If you think of herbs as something that you only use in your kitchen and not in your medicine cabinet, then the idea of using them for healing may seem a little “out there.” The fact is though that using plants for healing was the original form of medicine. In fact, many conventional drugs have their origins in plant sources¹. So, the idea that herbalism, or the “science of using herbs for promoting health and preventing and treating illness,²” is now considered a form of “alternative” medicine is fairly ironic. 

In order for us all to have a better understanding of what modern herbalism really is, I went to clinical herbalist Katja Swift with the CommonWealth Center for Holistic Herbalism. As we continue our series on exploring alternative medical care options, my Q&A and with her sheds light on why this is such a critical field to at least be aware of if not to consider as a possibility for yourself.

Please Note: I earn from qualifying purchases made through some of the links included in this post. You can read my disclosure policy here.

Peppermint Tea & Me: What is herbalism?

Katja Swift: The simplest answer is that herbalism is working with plants to make your body healthy. For some people, it kind of stops there. They may say, ‘Oh, if I drink Marshmallow Tea then my heartburn doesn’t feel so bad, and if I drink chamomile, it helps me sleep at night.” And that’s literally the end. Well that is herbalism. And it’s legitimate. If that’s all you ever did, you’d feel better.

But it doesn’t stop there. We have revived the tradition enough now that herbalism in this country is a much more complete system that is completely independent of or parallel to conventional medicine. We have an entire system of assessment and don’t depend on medical diagnoses to determine what’s going on and what an appropriate approach would be. Since the world is dominated by conventional medicine, we can work with a diagnosis, of course. We have to study it, and we have to understand it, but it’s also not required. If somebody came and had not seen a doctor at all and didn’t know what was going on with their body and didn’t have any lab tests or anything else, we can work with that. 

The last part there would be that the comprehensive system of herbalism also includes not just the plants themselves but also the dietary changes, the lifestyle changes and movement. 

PTM: What do lifestyle changes really have to do with herbalism?

KS: While not everybody agrees exactly on diet, everybody is in a very whole foods, get rid of processed food, get rid of sugar place. What we’re trying to do is bring back to baseline or repair the damage that our culture has done to our bodies. If you’re going to stick your hand in bleach for an hour, it’s going to hurt. It’s going to cause irritation. We can put an herb on it, but if you’re immediately going to put your hand back in the bleach, we can only do so much with a plant. So, herbalism is also really recognizing that we need to look at how we resolve those baseline challenges that we as human bodies face living in this very sedentary, productivity-oriented culture. That work really is an essential part of herbalism, even though there might not be plants involved in that part. 

PTM: Do herbalists promote an entirely plant-based diet?

KS: Not at all. In fact, we find that harmful as a long-term lifestyle because we believe that animal protein is critical for humans. That does not mean that we think everybody needs to eat beef. If you’re more comfortable with fish, if you’re more comfortable with chicken or whatever, we’ll work with where a person is. It’s also not like we won’t work with someone who is committed to being vegetarian or vegan. Of course we will. But it’s just very difficult to maintain that in a healthy way long-term. 

We do though promote a lot of plants in the diet. At least 50 percent of your plate should be plants. Frozen is fine because fresh vegetables aren’t necessarily accessible to all people, so frozen vegetables are great. Whatever vegetables you can get on your plant. Just lots of them. 

We do also think that it’s critically important to be conscious of animal welfare and to not take life unnecessarily and to not cause suffering. That’s not only because it’s the right thing to do, but also because unhealthy, disrespected animals create food that will hurt humans. If you raise a cow or a fish in a feeding operation, and it’s not able to live its life and eat its normal food and roam around the way that it wants to, that meat is actually not healthy and causes a lot of inflammation in the body. 

PTM: How is herbalism used in alternative or complementary medicine?

KS: That depends a lot on the person seeking help and also on the skill level of the person who is providing care. I work with cancer and terminally ill clients regularly. I also work with clients with very complicated autoimmune conditions, and I work as an integrated member of their care team in many cases. Not everybody feels comfortable doing that kind of work because it can be intimidating to work with medical practitioners. We are also adjunct faculty for the pharmacy schools here in Boston. We’re very comfortable going back and forth between a medical environment and an herbal environment. But a lot of people aren’t, and it isn’t necessary. 

