Do you suffer from restlessness? Yeast overgrowth? Illness? Here are three herbal combinations made from wellness and medicinal plants to aid your body while it heals itself. No need to panic or feel helpless when you’re ill! Included is some valuable information about healthy diets and cleansing unwanted yeast!
To learn more about how to use medicinal plants in your every day life, be sure to visit The Herbal Academy and sign up for the online course that best suits you. The kids and I are going through the Beginner course for school right now, but we’ll be ready to move on to the intermediate next semester. Lots of fun, engaged herbal learning! Here’s a little something about their herbal self-care for stress course:
Disclaimer
Before we begin, here’s my obligatory disclaimer. The following is not meant to diagnose any illness or suggest treatment that goes against the advice of your medical professional. Do your own research and determine what’s best for you; we are simply sharing what works for us. Be smart and consult your health care professional for medical advice.
Medicinal Plants to Grow
For a list of which herbal plants to grow for health and well being, please visit our post on the subject.
>>>>—Must Have, Must Grow Wellness Plants—<<<<
Please also visit its sister post:
>>>>— How to Plan and Plant a Medicinal Herb Garden —<<<<
You may not be able to grow every herb you use in a year but I bet you can start growing at least one or two – and then you will be hooked on the process! I love growing medicinal plants in among my veggies, fruits and other bedding plants.
Herbs are lovely in the garden and usually provide great forage for beneficial insects. Many also smell delightful and produce lovely flowers or foliage. To learn to grow herbs in containers no matter where you live, consider purchasing our ebook, Herbs in the Bathtub!
Harvesting Your Own…or Not
Harvesting medicinal plants will require that you learn how to dig roots, clip leaves, dry seeds, cut flowers and several other skills but you can do it. You’re a very smart person.
If you’d prefer to purchase your medicinal plants for right now, no worries! There are several quality companies that sell very good medicinal plants. Herbs from all over the world can be found for purchase. The company I deal with for purchasing organic, dried herbs (especially in bulk) is Mountain Rose Herbs.
Recipes From a Friend
The recipes for the herbal combinations I’m going to share with you originating with my herb mentor and friend, Amy Jones. Amy is an herbalist, midwife and the founder of the website Yaya Guru where she helps empower women for the journey of birth and natural healing. I share them with her permission.
Herbal Combinations for Health
So, here are just a few of the herbal recipes we use every year in a house with five small children and two forty-something adults. Wellness plants can be used for maintenance, and therefore in mild doses, but check with your doctor to see if you can ingest these along with any OTC or prescription medicines you may take.
Especially consult with them if you’re using these medicinal plant combinations for acute conditions. Naturopath doctors can be very helpful integrating medicinal plants into your health regimen.
Bear in mind that herbs are not endorsed by governing medical bodies like the CDC.
In the article I talk about encapsulating herbs. To learn how to encapsulate herbs, just visit this link below
>>>>—DIY Supplement Capsules—<<<<
X Pac
This is a strong antiviral and antibacterial combination – bear in mind that these conclusions are NOT endorsed by the CDC or any other medical body. We take this for acute infections. We encapsulate this combination ourselves and use it when battling an active infection.
We take two pills roughly four times a day, every day for seven days. I make a tincture of this combination for the little ones who can’t swallow a pill.
Dosage
If you need to do a cleanse for chronic sinus infection or something similarly obnoxious, Amy recommend the following X Pac Cleanse:
- Day 1 – Take a dose (3 squirts of tincture or 3 pills) every waking hour.
- Day 2 – A dose every two hours.
- Day 3 – A dose every 3 hours.
- Days 4-10 – A dose every four hours.
X Pac tincture tastes, as Amy quips, like the devil’s armpit. So, I have to mix it in with our homemade grape juice and some honey for the kids to take it. Even then, you can still taste it and its gross. Fair warning. Why use it then? Because it works.
Combine
Equal parts:
- Goldenseal root
- Echinacea Angustifolia (root and leaves)
- Ginger root
- Licorice root
Mix together and encapsulate.
