Hello everyone
I just have a small query. I received Jekka McVicar's latest herb catalogue yesterday, and on page 16 she lists some suggested herbs to make herbal teas from. The top of the page has a warning, and I quote: No herbal tea should be drunk more than twice a day or for longer than a week at any one time.

My question is this - my husband drinks nothing but herbal tea, and varies between nettle, peppermint and chamomile. Is he endangering his health by drinking herbal teas a lot more frequently than twice a day, and for a lot longer than a week! I too drink quite a lot of peppermint and chamomile, but not to the extent that my husband does.

I was also very sorry to hear of the passing away of Thomas Bartram. As a practising Christian I have found his Grace magazine of much spiritual help, as well as practical help herbwise.

Best wishes for 2009
Sue

Hi Sue

I'm sure our qualified members will have a view on this. I suspect Jekka is doing a legal disclaimer so no-one can come back at her for supposedly making them ill.

The medicinal dose of herbal tea as I understand it is three times a day made with 2tsp of dried or 2 tablespoons of fresh to be taken for as long as is useful. Nettles, thyme, sage, you would probably be looking at a three month period rather than 1 week if you want to see a positive change because the herbs are tonifying and cleansing a whole body, rather than addressing a symptom.

There are herbalists who recommend not to take any one herb continuously for a long period. There have been long discussions about echinacea in this respect. Usually what happens is that you take it for as long as you need to and then you start to forget about it or it becomes too much of a fiddle, so you stop. Henriette usually tells her patients to eat their nettle seed until they lose interest and forget about it and that means they don't need it any more. I certainly found that with my combinations last year..I was very diligent for about six months, then started to forget and then I noticed my legs weren't swelling any longer and I didn't need those herbs any more.

It's always a good idea to have a break every so often e.g. 3 weeks on, one week off or just leave a weekend off and do something else.

Another thing to bear in mind is the concentration and the age of the herb you're taking. If you're drinking commercial tea bags, unless it's from a source which can confirm the dried herb is less than six months old and where and when it was harvested, there is little likelihood that you are receiving a great deal of medicinal value, indeed the majority of the herbal content will be something to make it taste nice like hibiscus rather than the herb you bought it for.

Some herbs do have unpleasant side effects if you drink too much of them. Henriette told the tale of a young woman who came to her suffering from incontince. She discovered the woman was drinking 8-9 cups of mint tea every day - if you drink that much, your bladder will leak. Similarly, someone pregnant or breastfeeding wouldn't drink cups of sage or parsley tea. Rosemary is another one where I've seen books say not to drink medicinally for more than a week, but it's so strong, I've never felt drawn to drinking it as a tea at all!

I doubt very much your current tea-drinking practices will cause any difficulties. If you're worried about your husband, get him to mix the changes - one tea for breakfast, another at break times and something different in the evening. Better still, get him out collecting his own nettles and drying them so he can have his own supply for tea and soup and macerations and latte and......

Best wishes

Sarah

I get the herbal tea bags from Duchy Originals, so however old they are, they are at least organic! John doesn't drink herbal tea for any medicinal value, he has been told by his dentist not to drink ordinary tea, or coffee, because his teeth stain so easily, so he has acquired a taste for some herbal teas.

I did dry some mint and some chamomile last summer, but haven't actually used it yet! And I plan on harvesting some nettles in the spring. But you have to grow an awful lot of the stuff to have a ready supply for tea, don't you! I grew yarrow last year, and found I enjoyed that as a tea, but I soon used up my plant. I'm hoping it will come back this year.

I'm sorry to be a pain, but I would be very grateful for any further advice on this topic from the practising herbalists who give us the benefit of their advice so willingly on this forum.

My husband has been unwell for the past two weeks. Initially he had flu like symptoms for a couple of days, but is now just very weak and has no energy, though is plodding on working from home. Blood tests show that he has something very slightly amiss with his liver. He was in Uganda in January, and there is a vague possibility it could be malaria, but they don't think so. He jokingly said the other day that maybe he was poisoning himself with his herbal teas, and I remembered this posting I had made. He drinks nettle, peppermint, chamomile and masala chai teas at the moment.

So if anyone does have any advice as to how much herbal teas one should or should not drink, I'd be grateful !

Thanks very much, and best wishes to all.

Hi Sue

Sorry your husband is unwell. If he has been abroad recently, you might want to press for his blood to be tested by a Centre for Tropical diseases rather than a non-specialist centre. There is one at the London School of Tropical Medicine (http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/) and one at the Heart of England Foundation Trust. The consultant to ask for at Heart of England is Chris Ellis - he's a nice guy and very approachable. His telephone number is 0121 424 0357. You could also contact Dr Jennifer Short (http://www.heartofengland.nhs.uk/templates/Page____5673.aspx)
Get your GP to ring and ask for advice or ring their secretaries yourself. I'd not only be looking for malaria but also Lyme disease.

I know I'm not a doctor, nor a qualified herbalist, but I did spend 14 years working amongst some of the most deprived populations in the UK, most of whom were from South Asia who were constantly travelling backwards and forwards between Pakistan, India and Africa. We had a number of cases of undiagnosed malaria because the local GPs didn't know what they were looking for.

I do hope he feels better soon.

Best wishes

Sarah

I am sorry to hear that your husband is feeling unwell.
The herbal teas you mentioned are very unlikely to harm his liver, and like Sarah, I would be looking for further advice on the cause of his fever, particularly in light of his visit to Uganda.

Having said that, if this turns out to be something for which no specific cause can be found (and those investigations do need to be carries out), then it is a senario that a practitioner could very well help with.

Best wishes - Jenny Jones fnimh

Thanks ever so much for your help. I will contact the people you recommend.
Best wishes
Sue

My friend is an aromatherapist and she tells me that they don't use any oil for more than 6 months as they can build up a toxicity in the body, in my experience I took a lot of Lavender oil (on my pillow) for insomnia and after a while it had the reverse affect, it became a stimulant, i was wide awake, this confirms what my aromatherapist friend said which is if you take too much of an oil it has the reverse affect. For those that don't know aromatherapy oil is made of the oils of herbs so this is similar to taking it as a tea or any other form

Hi Abbie

I agree with everything you are saying about essential oils, but this thread wasn't about over-using essential oils, but about herbs taken as teas, which is a very different kettle of fish.

Thank you for your contribution

Sarah