Class #: / 3
Tincture making with David Jones, Third Coast Herbs, dedicated to taking the mystery out of chinese herbs for the American public.
Products
Suan Zao Ren works really well in a tincture – Deep Sleeper. Added Bai Jiang Cao to it, a clear heat herb. Calms peoples’ bodies down, helps ‘em let go and sleep. Can also work as an anti-anxiety herb during the day for some things.
Xiao Yao San (Decompress) tinctured is as-is. Works well for stress, PMS, digestive issues, menstrual irregularities. Their sheng jiang comes from ginger juice, not powder.
Easy Breather is yu ping feng san modified with cang er zi, xin yi hua, chan tui, lu lu tong, ba zhi, tian hua fen, and bo he in big doses. This is designed to work for Austin allergies specifically. Lots of open you up herbs here. Tinctures work really fast, David encourage sublingual without dilute then hold it in the mouth under the tongue for 15-20 seconds.
Back in Action. This is for musculo-skeletal pain big time. Works well as a chiropractic formula. This is a Zeng Zheng designed tincture! Woot! This is an old Shaolin temple formula for pain and over-training. Good sports formula, works well for arthritis, delayed onset muscle soreness, even prophylactically prior to exercise. Lot of blood movers in this formula (some change the elasticity of blood cells and can increase availability of blood to lungs and oxygenation).
Peak Power is Ba Zhen Tang, Shi Chuan Da Bu Wan combined with a couple of mods. (Si jun zi tang, si wu tang = ba zhen tang.) Now toss in Shen mai san. This is a great performance formula. Watch out in south texas – too hot here for some of the ingredients but works great for mountaineering, etc.
The alcohol comes from sugar cane (rum) for these formulas rather than wheat – defeats the celiac possible problems. Glycerine is locally produced mostly…until June because of GMP compliance. Far East will soon be producing all of these formulas above as of June because Far East is already GMP compliant. 3rd coast has a lot of other perks – will refund money for stuff that doesn’t move, no minimum order, etc.
Chemistry, Math and How To Make Tinctures
Here’s how 3rd Coast does it. Most tinctures are 5 parts liquid to 1 parts herbs. Percentages of liquids 3rd coast uses:
45% Water
40% ETOH
15% Glycerine
The idea is to get the useful oils out of the herbs. Ethyl alcohol (C2H5OH) – it’s that OH that is the important piece. You can also make vinegar tinctures. Again, there’s an OH molecule hanging off of the main molecule – use apple cider vinegar. This OH group pulls things out in the solution. Glycerine does this too in the same way.
Dang gui, bai shao, bai zhu, fu ling, chai hu, zhi gan cao, bo he, sheng jiang – all herbs are 9g except for zhi gan cao and bo he which are 5g. 64 grams total. In solution you’d expect about a liter of the stuff. Decoct it for the water portion. You take this 64 grams, and you do that many grams of water. Boil it up. This is the water portion.
450ml of decoction
400ml of alcohol
150ml of glycerine
You have a 1000ml of liquid, so you need 200mg of herb. David has a set of formulas which are largely lost on my tiny non-mathematical brain. The nutshell of it is you figure out your proportions, get a jar, put in the proper amount of herbs, toss in the alcohol and glycerine, let it sit 21 days. Next, press the bunch of herbs (you can get a press for best yield) and collect the tincture.
The only exception to this is the herbs with the volatile oils you add at the end of a decoction – don’t grind that. Grinders are too hot. You kill off the oils. If you are supposed to add it at the end of decoction, don’t grind, don’t boil. Add it to the tincture without doing those things.
Law
If you want to make your own tinctures to sell, you have to have a TABC alcohol use permit and a food manuf permit, and register with the FDA. You also have to have a food handlers permit and you have to register with the local health department so they can inspect what you’re doing.
Formulas from class 2 cont’d
Herbs to clear heat here and to combat infections.
Know that it clears heat and that shi gao is in it.
Qing hao is for heat also. Qiang huo is for the taiyang stage. Treats taiyang and yangming/Qi level heat. This formula is anti-inflammatory and anti-toxin. Pathogens in this case are beginning to migrate to the Shaoyang stage with aching in the neck and sholders and a high fever.
Summer Heat Formulas
Summer heat comes along with dampness. The wording is “Summer Damp.” How is this different from other damp and heat? Summer time damp is turbid damp toxicity. This is not the same as having some heat and consuming dairy products.
Herbs used are aromatic to purify the turbidity. Huo xiang, pei lan, etc are commonly used. This is very effective for summer dampness. Focus on Huo Xiang Zheng Qi Wan/Ye. This one is very important.
/ Wu Shi ChaLots of herbs for turbidity in digestion. Note the clear exterior herbs, digestion herbs.
/ This is a very important formula. You gotta know this one!
Huo Xiang Zheng Qi Wan is the best for the stomach flu. You should see results within 2-5 hours. A key symptom is diarrhea and/or vomiting – need to have one or the other for this formula to apply.
This can come in the form of pills (mild in strength), ye (stronger) or shui (strongest). Shui is alcohol – a tincture. Alcohol will remove some of the turbidity that is causing the symptoms. Watch out for patients that have an allergy to alcohol or who is diabetic, etc. That said, this is a very powerful way to take this formula.