It could also be as simple as a child who gets recurring ear infections, and the doctor keeps giving antibiotics. Since most ear infections aren’t actually bacterial, and that doesn’t necessarily take care of the problem, maybe Mom is looking for something else to try to support that child’s health and deal with those recurring ear infections. Or maybe someone who gets UTIs very frequently recognizes that this has become a pattern that they want to stop. Any of those types of models are completely reasonable and very common. Maybe not every single practitioner works in every single way, but they are common in this country right now I would say. 

PTM: What forms do herbal remedies come in?

KS: About the whole rainbow. My favorite thing to work with actually is tea. Part of the reason that I like working with tea so much is that the time it takes you to make the tea is also part of the medicine. In our culture, a lot of our health problems come because we don’t really have support for downtime or self-care. So, just the act of making a pot of tea is actually pretty radical. If I can get somebody to make tea several times a day, that means that they stopped and thought about their health and thought about their body and thought about the fact that they want to do things to help themselves be stronger and feel better. So, I prefer tea when I can get people to do it, but it’s not always convenient. 

You can also make tinctures which are a little bit stronger or more concentrated because they’re the alcohol extract of an herb. You can put them in your bag because they’re more portable. I also really like elixirs, which is part alcohol, part honey. You blend it together and get a full spectrum extraction from the plant that way. 

In addition, there are salves, and there’s lotions, and you can make lozenges or old-fashioned pills, which are little balls of powdered herbs. You can also put herbs in your food. That’s a completely legitimate way to take your medicine. A good example for that is cinnamon. Cinnamon is a really effective herb for helping to manage blood sugar levels. When you start looking, you realize that the spices that you have in your kitchen, as long as they’re fresh and potent, they’re much more than just a flavor. There’s a lot more going on there. 

PTM: How is each type of herbal remedy used?

KS: They’re not interchangeable. The challenge with herbalism is that you have to get the herb to the problem. This is a little bit less of a challenge with pharmaceutical medicine. We’re very accustomed to pharmaceutical medicine being a pill that you swallow, then it just sort of magically goes to where it’s needed, and herbs don’t necessarily do that. 

So, the big challenge is how do I get the herb to where it needs to be? Not all herbs actually pass through the intestinal lining very well, so turmeric is a great example. We talk about turmeric being an anti-inflammatory herb, and it does have amazing anti-inflammatory properties, but it doesn’t get to the blood stream very well. While it’s not great as a systemic anti-inflammatory, it’s amazing for inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract. And so, that’s where we would work with it. 

People are also sometimes familiar with an herb called Goldenseal, and maybe they learn that it’s an herbal antibiotic. The catch is that it doesn’t get into the bloodstream at all. It doesn’t pass through the intestinal lining. So, it’s only an herbal antibiotic if you have a GI bacteria that you need to deal with or if you put it topically on a wound. Otherwise, it’s not getting into your bloodstream. 

I think one of my favorite examples of this is an herbal steam. This is where you get a pot of boiling water and put a towel over your head and breathe in the steam and toss some herbs in there. They’re great because they get that antimicrobial action and also the immune support right into the respiratory tract.

PTM: You’ve touched on some types of conditions that could be effectively managed with herbs, what are some of the others?

KS: There’s nothing that couldn’t be improved with herbalism. The reason that I say that is because everything that people are dealing with, whether it’s a splinter or whether it’s Alzheimer’s, there still a component of we as humans are living outside of what our bodies expect. Our bodies do not expect to sit at desks all day. Our bodies don’t expect to have climate control. That wasn’t part of the deal. Our bodies don’t expect to have sugar so widely available. So, something very simple can become so much more difficult to manage because we all live with this sort of constant elevated baseline inflammatory state. Because of that, I really don’t think there’s anything that can’t be approached herbally. 

Maybe herbalism isn’t going to 100 percent be the answer to everything. If someone needs open heart surgery than they need that. You can’t have an herb instead of open heart surgery. But that doesn’t mean that there’s not a place for herbs there as part of the preparatory and recovery process in terms of making the body stronger to be able to withstand the surgery itself. 

