home formula for allergy related cough

[Guest guest]

Since some of the readers said they would like to read about herb

topics, I thought I would share an experience I had the other day. I

was home sick, and had no access to a Chinese pharmacy.

 

I made a pot of tea that tasted good and helped my irritated dry

cough. Ofcourse I don't suggest this for patients, but it was fun to

take care of myself with materials from my yard and local Whole Foods.

 

I started off with some left over sage (salvia officinialis) from a

fresh herb poultry mix. I figured since it was in the mint family it

might help to slightly release the exterior, and Western herbology

advises that sage helps cough. At Whole Foods I bought some organic

tangerines (subs for chen pi) to descend rebellious qi, and some wild

cherry bark (Western herbology-soothes cough). These made the tea

taste good. Since I had no wu wei zi to astringe and tonify yin, I

used Eleagnus berries, a small astringent sweet sour berry, recently

in the news because of the high levels of lycopene it contains.

(seems to prevent prostate ca). Eleagnus makes a pretty hedge, and

many home-owners have it without knowing what it is.

 

I then added mulberry twigs (sang pai pi?)from my yard, and carefully

scrubbed my fresh loquat leaves (pi pa ye) to remove the irritating

herbs.

 

Has anyone else experimented with local substitutions for themselves

or family?

 

Since I don't have much to say about learning Chinese langauge, other

than that Ken has convinced me to give it my best shot in upcoming

years, I thought I'd try to generate a new topic.