Herbal Remedies

My background is in Naturopathy, so whenever possible, I choose to use herbs instead of allopathic medicines. It has been my observation that allopathic medicines deplete life force energy rather than strengthening it. Herbs and foods, on the other hand, regenerate and build life force energy (known as "chi" in Chinese medicine). Over the course of our time together, Armando (who was already leaning towards this philosophy when I met him) came to share my views on this matter. Armando also, had already had a stroke some eight years before this one, as well as several Trans Ischemic Attacks. These events gave us the opportunity to have many in depth conversations about how we would want to handle things if and when "the big one" came. So when the stroke occurred, we had already made many of the difficult decisions about what medicines and medical interventions we were and were not willing to use in such a case. Our choice was to use alternative methods over standard medical practices where ever possible, but also to be open minded and willing to integrate when it seemed like the best thing to do.

Almost always, our first choice is to work with the tools available to us through nature before we opt for integrating chemical medicines. Such was the case when the stroke hit.

From within 24 hours of the time Armando was admitted to Rogue Valley Medical Center on the day of his stroke (July 20th, 2012) I began giving him an herbal tincture to nourish his nervous system and to minimize brain edema (swelling due to the stroke). The doctors and nurses wouldn't allow me to give him any fluids or solids that required swallowing for fear he would aspirate them and end up with pneumonia on top of the stroke. I knew I wanted to begin treating him herbally as soon as possible, so I elected to make a tincture. I couldn't find a ready made tincture available to me within the Rogue Valley, so I custom made one of my own.

The foundation for the tincture was one I had made for myself several months ago in a base of pure grain alcohol, glycerin and water that included juniper berries, dandelion root and leaf. To that I added a commercial tincture from the Herb Pharm I obtained at the Ashland Food Co-op called "Brain and Memory Tonic" that included GotoKola, Ginkgo leaf, Skullcap flower, Sage leaf, and Rosemary leafy branch. In addition to that I added more Rosemary, Feverfew and Yarrow fresh from the WellSprings organic gardens I once had managed.

I also fed him raspberries, blackberries and blueberries in spite of the cautions from the medical staff against doing so. The tinctures and berries worked well to provide him the basic sustenance he needed to feed his nervous system and reduce the swelling. The advantage to using them is that they absorbed directly through his tongue into his nervous system, requiring little or no chewing and swallowing, thus reducing the pneumonia risk.

His stroke occurred on a Saturday morning, by Wednesday afternoon his edema had reduced substantially, he was beginning to have some movement in his right side, and he was cleared for swallowing "honey thick" liquids and foods. He was ready to transfer out of RVMC into a skilled nursing facility/rehab center.