Moodle at CCNM

The search for effective, safe and non-addictive pain medication is an age-old quest. Studies show many people – especially the elderly, the poor, people of color and women – are undertreated for chronic pain. While herbs are not as powerful as opiates and other pharmaceutical medications, they can offer safer and often highly effective pain management. In this talk we discuss how specific herbs can relieve specific types of pain, how to combine herbs to create a synergistic effect and reduce inflammation, pain perception and spasm and how botanicals can enhance the effects of pharmaceutical pain medications. The focus of this class is to give the clinician the precise tools needed to manage pain with herbs. To that end we learn to describe the types and nature of pain, the location of the pain and the most effective combinations of herbs to treat pain syndromes. For too long herbalists have thought our ability to effectively relieve pain is very limited. This is untrue once you stop using generic “pain” herbs and understand how we can help control pain with precision and specificity in our herb choices. We also discuss some conventional pain medications and their limitations and adverse effects. Pharmaceutical classes covered include opiods, COX-2 inhibitors, NSAIDS.

Weeds are despised, poisoned and known for creating significant environmental damage. We spend billions of dollars and endless work hours in our attempts to eradicate them, while damaging our environment further by spraying toxic herbicides. What if there was a way to reduce their spread without dangerous chemicals that also provided people (and animals) with time-tested medicines to cure our ills? In this class we explore the medicinal use of common aggressive weeds and how they are used in other cultures (TCM, Ayurveda, TEM) as effective remedies. By encouraging the use of these plants we provide environmental benefits, reduce pressure on over-harvested indigenous herbs and have an almost endless source of fresh, potent and effective medicinal plants growing in our gardens, backyards, farm fields and forests.