Educational Note on Herbs

While acupuncture works with and regulates your qi and body substances that you already have, herbal medicine can be used to further supplement areas of insufficiency, or drain areas of excess. For example, when there is insufficient yang qi (warming energy) in the stomach, one might be given a formula that includes an herb that “warms the middle” like gan jiang (baked ginger). If there is excess pathological heat and dampness in the lungs resulting in productive cough with yellow phlegm, one might be given a formula including the herb huang qin (scutellaria/skullcap root). In this way, herbal formulas are addressing areas of imbalance in an allopathic way (warming substances for cold conditions, cooling substances for hot conditions), as opposed to homeopathic approaches, which may give a little of a hot substance to treat a hot condition.