Then of course, it can help make sure that you only have one open heart surgery. We want to say, “Oh, that’s a wakeup call. Let’s make a bunch of changes in your life, so that you’re not going to have to do that again.” I don’t think that herbalism has to be the only answer for a person’s health issues for it to be a legitimate answer. I’m sort of very agnostic about the collection of approaches that anybody takes to finding comfort and better health. I think that every approach that helps you is a good approach.

PTM: What is the CommonWealth Center for Holistic Herbalism?

KS: We are a school and a clinic. Right now, everything is online because of COVID. We even run our free clinic online now, and we have online courses. When we started to put our program online, one thing that was important to us was that a lot of people really want to learn herbalism but our culture is so productivity-based. Everybody is working ridiculous hours, and they get home and they’re tired. They grab some food and sit in front of the television and turn on Netflix. We wanted to create an herbal curriculum that was very high quality and that would take somebody from their very beginning place all the way through to clinical herbalism if that was their goal. We wanted to put it online so that it would be just as easy as watching Netflix. 

PTM: What should someone look for if they’re thinking about working with an herbalist?

KS: It’s important to find someone who will match your requirements and will meet you where you are. I also strongly recommend working with a qualified Registered Herbalist.  A Registered Herbalist is a person who has been recognized for their work by the American Herbalists’ Guild, which is a national professional organization. Since herbalists are unlicensed, registration with the national professional organization is the highest and most rigorous recognition that herbalists in the U.S. can attain.

If you don’t have a Registered Herbalist in your area, then be sure to read things that the herbalist you’re considering has published. They should at the very least have material on their website that gives a good idea of their philosophy towards the work, to make sure that it resonates with you. Then of course, when you go to your session, use your critical thinking skills. An herbalist should be explaining to you the “why” behind their suggestions, and you should feel engaged in collaborating on the types of things that will work best in your life. 

Important Note About Insurance and Herbalism

Because herbalists are unlicensed in the United States, insurance does not cover their services. however, registered herbalists are now allowed to take health savings account funds. If paying out of pocket isn’t an option for you or you don’t have a health savings account, Katja says that most herbalists do offer a sliding scale or free clinic time as well. If you can’t find someone who does that in your area, look online. Many, such as the free clinic offered by the CommonWealth Center for Holistic Herbalism, will continue to operate online even after concerns over COVID-19 subside. 

Resources

Here are some helpful resources offered by the CommonWealth Center for Holistic Herbalism. 

• The Holistic Herbalism Podcast
• Family Herbalist program – In this program, you’ll learn how to work with herbs to keep you and your family healthy. Enter the code pepperminttea to get 20% off the cost of the program. 
• Because of the economic impacts of COVID-19, CommonWealth Herbs is also offering support for people whose income has been impacted and who would like to study herbalism. Contact them at info@commonwealthherbs.com for more information.

Sources

1. Vickers, A et al. “Herbal medicine.” The Western journal of medicine vol. 175,2 (2001): 125-8. doi:10.1136/ewjm.175.2.125 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071505/
2. American Herbalists Guild. https://www.americanherbalistsguild.com/herbal-medicine-fundamentals

The post What is Herbalism? appeared first on Peppermint Tea.

What is functional medicine, and is it right for you? If you’re exploring alternative medical care options, functional medicine is one system of care that you’ll at least want to look into. Monique Class, MS, APRN, BC is a board-certified family nurse practitioner and clinical nurse specialist in holistic health at Cleveland Clinic’s Center for Functional Medicine. In this Q&A, she helps to shed light on what functional medicine is and why it’s been growing in popularity over the past nearly 20 years. 

Peppermint Tea & Me: What is functional medicine?

Monique Class: Functional medicine is root cause medicine. I’m always looking for the cause to the symptomatology or to the diagnosis of the person sitting in front of me. In western medicine, ( I’m trained in both medicines), we’re trained to look for “What’s the diagnosis?” Give me this collection of symptoms and give me the diagnosis. in functional medicine, the training is, “What’s the root cause of these symptoms and this diagnosis?” What caused the dysfunction in the physiology? 