Works for food poisoningand traveler’s diarrhea. Good thing to take along when you travel to places where you might get Montezuma’s Revenge!
If you prescribe this it should work within hours. If it’s not working with in 24-48 hours, your dx is wrong! There must be damp – vomiting/nausea are the damp signs and cause the qi to rebel.
Don’t really need to know the dosage.
/ For food stagnation.
/ Also for food stagnation.
Look for focal distention, belching, foul breath, etc. All these signs are above the epigastrium. You can induce vomiting to get rid of the crud in the stomach since it’s above the level of the intestines. You wouldn’t induce bowel movement in this case because the problem doesn’t live here yet.
Disorders of the Five Senses
This applies to nose (allergies, sinus problems), mouth/throat, eyes and ears. Need to know nasal problem formulas if you want to practice in Austin!
/ Note that there are several headaches herbs in yonder. More for opening the nose, yet more to guide herbs up to the yangming/sinuses. Mu tong brings down to balance the formula.Cold pathogens tends to make more pain as it constricts and contracts. Wam doesn’t do that – warm opens and releases more so there isn’t usually a lot of pain with warm disorders (though hot will when it starts causing swelling).
They key is wind/cold attack with white/watery nasal discharge. Discharge is not necessarily the key syndrome. W/C discharge might look a little yellow if it’s been there for a while and might even look thick, but no other signs of heat. For that matter, wind heat may have thin/clear nasal discharge!
/ Cang er zi is slightly toxic. You may not need to use all of these herbs if you make it up in a tincture or powder.
/ Benefits the throat, works for wind-heat. Opens nasal passages for congestion. Does it help with allergies? Liu saw this once, but not since.
This is for a wind-heat invasion causing a sinus issue throat (postnasal drip, etc.) Once in a while you find a patient who takes this and the nose gets worse!
/ For a deeper issue than Bi yan pian. If bi yan pian isn’t working, move to this formula.
Can also remove blood stasis, which can treat polyps in the nose. Will also help with patients who have deep nasal congestion/snot.
/ Sinus or nasal allergy pills. This is the chinese commercial name. Take care – different brands have different ingredients. Note that this one has huo xiang and long dan cao for the deeper issues like the last formula. The original format is for infection and contains strong clear heat herbs with damp herbs. Clears damp heat in the frontal sinus area.
/ Jade screen plus nasal clearing herb. Dr. Liu says it’s a good patent.
Can take this with wei qi xu plus a mild external invasion. Won’t work for a stronger invasion.
Throat Disorders
Sore throat, loss of voice, dry throat, plum pit qi, itching feeling in the throat, loss of voice. Sore throat usually = heat. But may not really be sore – maybe achy, uncomfortable. If truly sore, check tonsils by palpating. Allergy patients usually don’t feel pain upon palpation unless they have migrated to an infection. Loss of voice can be due to infection, but also due to overuse. Plumpit qi is often due to emotional stuff plus phlegm…which can be invisible phlegm (which isn’t exactly mucus) and often combines with qi stagnation. Throat itching could be a precursor to a sore throat but could be due to allergies.
/ This formula is for moistening the throat, treating overuse, for phlegm. Nourishes yin also. This one can resolve some phlegm issues./ This also nourishes and moistens the throat, clears heat and stops throat pain. This one can resolve some phlegm issues too, but not as strong as the previous.
/ All herbs here benefit the throat.
Watch out – don’t use it during preggers, don’t eat greasy, oily foods with this formula. / This is an old excellent patent. Some ingredients probably are protected, not advertised. Know ku shen. Often sold as a spray, tastes pretty bad.
Can also be used for sores in the mouth!
Shortens the period of mouth sores from long time to a couple of days, especially if you catch it in the early stages, not after the mouth is broken out. Takes at least a week to resolve after it has already broken out. Not that uncommon for spleen qi xu patients.
Can combine with the miracle chinese burn cream you get for use with moxa, which works great with bed sores. You can use this formula + burn cream for bed sores too.
/ The former is more powerful than this one. Works for throat pain caused by heat.
Can be used topically and used locally for pain. Not so much for teeth/gums – Qing Wei San (clear stomach powder) is better.
Ear and Eye Disorders
Er Long Zhuo Zhi Wan
Liu wei di huang wan is in here in addition to chai hu, wu wei zi, and ci shi. Cools the blood heat, good for the liver too. Chai hu guides to the shaoyang upper areas (ears). Wu wei zi astringes, ci shi calms the liver yang. All in all balances the formula.
This is hearing loss due to aging, chronic hearing loss. This tonifies Kidney and Liver Yin.
If hearing loss is due to trauma and it’s been a long time since it happened….prognosis is not good. It’s really too late for acu/herbs to work. Need to treat these kinds of patients sooner after the trauma.
Also, because this is a chronic condition may take a while to see the results.
Er Yan Ling Oil
This formula is for infection in the ears. It’s used as a drop in the ear. Also, Long Dan Xie Gan Wan/Tang is magic for ear infections! Patient will have pain, sensitivity to even touching the external ear.
This works well for kids.
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