I have volunteered this summer at the Green Gathering Festival in Chepstow, working at the Herbal First Aid Stand.

It was really a great opportunity to see how much herbs are potent and efficacious and also how much the audience was very much keen on the herbal treatment option, as we were of course offering the choice between the conventional treatment option and herbal one and of course conventional First Aid was applied as necessary.

Not all impetigos can be effectively treated with herbs but some would be successfully treated and that’s impressive, especially in an acute setting where you are able to see the patient coming at regular intervals for the topical herbal treatment and the systemic herbal mix. Results can be rewarding.

I was also very impressed with how quickly and safely difficult migraines have either completely resolved or decreased in severity and I am not talking about headaches here.

As an MD I have done a lot of emergency work although it’s a long time ago, I still remember how orthodox  medicine can be very useful and in some cases vital and the ONLY OPTION and I don’t believe this has changed.

What has changed a lot though is the mainstream medicine no longer being able to cope with chronic conditions anymore with the outcomes getting even worse in many cases I’m afraid, but that’s not the purpose of this post…..

I would never have thought that herbs can do a lot in term of First Aid treatment, but now I am not only convinced but definitely an advocate of herbal use wherever possible.

Why would you use a synthetic antibiotic when nature has provided us with already made and easy to use antibiotics with a great safety when used by skilled medical herbalists, something we can never say about any medicine.

You just need to look at the adverse reactions’s section on the EMC website to see the number of possible adverse events for just taking a simple pain killer….and you have to also take into account that these adverse events are only based on the drug development studies and not all of them updated with real world users’s experience.

Also we need to keep in mind that adverse events are not always reported so sometimes it takes a really long time to understand the safety of pharmaceutical products hence why sometimes some drugs are pulled out of the markets after being approved by local medical agencies (FDA in the US and EMEA in Europe are the main ones). Unfortunately this sometimes happen too late after damage has been done in most cases this can be irreversible.

You probably have heard of Thalidomide Scandal. Thalidomide was used in the late 1950s and early 1960s to combat morning sickness, but led to children being born without limbs, yes that is horrible.

The question is why should we reinvent the wheel when cheaper, natural and safer options already exist : ginger, peppermint have been used for centuries with great outcomes, an excellent safely profile and very low cost.

Herbs are well recognised by our body because we are part of the same ecosystem. Science don’t fully understand the mode of actions of herbs because it is down to many components which are impossible to test at the same time through the gold  standard Randomised Double Blind Clinical Trials which is the way drugs are assessed and approved for medical use.

The green Gathering Event was an eye opener on how much can be done safely and successfully with simple and cheap herbs but also on how much people are longing for natural treatment options.

I will definitely take part again of this event next year, it is a unique opportunity to use natural treatments in an acute setting.