Maria came into the shop last Friday, not feeling well, her face was pale, cheeks blushed, nose was rough and red and her eyes were glazed. I could tell my looking at her she was not feeling well.
Maria is a wonderful tea client and many times we have chatted about her grandmother’s from Puerto Rico and the herbal remedies they had used. She was experienced in the type of suggestions I could give her.
Today Maria was feeling lousy, she told me of having this cold for over 3 weeks. She started with herbal remedies, then started using over the counter products, then finally went to the doctor. She explained that doctor gave her some antibiotics, a cough syrup and another med that made her stomach upset. But after all this she still had uncomfortable symptoms.
So what do we do now? As an herbalist I need to ask many questions. To asses the symptoms, looking for a needles in a hay stack, but not knowing what your looking for. Assessment is about asking questions, what are the bothersome symptoms? Running rose, headache, fever, cough-is it productive or dry hacking, energy level and more.
As an herbalist we label colds as a “wet- cold”, “dry- cold”. I sat with Maria and I needed to ask many questions to help me narrow down the symptoms to help decide what were the best herbs to use..
Maria complained about having a dry cough that was not productive, low grade fever, dry itchy eyes, sore throat, no appetite, and very tired. This is all the signs of a “Dry, Hot, Cold”.
The first thing we needed to do was to start certain herbs to support the liver- the Liver needs to filter out the germs, antibiotics and other meds, that Maria had been taking. Second was to add herbs to calm the other symptoms.
My first suggestion was for Maria to use Vitamin C, start taking Herbal Fire Cider every hour, including Elderberry cough syrup. To help her deal with pain and get a good night sleep we added some white willow and suggested an evening bath with Epsom salts, and some essential oils to open up her sinus’.
Think about what your going to add to your “cold regiment”?
