01.12.08
Packing Herbs
This morning I got the chance to pack the emergency herbs I want to take on my trip with me. These herbs are specifically in case I get a UTI away from home. Since I have a history of bone marrow failure, I make it a point to avoid conventional antibiotics because they can suppress the bone marrow. Instead, I have opted to use food and herbal based treatments in the event I need some antibiotics. I developed the need when I had a few bouts of UTIs. A little more detail of what I did when they first started to crop up can be read on my “pages” section titled “Onion Puree Soup Recipe” http://goatrevolution.com/blog2/onion-puree-soup-recipe/. Yesterday I was able to pick up the ingredients, and below is a picture of all the supplies I needed to pack my own herbs. I have veggie capsules, a pill packer (the white tray with the holes), a scale, a spoon, plastic bags, and of course the herbs. Off to the right are a couple of other things I took, Stone Free, by Planetary Herbs, and also Chapparal. But this time, I’m including powdered chapparal in my pills, so will not have to take it separately.
The first time I packed these herbs, some of the ingredients we had were not powdered, so we just put them in the blender and powdered them ourselves. It worked just fine, but it’s easier and less work to just buy the herbs already powdered for you. But if they’re not available powdered (which sometimes they’re not), just powder it yourself. It appears to be more effective powdered because the smaller particles makes it easier for the body to extract the nutrients. Some sources say they are 30% more powerful when powdered.
Below is a picture where the powdered herbs are visible, and the beginnings of the first steps of packing the herbs are about to get underway.
The ingredients I used are Echinacea root, Goldenseal, Uva Ursi, Dandelion Leaf, Ginger root, and Gotu Kola. Since they are all already powdered, the rest of the process is very easy. Take a teaspoon of each ingredient and put them in a bag. I use a regular ziplock bag. My husband has been very interested in herbs, so he’s the one packing them in the following pictures.
Once all the herbs are measured out, we weigh them all out to make sure we have enough powder to fill all the capsules. There are different sized capsules, but we use capsules which hold 1/2 gram each.
Other uses I have for the scale regarding herbs is when I make some teas like Uva Ursi. I would weight out 15 grams of Uva Ursi dried “leaves” for about 2 cups of water worth of tea. I don’t think it has to be that exact, but I just like to make sure I use about 15 grams a day when I was fighting a UTI.
After all the herbs are measured out and weighed, zip up the bag and shake it all around to evenly mix all the ingredients together. We like to write all the ingredients on the bag in case you run out and want to add more stuff later.
One the ingredients are sufficiently mixed, take the veggie capsules and load the pill packer. This is done by opening the veggie capsules and placing the larger ends in the pill packer. Once all the veggie capsules are inserted, pour in the mixed herbs.
After you pour on the herbs, use the small card to help scrape the herbs across the tray and into the capsules. Once the capsules look fairly full, take the pill tapper, and tap in the herbs to pack them tighter into the capsules. Do this about 2 or 3 times as shown below.
It can be seen below after tapping the herbs down how much room is left that can be filled with more herbs. This is why you pack with the tapper. Just go over it again with the card scraper to move the herbs into the capsules until all the capsules are sufficiently packed.
Once they’re packed, lower the top tray. This will expose the upper half of the capsules. Replace all the veggie caps onto the capsules.
This is what they look like with all the capsules capped.
Before removing the capsules, pour the loose herbs back into the plastic bag where the rest of the mixed ingredients are.
This is what they’ll look like just before the filled capsules are ready to be removed from the tray.
Now the last step is to remove them from the tray. Just take a clean bag, and dump the capsules in.
And “viola!” They’re done and ready to rock and roll, heheheh. . .
The last thing I wanted to share was how much I took. When my UTI was in full force, for me that meant pain upon urination, bleeding, the uncomfortable urge to urinate when you just went, etc., I would take two capsules every hour. I did that until the symptoms would all go away, and that usually would be about 3 days for me to start feeling back to my old self. My old self meaning, I don’t feel pain, no bleeding, no uncomfortable urge to go when you know you shouldn’t need to go. I would spread out the pills to two every two hours, then if all were still well, the next day I’d go to every 3 hours, then the next day to 3x a day. And continue that for about another week for good measure. Since you never really know exactly what is going to work, I like to attack at various angles, so I also took the onion puree soups when convenient (meaning when I was home), and unsweetened cranberry juice occasionally (I don’t like to take it too often because all the sugar seems to bother my skin), and I also drink uva ursi tea and dandelion leaf tea for good measure. May sound like a lot of work, but I found it to be worth it. No worries of ruining my gut or my bone marrow, and the peace of mind that I know what’s in my pills. No fillers, artificial ingredients, binders, etc. I thank God for herbs. 
Okay that’s about it, hope I didn’t miss anything. . .
So next post. . . how to roll your own reefers, ha! Just kidding. You figure that one on your own, ha ha!
Okay, off to make myself useful!
Marlakins
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