01-17-2018, 01:52 AM
(01-15-2018, 03:06 AM)Richardg8092 Wrote:(01-12-2018, 06:03 AM)invisiblejungle Wrote: Hi Richard, thank you for the excellent post. You say that this is based on your experience "using and prescribing" the MediHerb product. May I ask if you're an herbalist or other kind of health practitioner? Just curious, as herbalism is one of my favorite topics of study.
Hi invisiblejungle, well this is the story.
In Australia, we're usually all lumped together as 'Naturopaths'. The qualification is 'Bachelor Of Health Science - Naturopathy' regardless of whether we practice evidence based herbal medicine, nutritional medicine or homeopathy.
This leads to a lot of eye-rolling among us, as practitioners want to believe that their chosen modality is the best / the original / the only truly effective / deepest acting one.
I qualified in 1986 and practiced for a couple of decades - before deciding that clients were just too needy.
Good Grief, it was always about them them them - and never about me
I moved out of private practice decades ago, but am still connected to the industry via my current NFP administrative role.
Herbal Medicine was my modality of choice, even though there wasn't a huge amount of scientific 'validation' back then, there was a long standing tradition.
We had a pretty good idea of what worked and what didn't.
Back then we'd say "St.Mary's Thistle works because it is a Liver herb" nowadays we say "St.Mary's Thistle works because of the silybin flavanolignans".
I'm more than happy to chat herbs with you at length (maybe via the Private Messages system in 25 posts time?) although I'm sure there are general herbal interest topics (like this Kava Forte one) which are considered perfectly suitable for the Open Forums.
If I may ask, invisiblejungle, do you have any favorite herbs?
Not meaning ones that you personally utilize, but rather the herbs that make you shake your head in disbelief and go "Wow! Amazing!"
I'll admit I've got that kind of thing going for both St.John's Wort and Kava.
Any herb that gets the thumbs-up in the ultra-conservative Cochrane Library has got to be worth knowing about!
R
Ah, so you were once a practicing naturopath! I've actually wondered what the legal environment for naturopathy was like in Australia. You probably know that here in the US, there are 2 separate "movements" for naturopaths. There are the "naturopathic physicians" who have graduated from one of the accredited naturopathy colleges, and in certain states, they have legal licensing, are allowed to take health insurance, etc. Then there are the more traditional "naturopathic doctors" who don't have any sort of legal licensing; some of them feel that the "naturopathic physicians" are "selling out" and not practicing true naturopathy.
There is some quality literature coming out of Australia. Kerry Bone has great stuff on herbalism, and Dr. Leah Hechtman's book on clinical naturopathic medicine is on my list. I'm a layman myself; I only became interested because I'm disabled due to chronic health issues that aren't amenable to conventional medicine. So I've been forced to learn on my own.
Regarding favorite herbs, my main focus has been on Chinese herbalism. Although I was born in America, I'm of Asian descent, and the Chinese system makes sense to me, compared to Ayurveda, western herbalism, etc. (Although I study those systems as well.)