People have often asked me about how well herbal products work. Those people are generally familiar with the effects of pharmaceutical medicines, and are not sure that herbal products will work in the same way. The short answer is that they do and they don’t.  Hopefully, this article may help you gain a better understanding of what to expect from an herbal product, and why.

I want to use the example of osteoarthritis of the hand as an illustration. If you have experienced the frustration and discomfort of trying to grasp or lift something when your hands are hurting, you know what I mean. Even ordinary tasks become difficult. A common response is to take an anti-inflammatory medication like aspirin, ibuprofen, acetaminophen, or similar. Within 20 minutes, the pain is reduced, and you can carry on with what you want to do. Sadly, after a while, the pain returns, and you have to take some more pills. The fact is that the pain pills did not solve the problem, they only masked the symptoms. If that is what you choose to do, then continue on, but make sure that you understand that your body is being damaged by these medications, from stomach irritation to kidney or liver damage.

Herbal products DO work, but not like the chemical drugs do. Herbal products enable your body to do what it is meant to do naturally by providing the substances that your body needs.

Herbal products DON’T mask symptoms or cause harm. They do not force your body to do something in an unnatural way, they do not mask the symptoms of a problem, and they do not cause damage to your critical organs.

Herbal products usually don’t work as quickly as pharmaceutical medicines do, because they enable your body, not control it. On the other hand, herbal products usually work longer than pharmaceutical medicines do, because your body will begin to do what it should be doing naturally.

Now, how can you find out if an herbal product works for you? Here is the way to find out for sure…use the herbal product according to recommendations for one week and then stop using it. You probably won't notice the gradual improvement over the week of using it, but you will certainly notice how quickly you begin to feel the lost benefits that the herbal product provided.

Back to the sore hands example. The pain is probably caused by inflammation. What is important is how you can reduce the pain that the inflammation causes. I recommend a blend of herbs that can be used to make a tisane (the correct name for an herbal version of tea). Fantastic Foragers has just such a blend available in a product called Quell, which is available for sale here.