What does medical herbal therapy preparations do

The role of medical herbal therapy preparations is to maximize the retention of effective active ingredients in natural herbs through extraction and preparation processes that comply with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). On the premise of clear indications, usage and dosage, they can achieve differentiated medical value from symptomatic relief, auxiliary treatment to full-cycle conditioning of chronic diseases, and at the same time fill the treatment gap of some chemical drugs and biological drugs in specific indications.

Let me tell you a real story that I encountered in a community pharmacy last week. Uncle Zhang, a 72-year-old man with stable COPD, had been taking steroid inhalers for almost half a year. His throat was always as dry as sandpaper. The white phlegm he coughed was stuck in his throat and he couldn't spit it out. He took several anti-inflammatory drugs but it didn't work. The doctor in the respiratory department prescribed a clinically proven oral spray composed of astragalus and honeysuckle. It only cost more than 20 yuan through medical insurance. He sprayed it for less than a week and came to the pharmacy to tell me that now there is no more phlegm stuck in his throat in the morning and he can speak much more fluently.

If you look back more than ten years ago, many Western medicine doctors would frown upon seeing this herbal preparation, feeling that "the ingredients are unclear and the efficacy cannot be explained." Now, more and more clinicians are willing to use it. The core is that more and more preparations have passed randomized double-blind controlled trials and have produced solid evidence-based data. However, there are indeed differences in the academic circles. One group is evidence-based researchers who insist on clearly understanding the active ingredients and action pathways of each preparation before identifying them. The other group is clinical doctors with many years of experience in traditional medicine. They feel that the synergistic effect of herbal compounding cannot be achieved. Let’s talk about a single ingredient - for example, the Compound Danshen Dropping Pills that have been used clinically for decades. If you take out the tanshinones, notoginseng total saponins, and borneol separately and mix them in proportion, the effect is not as good as the compound preparation extracted by traditional techniques. There is no completely unified explanation for this yet.

In fact, there is no need to worry so much. It is effective and safe. When I was rotating in the dermatology department, I met many girls with sensitive skin. Their faces were swollen like peaches due to seasonal allergies, and they were afraid of using hormone ointments to leave pigmentation. Doctors usually prescribe a cold compress gel mixed with centella asiatica and purslane. Applying it for two or three days can eliminate most of the redness and itchiness. This kind of gentle relief effect cannot be achieved by many chemical ointments. There are also patients after gastrointestinal surgery. Many people have slow gas and uncomfortable bloated stomachs. Many people will feel flustered and have diarrhea when they use chemical drugs to promote gastric motility. If they switch to Simo Tang oral liquid, most people can smooth their gas after one or two doses, and the incidence of adverse reactions is much lower.

Of course, this does not mean that herbal preparations are "purely natural and have no toxic side effects". This is the most common misunderstanding. Last month, a young man came to me with the "herbal liver-protecting pills" he bought online and asked me if he could eat it. When I saw that there was no wording on the medicine, the ingredient list said "herbal essence", and he immediately threw it away - a patient had bought this three-no herbal preparation indiscriminately before, and after taking it for half a month, his transaminase increased to more than 300, and it took him a week to stay in the hospital before it came down. Remember, what we are talking about are "medical" herbal therapy preparations, which are either drugs with a drug approval label or clinically proven medical products with a mechanical label. They are all approved by the drug regulatory department and clearly marked with indications, contraindications, and adverse reactions. They are not the same thing as the "secret herbal recipes" that are touted online.

Nowadays, many people think that herbal preparations can only be used as "auxiliary" and cannot be used as first-line treatment. This is actually true or false. For example, in the acute stage of bacterial infection of pneumonia, you will definitely need antibiotics, and drinking honeysuckle water will definitely cause trouble. However, in the recovery stage of pneumonia, the symptoms of coughing, phlegm, wheezing, shortness of breath, and fatigue will never go away. Using some regular medical herbal preparations such as Honey Refined Chuanbei Loquat Ointment can indeed speed up the resolution of symptoms and reduce the probability of recurrence. These are complementary in nature, and there is no need to compete for superiority.

I have been practicing clinical pharmacy for almost ten years, and my biggest feeling is that medical herbal preparations are more like the casserole passed down from our ancestors. Of course you can cook the meat in an iron pot, but the delicious aroma that comes out of the casserole when simmered slowly over low heat cannot come out of the iron pot. It is not a magic medicine that can cure all diseases, nor is it an unscientific waste. When used for the right indications, it can really save patients a lot of suffering.