Another key thing is understanding that the body is made up of systems that communicate with each other. One system affects the other system. It’s understanding how different parts of the body influence other parts of the body and that it’s a network. Hormones influence the digestive system, and stress impacts the nervous system which impacts the digestive system and can be a root cause of many things. And long-term chronic stress turns on inflammation in the body that could turn on any inflammatory disease. So, it’s understanding how things are linked together and need to be unraveled. 

The third piece is that it’s patient-centered. It’s not protocol-driven. It’s individualized based on the patient. What is their belief system and what are they looking for? It’s looking at their story and their timeline in a useful way to see patterns and connections. We’re not trained to do that in western medicine. We’re trained to ask very specific questions to get very specific answers so we can get a diagnosis. We then give a protocol that everybody else with that diagnosis gets, so there’s no personalization of the medicine or deeper understanding of the human being. Functional medicine is understanding what gives our patients meaning and purpose and helping them make the right choices for their particular situation.

PTM: You can do all of that and still do all of the things that a conventional practitioner can do?

MC: Yes, and we do. Functional medicine includes conventional medicine. It’s not like you’re doing one or the other. Functional medicine expands on our knowledge base. It’s not throwing out conventional medicine. It’s embracing conventional medicine and then expanding it to look at other influences. We identify root causes and work with collaborative care teams to help change behavior. If you want to look at it this way, functional medicine is a panoramic view. What’s happening with traditional medicine is they’re looking at just that one snapshot, and they’re not looking at a panoramic view of things. 

PTM: You have certifications in imagery and meditation and mind- body medicine and yoga. What is imagery, and what is mind-body medicine?

MC: Mind-body medicine is really engaging the mind in the healing process and understanding how the mind influences the body and how the body influences the mind and getting people to understand that it’s all connected. it’s one big system. If you come in through the body, you’re influencing the mind. If you come in from the mind, you’re influencing the body. They’re intimately connected. It’s working with all of those dimensions and not just working with the body but engaging people’s mind.

Imaging is a way to get people in touch with the unconscious thoughts and images that are in their mind that drive choices one way or the other. It’s understanding what’s going through the mind stream and what the pictures are that people have attached to their thoughts. A lot of times, the images are all around negative things that are going to happen or past regrets that have happened, and people get stuck. You work with their images to help them create healing images that then drive the physiology. 

The research is there. One study had surgeons practice a specific surgery in their heads. They saw themselves doing it well with no complications. When you do that, you’re actually on a physical level. You’re priming those pathways and stimulating that neural plasticity for what you want to happen. For the surgeons who did that, their heart rate variability was more in coherence. They had less cortisol and were more focused. So that’s the end state imagery. It’s working with people to understand what their images are that they’re not even conscious of that are driving their fear and anxiety and then having them create new images. These new images begin to change thought patterns at the level of the mind and the unconscious mind.

 PTM: What is your general approach to using medication to treat illnesses or symptoms?

MC: I use it when I need to. It’s the wise use of medication in the right dose as a bridge, while you’re working on the lifestyle stuff. I’m looking to take them off medication once we get the rest of it, but I’m not afraid to use meds when I need to use meds. The conversation is, “We’re using this, we’re going to work on all this stuff and then we’re going to try to back down off of it.” If I don’t need it, I don’t go there first. Medication is a bridge. It’s not a permanent player if at all possible. 

PTM: Why did you decide to go into functional medicine?

MC: Functional Medicine was for me part of my larger vision of health. When I was looking at the way we were treating people in conventional medicine – both in the hospital and in the doctor’s office that I was working in – I felt like they weren’t getting better. We were just perpetuating a disease model. I wanted a model that worked higher upstream. A model that saw people as individuals and understood that the mind and the choices people make have a great influence on the body. If you work at the level of the mind and change the choices, you can reverse engineer complex chronic diseases. It’s very different than an attitude of “You’ve got this diagnosis, take this medication and see you later.” I wanted something more than that for myself and for my patients.

PTM: Do you ever find that patients or even other practitioners are skeptical of what you do?

MC: Not anymore. In the beginning, they didn’t understand what we were doing. Now, people are seeking us out. Functional medicine has really caught on among the lay public. People are finding us. We don’t have to advertise anymore. They’re coming to us because they want a functional medicine approach. We’re addressing them as human beings and finding out what’s meaningful to them and what they’re looking to achieve. We’re trying to help them with that in the gentlest way possible. 