If you purchase the cut and dried roots, you’ll need to pulverize them to a powder in order to encapsulate them. I do this in my Vitamix. You can also purchase the herbs in powdered form.
The benefit of buying cut roots and whole leaves of medicinal herb varieties is that the beneficial properties remain intact for longer. Those medicinal properties start to deteriorate over time and crushing or blending can speed that along. I try not to purchase more than I need for a year of any wellness herb if I buy it in powdered form so that I don’t end up wasting any.
To Use
X Pac is my go-to antibiotic and the only time it didn’t work for me was when I was being an idiot – you can read about that here, if you care to. During an infection we’re also:
- consuming a quality cod liver oil
- eating a gut nourishing diet
- consuming a lot of fluid
- resting
- self-quarantining
- ingesting as much natural Vitamin C as possible (usually in the form of rose hips or wolf berries or pine needle tea).
>>>>—Visit this article for a Vitamin C Tea combination—<<<<
Yeast X Formula
If you’re looking to try an herbal cleanse to break the hold of your yeast overgrowth over your life, this one worked so well for me. Yeast overgrowth can cause many problems in our systems, not the least of which is a broken gut. Please read the three part guest series that Amy contributed to Homestead Lady on yeast overgrowth to learn more:
>>>>—Yeast Overgrowth in the Human Body<<<<—
That link will take you part one; it will also connect you to part two and three.
You may have a yeast overgrowth and not even realize it but hear me when I say that chronic pain in a seemingly healthy person is NOT normal. It’s not normal to live on antacids. There’s nothing acceptable about horrific acne and even your arthritis might be optional. Possibly depression, too. Its incredible how much our gut health can affect everything else.
Bear in mind that these conclusions are NOT endorsed by the CDC or any other medical body.
Combine
Equal parts, all in powdered form:
- Chaparral leaf
- myrrh
- olive leaf
- Pau D’Arco
This one is way too nasty to tincture, FYI.
When I did my first herbal cleanse, I took the dosage of:
- four, 4x a day for four days
- 3, 3x a day for three days
- 2 and then 1 – get it?
Amy recommends the following dosage pattern in general:
- 3 pills, 3x a day for two weeks
- then 2-3 pills every day for however many months you’ve calculated you need it (see how to calculate that below).
A maintenance dose is two or three capsules a day for a month for every year you think you’ve had a problem with yeast overgrowth. For example, let’s say you’re thirty years old and you guesstimate that you’ve struggled with yeast over growth since you were fifteen.
After you cleanse, you proceed to take one or two capsules of Yeast X Formula each day for a month, for fifteen months.
To Use
It’s important that you do not consume sugar or white flour during this cleanse. Don’t worry, you probably wont want to – really. Also, make sure you’re either doing an enema consistently or drinking a lot of senna tea – both would be better. You do not want dumped toxins to hang around in your intestines. Again, go read the yeast overgrowth article series for more information.
This has to be coupled with cleaning up your diet. If you’re not yet willing to make changes to how you eat to switch yourself over to a diet of gut healing foods, then you wont see all the benefits of this process that you will when you’re ready to make such changes.
As Hippocrates is credited with saying,
“Before you heal someone, ask him if he’s willing to give up the things that made him sick.”
Its OK to be where you are on this path; don’t beat yourself up, just begin from where you are.
Also, consult your medical professional for advice.
Realities of a Yeast Cleanse
This kind of cleanse kills off your yeast and, I ain’t gonna lie, day three is a bit of a bugger. Plan to:
- rest
- drink a lot of water
- eat nourishing foods
- be nice to yourself during the cleanse
Always be careful with cleansing. There are a lot of great cleanses out there but there are also some crazy ones. Be prayerful/meditative and do what’s right for your body. Again, you holistic doctor (or naturopath), or possibly your forward thinking Western medical doctor can help you navigate this process.
One of the great side effects of killing off your yeast overgrowth is that you no longer crave sugar. FYI, you’re not getting rid of all of your yeast because you need some; you’re just putting it back in its place.
