Medicine chest - 2nd instalment (hair tonics and dizzy spells)

This looks to be turning into a series of posts, and the plant descriptions seem to be getting more rambling as I go .. typical me. Don't take any of this as comprehensive, these are snap shots only. And remember, this 'list' is in no particular order of importance, I'm just writing them as they pop into my head. The idea is to throw a few bits and pieces at you that you might not read in "typical" plant monographs elsewhere, things I've learned by experience.

In fact, just pretend you're sitting at my kitchen table listening to me yabber, rather than reading anything authoritative, okay?



I'm going to toss in some of the questions I have about these plants too, where applicable, just to show you my thinking process. If you are really interested in medicine plants, that's just how it goes, there are always more questions than answers. If I do anything here, I'm hoping it's to give a realistic picture of how your mind will work as you learn this stuff. I've seen so many people give up because they think they 'should' be learning everything in one go and it's just too hard to absorb. Damn right it's hard, so don't try to fix all the facts in your head at once. Just follow what intrigues you and a let it sink in a little at a time.

And lastly, please do an image search of the plants I mention so you'll recognize them 'in the field', not just in the supplement aisle.


Yellow Dock - Also known as curly dock, and a relative of burdock, this is one weedy looking weed. The root is the part that's yellow and holds the most medicinal value IF it grows under the right circumstances. Yellow dock, like burdock and dandelion, prefers a challenge. It thrives under adversity. So, grown in rich garden soil it gets a little couch potato-y; the root won't be as yellow, in fact sometimes it's pure white. Yellow is a signature for liver medicines (the colour of jaundice), so if the yellow dock root isn't yellow, it stands to reason it just doesn't have as much of the liver-supporting oomph it could have. Why am I telling you this? Just to let you know that if you buy commercially grown yellow dock root, or pamper it in your garden, it won't be as effective as the yellow dock you pull out of the hard packed, nutrient poor dirt at the edge of your local schoolyard.

Yellow dock is more than strictly a liver medicine, of course. All the medicine plants have more than one role to play in supporting our health. Yellow dock, like burdock and dandelion, is a digestion normaliser, probably through its bitterness and astringency. The root tincture can be used to normalise stomach acid (up or down as needed), to relieve both diarrhea and constipation (in the latter case far more gently than another of its cousins, rhubarb) (perhaps due in part to inulin content?). The old timers used it for anaemia (some say due to high iron content, others say it corrects poor iron absorption, which is it? Maybe both?). For these purposes it's not a quick fix, necessarily, it's more of a tonic, small amounts in the long term kind of thing. The root tincture is also really effective on hives, applied locally (in that case, it's pretty much instant). The leaves can be used (fresh) as a spit poultice on nettle stings.

Yellow dock leaves make a nice salad vinegar (steep fresh leaves in apple cider vinegar for 6 weeks).  They're lemony and sour when fresh, a bit mouth puckeringly so; very tasty. I really like the taste of yellow dock leaves. When they're small to midsized they can be used like collards, or in a mix of cooked greens with lambsquarters; when they're cooked the flavour really mellows. In fact, I grow fewer 'garden' greens every year, thanks to the way these 'weeds' volunteer so enthusiastically and are virtually pest free. When I was first getting to know yellow dock, I found a plant sticking up out of the snow, a few young leaves frozen hard on the stem. I ate those little buggers because, well, that's how I roll, and the frost (ha, -30C) had made them sweet as could be. Something about that experience really hooked me in, and I've been fond of it ever since. I've never used dried leaves simply because I think of them as food, not medicine.


Nettles - Yeah, why not, I've written about nettles a zillion times but they're just so damn valuable I can't not write about them here. Use the search tool for the rest of my blatherings, today I think I'll just mention how I'm using them every. damn. day. and will continue to do so because they're getting me through a rough time with a bad hair cut! After 20 some years I got fed up with my long braid and had it hacked off this past summer. Sure, it was fun to see my normally straight hair go curly without all that weight to drag it down. Sure, it was fun to see the look on people's faces, and yes, I admit the shorter hair makes me look younger. But damn I am just not the type to fuss with my hair, and this cut needs fussing with to look presentable. I don't do mousse. I don't do curling irons. So what I am doing is rubbing a few drops of nettle root tincture (the same stuff recommended for prostate problems, ha!) into my scalp every day. It perks the hair up so I don't have to try to 'style' it (shudder) and it's making it grow at an almost alarming rate. I want my braid back!!