PTM: Everything you’re describing sounds like it takes more than the 15 minutes allotted for conventional medicine. How does that work?

MC: We’re not in insurance anymore, but we did it for years. When we were in insurance, I would have people come back every two weeks for half an hour as we made needed lifestyle and behavior changes. Now, we are out of insurance, and we’re a fee for service. My first visit is about an hour and 15 minutes. Then we have follow-ups, and we work with coaches in our office to help coach people on behavior change. 

The model of utilizing collaborative care teams with coaches is used a lot. It’s focused on the care plan that the patient helps co-create with us as doctors based on their lab results, their symptoms, their individual stories and what their goals are. They then work with a team on these things and then loop back to me. It truly is a team approach. 

Important note about insurance and functional medicine

If you decide to work with a functional medicine provider, be sure and check with them on whether they accept insurance. If they don’t, and you’re planning to file your insurance yourself, check with your health insurance company about whether it covers the facility and type of program that you are considering. In addition, if you have a healthcare reimbursement account, you can also check to see if the services that you’re considering are covered by your plan. 

The post What is Functional Medicine? appeared first on Peppermint Tea.

Have you found yourself increasingly frustrated by conventional or Western medicine, but you don’t know whether you want to completely turn to alternative options either? If that’s the case, you may want to explore integrative medicine. Julie McGregor, MD is a board-certified internist and nephrologist trained in integrative medicine who works with the Integrative Medical Clinic of North Carolina. She explains in this Q&A what integrative medicine is and offers information that may help you decide whether it might or might not be right for you. 

Peppermint Tea & Me: What is integrative medicine?

Julie McGregor: It’s really about trying to blend any component of wellness or healing or disease treatment or prevention into an individualized approach for any given person. So, it’s trying to use the best of all the different worlds that are out there with healing and wellness to approach optimizing somebody’s health in an individualized plan. 

PTM: How do you feel like that’s different from conventional medicine?

Julie McGregor: It’s really about trying to blend any component of wellness or healing or disease treatment or prevention into an individualized approach for any given person. So, it’s trying to use the best of all the different worlds that are out there with healing and wellness to approach optimizing somebody’s health in an individualized plan. 

Sometimes, there may be healing that is achieved from a lot of different modalities that are traditional – like Chinese medicine, or yogic tradition, or nutritional healing and that kind of thing. Integrative Medicine tries to hold space for those types of modalities in addition to pharmaceuticals or surgery. It’s not just doing alternative, and it’s also not just doing Western conventional medicine. It’s trying to use what’s best from all of that in helping a person achieve wellness or avoid disease through whatever means makes the most sense for that person. 

PTM: Your practice’s website says that you focus on the integration of complementary medicine with gold-standard medicine and specialty training. What exactly does that mean?

JM: It’s basically honoring that trying to avoid side effects or pharmaceuticals may be the best course for any patient. But, if a person has the need for pharmaceuticals or has an illness that is requiring of a specialized intervention, our clinic has the training to take care of illnesses in the Western or conventional approach. We’ve really focused our whole careers on how to use medicines and how to appropriately care for people in a medical setting, but we also have a focus on trying to be as holistic and non-pharmaceutical and open to all kinds of healing. 

What we’re saying is that if somebody came in and needed an approach to a serious medical condition, we feel completely comfortable doing that. At the same time, if a person came in and said, “I absolutely don’t want to be on a medicine, and I want to stay well without pharmaceuticals,” we feel completely comfortable aligning with that person and trying to help them on their wellness path. 

For most of the rest of us, who are kind of in between, who want to avoid medicines when possible but are open to using the best of pharmaceuticals or Western medicine if necessary, we feel comfortable in that journey with them as well. All of this feels really comfortable to us because of doing a broad range of training. All of our providers have been in the western medicine, conventional medicine tertiary medical centers for most of our training, so we don’t feel like we’re alternative providers but at the same time, we’re very open to a holistic or alternative approach for people who want to do it that way.

PTM: Do you ever find that people are skeptical about your approach?

