Powdered Raw Herbs: dosage

[Guest guest]

Note: the top of this message repeats in each thread as background info:

 

A friend of mine's raw pharmacy consists solely of powdered (ground to a

very fine powder) RAW bulk single herbs, as can be purchased from Mayway. I

have a few questions about this method that I'd like to pose to the group.

I have broken each topic into a different thread for discussion. I

encourage the addition of any other concerns or benefits to this method. I

see this prescribing method spreading. 1 year ago I knew 1 person doing it,

now I know at least 25. These questions need to be asked/answered for sure.

Below are common practices with the ground RAW method followed by my

comments:

 

1. 9-12g of herbs are given per day

 

- My friend has reported better results using this method than the

traditional 100+ gram /2days standard. In my extremely limited experience,

9-12g/day has not resulted in an apparent under dosing. The obvious caveat

is which herbs have increased potency/bioavailability from grinding (dose

those lower e.g. ren shen, long gu) and which herbs are not as positively

affected (flowers?, light grasses?), and what of those that have their

action partly through a physical property such as being mucilaginous or

simply lubricating (gan cao, huo ma ren). Many will ask why bother with

ground RAW at all with dosage being such a major unknown. The answer is

that it's amazingly easy and it's extremely inexpensive thus compliance and

patient satisfaction are very high. It's so cheap in fact that one person I

know charges $85 per treatment which includes your herbs - whether you take

them or not (he just tacked $10 on to what he would have charged). This

psychology strongly motivates ppl to take herbs.

 

- The dosing can be roughly approximated with this example: Assume 1 bag of

a 120g formula that would normally last 2 days in Western TCM. That bag

would last ten days as a ground RAW formula. I've heard Chinese doctors say

that " research " shows ground herbs are commonly 5-10 times more effective.

Of course that " research " is nowhere to be found, at least by me.