With a lot of out of control sugar cravings, its actually not you wanting the sweets, it’s your yeast. Yeast likes warm, dark places and a highly acidic diet. It loves your gut area and craves sugars and refined grains.
More energy, less inflammation and a sudden feeling of optimism are also great side effects as I can attest from personal experience.
More Yeast Information
I can’t say what will end up working for you, these are just mentors that benefited me. In my experience, healing your gut is an individual process and there probably won’t be just one thing that works. You’ll find many methods and connections that bring about your healing.
Just keep in mind that you CAN heal; your body wants to be healthy. Your Maker designed it to be the only self correcting machine on Earth and it has carried you this far despite what you may have (often unwittingly) done to it.
Remember to consult your professional medical expert of choice.
Chi-Lax
For irritability, hyperactivity, coughs, stomach upset, nervous system upset, restlessness and general yuckiness, this one medicinal plant combination can help!
Bear in mind that these conclusions are NOT endorsed by the CDC or any other medical body.
Combine
Equal parts in powdered form:
- Hops flower
- Valerian
- Wild Lettuce
- Fennel
Encapsulate or tincture. Be judicious when using valerian; consult an herbalist or doctor with questions.
Oxymels
If you prefer to try and herbal oxymel (made with honey, herbs, and apple cider vinegar), you can try the instructions here. Some herbal combinations are better encapsulated because they taste nasty. However, if you need something easier to swallow, an oxymel might work for you.
Wellness and Medicinal Plants Further Study
For further study of the herbal plants mentioned in this article, please visit these fine resources.
Wellness & Medicinal Plants Learning Resources
Always do your own research and consult with your healthcare provider before embarking on an herbal wellness regimen.
Getting to Know the Valerian Plant
Medicinal Benefits of Hops + Hop Tea
Grow Your Own Ginger in Any Climate (Indoors or Outdoors)
How to Grow the Echinacea Plant in Zone 3 for Herbal Remedies and More
Foraging for Chaparral--A Southwest Desert Shrub with Amazing Powers (Plus, What to Do With Chaparral) — Home Healing Harvest Homestead
8 Herbs to Grow in the Medicine Garden
Kristin says
Great post. Congrats on being chosen as a featured post on this week’s Wildcrafting Wednesdays! I hope you’ll join us again and share more of your awesome posts.
https://www.herbanmomma.com
Homestead Lady says
Thanks, Kristen – I so appreciate the feature!
Rhonda Crank says
This is a very informative article. I am learning how to grow my own herbs and use them medicinally so I appreciate all the information. This was my first time to your site and I bookmarked it so I could come back and read some of the posts I have missed. Thanks again for a good article.
Rhonda
thefarmerslamp.com
Homestead Lady says
So glad it was useful to you! Please feel free to share the things you learn. On that note, you’re welcome to come back on Friday to share at the From the Farm Blog Hop. We have a great collection of bloggers link up there every week!
Rebecca says
This is my first time to your site after googling how to grow medicinal herbs. I have been for a long time looking to follow this path among a few others and I haven’t gotten to see all of your site but I made sure I subscribed to it you have so much useful information I cant wait to dig in and start my own garden! I even took it upon myself to go to the moutain rose herbs website and order some seeds to start out with! Your site is truly inspirational I hope to be there someday with myself and my children keep up the great work!!
Homestead Lady says
Thank you so much for sharing that – it makes me so happy to know you’re digging in with us on board! I’m so pleased you’re getting started because that’s half the battle. We switched out our front yard for a medicinal herb garden and its brought me such peace. I still buy some herbs that just don’t grow here (or I’m too lazy to get them going) but just having those plants out my front door is reassuring. Please share your story as often as you can by commenting on posts or participating in the readers corner of the newsletter. So excited to have you here!
Brenda says
I love your blog, I like medicinal herbs and oils and found many valuable information here, I saved in my favorites thanks!
Homestead Lady says
So glad you dropped by, Brenda!