How to take herbs

This is probably a stupid question. How do you take herbs? I see Sida Acuta from Woodland Essence in extract form. Do you just swallow the drops or put in water? I love to drink tea and wondered if I could possibly add extract to any tea?

Post Edited (kyo07) : 11/2/2015 1:26:06 PM (GMT-7)

So you can mix them all at once in water?

No, you don't generally mix herbal tinctures together. Take them one at a time, preferably with 10 or so minutes in between each herb so that it can get absorbed and into the blood stream without being changed by other things.

Tinctures are different than taking them in pill form or in the form of a medicinal tea. I used a medicinal tea for my Lyme and Bartonella treatments, and tinctures for some symptoms and pills for others.

It's all about when and where you want the herbs to be absorbed, and what actions you need from the herbs. But tinctures and pills are generally a safe bet for most things.

That all depends on what you are using them for. I have been using herbs for many years now, and while I'm not an herbalist, depending on what you are wishing to accomplish, sometimes they are mixed together and sometimes they are not. Tinctures generally are not meant to be mixed together, or the herbs already would be. For herbs mixed together, many times a medicinal tea is used instead, like what I used for my Lyme and Bartonella treatments.

So not all herbs should be mixed. It depends on what you wish them to do, and since most people are not going to stop to learn a ton of stuff before taking herbs, I was generalizing.

I'm speaking as one that learned from a practicing Master Herbalist and a Master Chinese Herbalist that had over 20 years of experience.

I am not taking any herbs or abx at the moment, just doing my homework on when I'm ready. So the 3 herbs that Buhner uses for Babesia are extract form. Those can be mixed together, right? Since you all are so experienced with herbs, how long would you recommend trialing for? I know everyone is different, but say if I don't have any response in 2 weeks would it be safe to say Babesia is not an issue for me?

kyo07 said...
I am not taking any herbs or abx at the moment, just doing my homework on when I'm ready. So the 3 herbs that Buhner uses for Babesia are extract form. Those can be mixed together, right? Since you all are so experienced with herbs, how long would you recommend trialing for? I know everyone is different, but say if I don't have any response in 2 weeks would it be safe to say Babesia is not an issue for me?

I would say a month actually. From my own experience, I didn't even herx until I was 3 weeks in. We all have so much going on in our bodies that it can take a while before we notice much difference.

With that said, Babesia does cycle approximately every 5 days I believe, so you could feel a difference much sooner. I was saying 4 weeks to give it the best opportunity to be seen as effective. There are products out there that are based on Buhner's work and they have combined the three herbs (dry herbs) used for Babesia in one pill. Some find that equally as effective, but we don't suggest starting off with the herbs combined because if you have a reaction or a herx, you will want to know which one caused it so you can deal with it right away.

And do remember to start off on a very low dose. We surely don't want you to end up with a bad herx!

So I am taking Beyond Balance BB-1 which is a selection of many herbs all together. I am also taking Tox Ease GL which is also a selection of many herbs. On the advice of the manufacturer I was told to take the drops of one with water and wait a few minutes before I took the drops of the other with water.

So my thing is both of you are right. Just depends on how the herbs are blended.

Buhner says that all of the herbs in his protocols can be taken together, which is what we do now. All tinctures are dropped into an infusion of the dried herbs we are taking, and all downed at once.

When K was taking BW herbs (A-Bart and A-L), I remember being told that they had to be taken separately, 20 minutes or so apart.

So I guess it depends on what type of herbal protocol you are using.

Cowden has a product compatibility chart.