questions on dosing granular extracts, update on cancer case

[Guest guest]

Hello,

 

I am a brand new practitioner and have invested in a pharmacy of granular

extracts from Lotus. I am not completely comfortable with my method of dosage

at this time. The Lotus manual has describes a method of dosing that basicly

involves coming up with dosages for decoctions and them proportioning the

herbs into a 50 or 100g total formula. Then they recommend that you give

instructions on how many little spoons(1 g each) of the resulting formula to

take according to weight and age. I've talked to people at Lotus and they

claim you use the same method if you have a formula of 6 herbs at low doses

or 12 herbs at high doses which sounds like complete foolishness.

Lotus says that their extracts have a 5:1 concentration with raw herbs so

what I have been doing is figuring out how much of the granular extract I

would have to give to equal the decoction dosages of my original formula and

prescribing that. The results have been that I have generally been

prescribing more than the Lotus recommended number of spoons (generally 7-9

spoons/day compared to the Lotus recommnedation of 6 spoons for the average

sized adult) because my formulas are averaging 12-15 herbs with dosages of

6-15g each based on 1 packet=2 days.

Am I completely off base with this method? 3 weeks of practice hasn't

provided me with enough feedback to evaluate this method. How are other

people using granular extracts? I know that granulars are supposed to be

easier to digest than decoctions (and they have been in my personal

experience). I feel that there has to be a way to precisely dose the herbs in

extract form.

Also some news on the cancer case study I submitted last week: I finally

convinced her to stop the essiac. A day after she did her bloating and

borborygmus started to abate significantly. Also I have been able to cull out

a western herbal preparation that she was taking, which also contained

rhubarb. It will be interesting to see how she presents in a week or 2 after

stopping most of the harsh draining regime she was on before she started to

come to me. She is becoming more trusting especially because I told her that

the essiac could have been exacerbating her digestive situation.

Thanks for listening.

Kristin Wisgirda, MTOM, Lic.Ac.