JM: I think a lot of the people who come to us are looking for that kind of blend. I do have a number of patients who want to turn to the pharmaceutical route first, and that’s fine. Then I do have some people who absolutely really don’t want to be on medicine. They want to have me there telling them whether they’re making safe choices with their herbs. I’m fine with that too. 

For the most part, I think people are really open to combining all the different types of health and wellness ideals and a lot of my folks in our clinic have a multiple provider team. They may have a chiropractor, an acupuncturist, a physician, a wellness coach, and a nutritionist. That’s a lot of people weighing in. Our goal is to have mutual respect among all the different providers so that patients don’t feel like there’s a conflict between what one person is suggesting and what another person is suggesting. Unless we really see there’s a danger, and of course, we would speak up about that.

PTM: Is a team approach to healing and wellness part of the integrative medicine model?

JM: We do try in integrative medicine to have a connection with a lot of different types of providers. I will communicate with chiropractors, naturopaths, Chinese medicine providers, and shamans. All different types of healers. I’ll do that as much as I will with a hematologist or a gastroenterologist or a cardiologist or a neurologist. So, I think, integrative medicine is very much about a team approach. 

I don’t know how to do acupuncture, I am definitely not an herbalist, and I haven’t had formal nutritional training. I rely a lot on the expertise of people who are holistic providers and would definitely say that integrative medicine is about connection and about teams and about honoring a lot of healing modalities.

PTM: Your foundational training was very much in conventional medicine. Why did you decide to go in this direction?

JM: I was raised by a registered nurse who was involved with an obstetrician who worked under the focus of Dr. Christiane Northrup. Dr. Northrup wrote a book called Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom. That’s how my mom sort of approached health and wellness with me. 

When I went to medical school, I had the idea that spirituality, emotional health and wellness, alignment and balance and nutrition would be how my career would progress. In western medicine training though, wellness, and nutrition and spirituality and emotion aren’t really the focus. It’s very comfortable actually. It’s hard, hard work to be in medicine, but at the same time, there’s a comfort that comes from doing this protocolized research-proven approach. I personally had a lot of interest in health, wellness, alternative medicine, spirituality and all of these things. But mentally, I had a lot of comfort with approaching medicine through conventional medicine and that scientific sort of western mentality. 

By my early 40s, I realized that I was approaching medicine in a way that I probably wouldn’t do for myself and wouldn’t suggest for my family. I was in dialysis care and prescribing a lot of chemotherapy for patients that had vasculitis and autoimmune disease. I loved what I was doing, but I didn’t have a lot of authenticity about what I was recommending to my patients because I probably wouldn’t have been making a lot of those choices if I was in their position. So, I came to this realization that I wanted the rest of my career to be in alignment with how I would approach health and wellness if I was the person that I was talking to. 

PTM: Was that a difficult shift to make?

JM: It required me making a big shift in my career trajectory. Not that I was neglecting everything that I had learned. I was actually happy to have been trained the way I was. incorporating more of the holistic and wellness that I honored in my own life and through my own family with my patient care was a shift away from conventional tried and true approaches. It was more of a vulnerable space of let’s partner together and find what works for you as an individual using all that we know about all of these different modalities. 

PTM: When might someone want to consider seeing an integrative medicine practitioner?

JM: There are some people who come to integrative medicine just because they’re looking for a primary care provider, and they like the idea of sort of being more natural or holistic as a first line. Some people come to integrative medicine because they actually really prefer naturopaths or Chinese medicine or chiropractic care but want to have an MD involved for just making sure that they have a doctor on record as part of their team. 

And then for other people, integrative medicine is just sort of how they have been living. They’ve been holistic, or Mind-Body connected or nutritionally focused or found through their own just trial and error that using food as medicine really resonated with them. When they go to their doctor, they don’t feel like those choices for their health are as respected or as honored as they want them to be. They will come to integrative medicine because they’ve sort of found that path for themselves and they’re looking for resonance.

Important Note About Insurance and Integrative Medicine

If you decide to work with an integrative medicine practitioner, check with your health insurance provider about whether it covers specific recommended therapies. Some therapies are covered by some providers, others are not. In addition, if you have a healthcare reimbursement account, you can check to see if the therapies that you’re considering are covered by that plan. 

The post What is Integrative Medicine? appeared first on Peppermint Tea.