinal herbs that Bert Marco Schuldes calls in the book “Phyto-Inhalation” and describes in detail, would be idle and would fill pages. In any case, it is not advisable to look for “home remedies”, because nowadays there is only insufficient knowledge about their effects and side effects. A deterrent example is St. John’s wort (Hyperici Herba). If it is not known that in St. John’s Wort applications there is a high level of sensitivity to UV radiation, it can actually lead to bad sunburns (and in the case of St. John’s wort this is not even the only serious side effect).

In any case, it is good to seek the advice of professionals. Not only naturopaths, more and more established doctors and pharmacists are in the context of the cost explosion in the health sector ready to recommend phyto-drugs.

The most pleasant combinations of herbs are best determined by individual experience.

Tired, tired? There is also a herb on the other hand.

A symptom of common cold can be physical fatigue. If I feel very limp and yet want to keep up my stamina, a pot of strong Earl Gray tea will help me well over time. At the same time the stomach is quite nervous, I prefer the vaporizer. I have had the best experience with guarana (pasta guarana). Tea in the vaporizer is very effective, but has only a short effect and can lead to exaggerated nervousness. Guarana is just as stimulating and the bronchial dilating effect of Guarana lets you breathe freely again. But the effect lasts longer and makes no palpitations, which happened to me after a pot, but even after half a spoonful of vaporized tea.

Sleep inducing herbs.

If I want to force myself to bed rest all day to “sweat out” a cold, I usually do not hold it that easy. Especially the nights I can not sleep anymore and I feel that way. Against this mother nature has a lot in store. The well-known valerian drops should e.g. very calming. Not with me, maybe I’m too thick-skinned to feel drowsiness after taking drops. If I put Valerian (Valerianae Radix) in the vaporizer and inhale, that’s different: I feel a bit relaxed, the limbs are relaxed, I can just lie down and feel no need for action. My sleep mix in the vaporizer always contains equal amounts of valerian root and hop glands (Lupuli glandula). My own experience shows that this mixture is the most satisfactory for me. Friends swear by dreamgrass and Mexican sting poppy, Bert Marco Schuldes` palette is even bigger.

The natural aspirin (without ©).

Fever and headache are also so winterly side effects. Previously there was willow bark infusion. The salicylic acid contained therein has a recognized antipyretic and analgesic. However, there were also hypersensitivity reactions in gastric patients, some reports from the 19th century claim that the salicylic acid itself harms the gastric mucosa. That’s why a clever chemist from a well-known pharmaceutical company came up with the idea of ​​patenting a slightly modified drug. Supposedly, the so-called “Aspirin ™” has hardly any side effects, but the leaflet speaks volumes. Willow bark (Salicis Cortex) is very effective as an infusion. In the vaporizer the effect is much faster. As a antipyretic remedy, willow bark works very well with me, but it does not help me against pain (I suffer from severe migraines). Since I have learned to know another means, which is not exactly to be recommended in Germany … because of its side effects, there are driving license withdrawal, imminent fines or other penalties, and (in my opinion, the worst) social ostracism: the good old “Armelut herb”, today mostly called marijuana. Thank God there is at least a small gap in the law. Artificially produced and comparatively priceless remedies such as marinol or dronabinol can be prescribed for the truly needy and are legal (if you do not drive a car). Unfortunately, the hundreds of euros per month does not pay any health insurance, making THC an affordable medicine for the elite.

A note at the end: For all applications, a lot of liquid, preferably water, should be drunk, partly to make the sweaty effect stand out, partly to replace liquid lost due to dehydration.