Drinking Honeysuckle tea...next, Absinthe?

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Pharmaceuticals scare the hell out of me.  Especially the variety that have "black box" warning labels, such as Humira.  Humira can cause tuberculosis and fatal fungal infections such as histoplasmosis. Of course, this is rather rare.  But, hey, I don't particularly want to be on the wrong end of a statistic.   This is probably the main reason why I am putting myself through this:

I am probably postponing the inevitable, perhaps.  I don't know.  I am feeling better using alternative treatments.  But a Crohn's patient knows that feeling better is fleeting, and conditions of well being can change at a moment's notice.  I am almost done with my prednisone and over the last two days I have noticed some more external inflammation and a slight pain.  Was the pain always there and I am just feeling it now?  Am I just more aware at the moment because anxiety is pushing me to fear the worst?  Was it something I ate?  Could it be the moon?  Who knows.

Today, I saw my Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor.  He tested some more food for me.  I did not have a reaction to potatoes, soy or bacon. (Thank God for that.  It's bad enough giving up milk.  But bacon?  I think not.)

I have been running low on my honeysuckle pills. I am supposed to take 12 of these pills a day.  So, I have been rationing the honeysuckle; taking a fraction each day just so that I could stretch it out until my appointment today.   I told him that I needed more honeysuckle and he noticed my hoarse voice.  I have a slight cold and the talking that I have been doing at work has made my voice worse.  But, I assured him, I was drinking tea and not coffee.  When I told him this, he said, "I am going to give you some honeysuckle tea.  If you are drinking tea, you might as well make it medicinal."

So now I have honeysuckle tea to drink.  But I was intrigued.  It's my nature to question.

"What does honeysuckle do?"  I asked.

The thing about Dr. X is that he's not very scientific.  He speaks in weird metaphors---metaphors that have been used, apparently, by the Chinese for hundreds of years.  "The honeysuckle cools down your burners," he said.

So it is as simple as that:  my burners are too hot.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the Chinese consider Crohn's to be caused by "too much heat" in the colon.  In Traditional Chinese Medicine, everything is reduced to "hot" or "cold" or other elemental distinctions.

A friend of mine at work is currently getting acupuncture and herbal treatments as well, but in her case it is for sinus issues.  She, too, expresses a fascination with the treatments but also a confusion in regard to its scientific basis.  She compared it to that scene in Princess Bride when Westley was brought to Miracle Max for treatment to bring him back from being "mostly dead."  Herbs, tinctures and mysterious apparati bring the young man to life.  That is what it is like for those of us raised on Western medicine taking a leap into treatments that are explained with a mere "it cools down your burners."

Furthermore, when one looks up honeysuckle, they are plunged into this realm of borderline alchemy.  According to the Desktop Guide to Herbal Medicine, honeysuckle "clears damp heat and removes toxins."  It also reportedly "helps those who are stuck in the past with memories or regrets."  Okay, have fun storming the castle.

But perhaps there is a scientific basis for this for all of this mysterious talk.  Herbs were the first medicine used by humans and the basis for most pharmaceutical drugs.  Many drugs that are patented by big industry start out by mimicking the property of herbs.

Honeysuckle has anti-inflammatory properties and has been used for hundreds of years to treat a variety of ailments, from arthritis to eczema.   It has antibacterial properties as well.  In one study, over 140 compounds were isolated in honeysuckle, many of which have numerous medicinal properties.

As I write these words, I am taking my nighttime dose of herbs---complete with a full dose of honeysuckle.  Tomorrow, at work, I will quietly sip my honeysuckle tea and let its anti-inflammatory properties work.

I have been reading much about herbs lately.  In researching honeysuckle today, for example, I came across another herb that is used to treat Crohn's:  wormwood.

Wormwood is an herb that can be found in absinthe.  Although absinthe was popular over 100 years ago, it became known as the "green fairy" and was consequently vilified for being not only addictive but also hallucinatory.   Much of this was sensationalized for temperance purposes.  However, in recent years, absinthe has made a comeback and now can be purchased in the United States after a decades-long ban.

Wormwood, the main herb found in absinthe, also has medicinal properties.  In fact, there have been several studies done using wormwood to treat Crohn's.  In 2007, a study of wormwood in Crohn's patients revealed that 90% of those treated with wormwood showed improved conditions with 65% going into full Crohn's remission. "These results strongly suggest that wormwood has a steroid sparing effect," concluded the authors.  In other words, wormwood works as good as steroids without the negative effects.  Wormwood was cited in a 2010 study as being just as effective as TNF blockers (such as Humira) in the the treatment of Crohn's.  Apparently, wormwood can naturally reduce the body's tendency to attack its own cells.

If that's the case, I can buy wormwood capsules at my local healthfood store for a fraction of the $30,000 Humira costs a year.

Or, I can just drink absinthe.  A lot of absinthe.  

Actually, I have been wanting to try absinthe for a long time...not for the wormwood, mind you, but for the novelty of drinking a green spirit and pretending to be a bohemian writer in fin de siècle Paris, just like Ewan McGregor in Moulin Rouge! 

But perhaps now I have another reason.