This is also a lesson in how topical applications absorb into our bodies, because I feel like I've been drinking nettle infusion. Great energy. Less energy on days I forget to use it. Hmmm. Makes you think twice about anything else you'd put on your skin, doesn't it? Here's the kicker - recently I made a batch of my old favourite winter pickmeup drink, an overnight infusion of nettle leaves, a few red clover flowers and a couple of small pieces of burdock root. Strangeness ensued as one cup made me feel like I was overdosing on caffeine. Wtf was that? Either the root tincture on my scalp plus infusion by mouth was just too much nettle for my system (possible) or those particular nettles, wildcrafted from a friend's old homestead, which were the stinging-est but tastiest I ever ate are just too strong to infuse that long (also possible). In either case, nettle overdose is no fun, believe me.

Monarda aka Bergamot Mint aka Sweetleaf - I've long had a love affair with this plant. I used to call it bergamot (that's a Canadianism) now I call it Sweetleaf as per Matthew Wood, who seems to know everything there is to know about it - more on that below. I bought a few plants at a farmers' market in the early 90's and they became the stars of my garden. I moved twice since then, taking the plants with me, but they've dwindled since we moved here, barely hanging on after I stupidly put them into the rock garden; they don't like it. Being members of the mint family, they don't give up entirely, of course. There's many a life lesson to be had in gardening ..

So anyway, last summer I ordered a dozen more plants from Richters and they've done better than I could have hoped, spreading like weeds and taking over much of the more appropriate bed I gave them (yay!). Interestingly, but not surprisingly, my original plants, far away from the newcomers, perked up too, so I now have fabulous amounts of one of my favourite flowers.

The thing is, I never really used them much. A leaf or two in my tea on occasion, but mostly they were something I adored in the garden, especially the way they're among the first up and the young leaves smell so delightful when rubbed. And for the hummingbirds, who wouldn't like a plant that attracts hummingbirds?

Then I read Matthew Wood, who offers case histories of Sweetleaf flowers (in a spit poultice) curing rattlesnake bites, the tincture symptomatically relieving and sometimes curing Meniere's disease and tinnitus and so many other uses for it that he calls it a 'polycrest', a plant for (almost) all occasions. So of course I tinctured a big jar and made flower essence while I was at it.

I'm still, as we say, "keying it out", but I can offer a nice success story that happened as I was midway through writing this, but before I do we'll have to backtrack for a moment to dandelion leaf ..

Just yesterday, in an email discussion with someone I was relating that from time to time I've had really quite profound dizzy spells. It's a scary thing to go through, and mine didn't seem to come from the inner ear, as one might expect. A round of acupuncture once cured the worst one, but I'd still get milder versions that, if I'm honest, scared the hell out of me. Then, finally, that little inner voice managed to make itself heard, "chew a dandelion leaf!" it said. And I did. The world spun around me as I hung onto the lawn, chewing the biggest most bitter leaf I could find and like magic the nausea and vertigo just went away. Well then! How did it work? I have no idea.

Of course, life being the way it is, after relating that story I had another round of dizziness. Not quite the same sort though, this time I could tell it was coming from the ears. I had a cold/flu type thing last week, nothing much, but these things can 'settle' in odd places and last night - wheeeeee - I had to go to bed early because the pressure, slight ringing and wooziness were making verticality impossible. I woke up just past midnight with the bedroom spinning ever so slightly, as though I'd gone to bed drunk. "Fuck" I thought, as my windowsill dandelions aren't really doing very well and there wouldn't be a decent enough leaf to help me, but the little voice urged "try the sweetleaf tincture! 3 drops, less is more!"

Yep. 3 drops in a swallow of water and 5 minutes later I felt things begin to open up. Another 5 minutes and I was entirely symptom free. I went back to bed, a little trepidatious that lying down might bring it back but no, I just felt better and better and had a delicious, relieved, sleep. This morning there was a little fullness again so I took another few drops and I am so much better that I keep sighing, deeply, as though I dodged a bullet with my name on it. Because let's face it, I did. Because you see, if I'd taken this symptom to an MD, of course I would have walked out with a prescription for an antibiotic - which would have been quite reasonable, considering the symptom picture - and what manner of hellish chain reaction would that have set off?

Such is the value of do-it-yerself herbal medicine. Nip crap in the bud, avoid the hell of prescription meds and their probable long term detrimental effects, just by learning to use one of the prettiest (and tastiest) (and most prolific) flowers in my garden.

Okay, that's enough for now, we'll come back to this list another day. (And thanks for the nudge, W.)