Herbal Medication: All in the mind?

Poll

Herbal Medication: All in the mind?

What are your views on herbal medication? Do you think its all purely in the mind because we believe "natural" is best?

Reply 1

i think some types of herbs can help things. I agree some are just cheap amatures but some really do do what they say on the tin.

Reply 2

Shockley

I've been taking Herbal Nytol and it's been doing me no good at all, compared to the original version which does make a difference. I suppose you could argue it depends on the person. Herbs were all they had a few hundred years ago.

Reply 3

Shockley

Is it possible to overdose on herbal tablets? Say like Herbal Nytol?

Reply 4

Anonymous #1

Er, no - plenty prescribed medications are derived from plants and "herbal medicine" observations. Whether they work as well is another question.

If you want mumbo-jumbo try "homeopathy". :wink:

Reply 5

Anonymous #1

Checking the instructions would be one easy way to find out!

Can you overdose on substances that interact with your body? Water and sugar can be harmful if you have enough... :p:

So sure you can, but herbal ones might need much larger quantities if the doses are lower than more concentrated medicines.

Reply 6

Shockley

Why have you posted anonymous? You can say what you like here.

Reply 7

Anonymous #1

I always post anonymously in H&R. Though perhaps I might set up a separate username instead. :smile:

Reply 8

Shockley

Yeah, get a cool name just for H+R, like Dr Thunderpants or summat.

Reply 9

Revenged

LePinkPanther

What are your views on herbal medication? Do you think its all purely in the mind because we believe "natural" is best?

I think that it's all in the mind...and I used to be totally against alternative therapy thinking they were a waste of money and time... but i'm not too sure now... I still think that it's a load of rubbish and would never take it myself... but I see people taking stong medicines for (what i see as) trivial things, which the drugs are not really designed for e.g. beta blockers for anxiety... and so if someone takes herbal kalm tablets instead of taking beta blockers it's bound to be better...

Reply 10

Anonymous #1

Anxiety is trivial? :eek:

Your thoughts might become more GMC-PC once you've been exposed to some compulsory CAM awareness teaching! :p:

More and more are being RCT-d and found as effective as conventional pharmaceuticals e.g. St John's Wort and SSRIs off the top of my head. Some anti-emetics too and ginger perhaps? But yeah...

LePinkPanther - perhaps not "Thundepants"...hehe.

Reply 11

Revenged

Anonymous

Anxiety is trivial? :eek:

Your thoughts might become more GMC-PC once you've been exposed to some compulsory CAM awareness teaching! :p:

GMC-PC... lol... I'm always going to remain a cynic... I imagine that it's not GMC-PC to say "see you later" to a blind person and all sorts of other nonsense... :p:

Reply 12

Anonymous #1

Probably not - see, you should be posting Anon too... :wink:

But the stats about the number of patients who don't tell their doctors about their CAM use (which risks problematic drug interactions in some cases & at least not the ideal perfect history received and free and open communications in most) are shocking. So I think it is fairly important that at least outwardly elements of the medical profession can keep their personal rampant scepticism* in check so not to scare patients into silence patients!

*not very "EBM" (hah, how many buzzwords can I fit?) in some cases given the RCT's I mentioned...

I'm surprised at the results of this poll really - might try and dig out specific examples of herbal medicines shown to work or forming the foundations of pharms if I procrastinate more rather than sleeping. :smile:

Reply 13