What to do with St John’s Wort?

St John’ Wort is my ultimate summer herb. The date when my first yellow starflower opens tells me how the season fares. This year is was 21^st June, Midsummer’s Day, so although the winter was long and spring cold and late, the plants are progressing as normal. When the last seed forms in late September I know summer is over and world is turning once more.

St John’s wort was once of the first herbs I grew. Everyone talked and wrote about it, embodying it with an air of mystery. It was deemed to be very powerful, copying the pharmaceutical drugs which tackled mild to moderate depression. There was also talk of it being used to treat burns arising from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. How could a herb have such widespread action?

I knew the active part of the plant was the flower and the tiny, perforated leaves which gave it its name “perforatum”. If you couldn’t see light coming through the tiny holes, then the plant would not be particularly active (much to the dismay of those with ornamental hypericums growing in their gardens!).

My first products were the flowers infused in sunflower oil on my kitchen windowsill. Christopher Hedley taught me to use a light oil since the plant was delicate, but I know others prefer olive oil if they are looking for something which penetrates the skin more easily and has medicinal effects of its own. I leave it alone all summer, adding to the jars every day or so and topping them up as needed until I have enough oil for the coming year.

One year I put a lid on the jar, thinking to deter insects but was taught a salutary lesson when I discovered mould growing on the top. Fresh plant material contains water and if you don’t allow it to evaporate you are likely to grow something you don’t want. Now, if I were to bother with a cover, I’d fashion something out of paper or cotton.

The development of St John’s Wort oil is an amazing spectacle. After only two days the oil begins to change colour and by the end of one or two weeks, the familiar crimson oil emerges. It must have sunlight to effect the change. If you stick your jar of oil in a dark cupboard for several weeks, it will remain yellow. (Ask me how I know!)

The oil can be used in so many different ways.

• As a sunscreen
• For general burn healing
• With honey and calendula as a poultice for burns
• For massage involving any kind of nerve pain
• In a salve with calendula and chickweed for hot, infected eczema
• With meadowsweet for anti-inflammatory pain such as arthritis
• With agrimony for pain involving constriction
• As a cream with marshmallow, calendula and aloe vera to prevent diabetic foot problems

The second product I made was a tincture but macerating the flowers in vodka for three weeks in a dark place. The red colouration begins to leach out after several hours.

The tincture had me in a quandary. I don’t like to give herbs to anyone with a serious mental health problem, especially if they are under the care of professionals and may be taking other psychotropic drugs. St John’s Wort has a tendency to exacerbate the side effects of any other medication, which is not something to be recommended.

St John’s Wort is also one of the few drugs to have been extensively “researched”, although the trials are rarely with the whole plant, only with those aspects which have been extracted and standardised. Hence the long list of contra-indications and warnings which the press are so pleased to report. If you do want to educate yourself about these reports, there are lots of references in medical journals.

Like the SSRI drugs, St John’s Wort doesn’t act immediately. You need to build up a concentration in the body before you start to notice changes. Henriette Kress described it, “You won’t notice any difference when you take it but the people around you will notice you are different.”

It was Henriette who gave me the confidence to start adding St John’s Wort to my bereavement tonics. All the herbs are nerviness and help to support the adrenal gland during times of stress. I use SJW with lemon balm, vervain and nettles in the early stages of bereavement and may continue to add it to the mix or leave it out in favour of oats and/or motherwort, depending on the person. I also give people skullcap or rose elixir in separate bottles to take as and when the screaming habdabs descend.

David Winston also reported success with a mixture of SJW and lemon balm for seasonal affective disorder (SAD). This could be easily combined using tinctures but I have also made a syrup with extra lemons which proved far too delicious to be a medicine!

After several years of making oils and tinctures, I began to dry the herb for teas. A former apprentice reported great success in removing the pain of diabetic foot neuropathy in Asian elders by administering the tea as a footbath. This could also be used with any hand problems.   

My next experiment was with honey. SJW flowers in honey produces a pink honey with the characteristic SJW smell. You could use this in any drink as an added medicine to a herbal infusion. I’m now waiting for the evening primrose and bergamot to flower to make a “burns honey” together with apothecary’s rose petals. Having just treated a nasty burn on my leg, I want to be sure I’ve got a specific honey available just in case.

Every year I give away dozens of self seeded SJW plants. I believe every herb lover needs an SJW patch in their garden. I know I would be lost without mine.

I'll finish with a meditation I undertook recently with St John's Wort. This is what he said.

I am the sun and stars
I am strong
I travel along unseen pathways
I hide my scent
You will only know it if you work with me.
The more you work with me the less you will understand me
I comfort the vulnerable
Do not think to offer me on my own
I am not here to work your miracles
You will not notice how I change you until the change is past
Offer me humbly to your elders
On your knees let them bathe their feet in my waters
I will take away their pain, soothe the burning
I am strong

Trust me

Dealing with Gout

Before approaching any condition, it’s as well to understand what is happening in the body before starting to treat.  Gout is one of those which affect joints but is not a form of arthritis. It is incredibly painful, can occur at any age and usually reoccurs unless changes to lifestyle and diet are adhered to.

Historically it has been associated with overweight, red-faced old men who love their roast beef and port and there are many depictions of such people in both eighteenth and nineteenth century cartoons and later novels. The sufferer’s pain has been seen as a cause of hilarity and general dismissal.

Put simply, gout is caused by an inability to process lactic acid which leads to a precipitation of uric acid crystals in joints instead of being excreted in urine. This may come from a genetic insufficiency. It is often caused by a diet rich in purines (a component of protein) coupled with large body mass and an underactive digestion.

Gout can happen to anyone, male or female at any age. It can occur in any joint but is most frequently experienced in toes or hands.  In my experience, gout usually occurs 

a)    after a lifetime of “good living” (lots of heavy, meat-driven meals accompanied by alcohol)

b)    after excessive stress or

c)    as a side effect of medication.

Treatment needs to consist of a four-pronged approach

• pain relief,
• anti-inflammatories,
• something to break up and eliminate the uric acid crystals
• lifestyle changes

They are all equally important. Once the initial attack is over, it is tempting for the sufferer to return to his or her previous lifestyle and ‘just avoid the food which triggers an attack.’ 

Unfortunately it is not that simple. Just because you are not in pain does not mean you are now effectively processing lactic acid. Uric acid crystals may still be building up in your joints and causing damage. It is best to make some long-term lifestyle changes and develop strategies to ensure your good health unless you are content to develop a chronic condition.

Let us look at the four areas in turn 

      Pain relief 

      Perhaps the most effective painkiller for gout is potato juice, 4-6 fluid ozs of juice made from uncooked potatoes taken every hour. It tastes dreadful and must be drunk fresh but does the trick. More palatable may be cherry, blackcurrant or blueberry juice (unsweetened). The dose is 6 to 8 ozs of “black/blue” fruit a day (fresh or frozen).  Taken for two weeks, this dosage will lower uric acid and will help to prevent attacks by reducing levels of uric acid.

      Cherries and other dark red berries (hawthorn berries and blueberries) contain anthocyanidins which increase collagen integrity and decrease inflammation.  You could also take 8 to 16 fl ozs. of cherry juice per day. A lower, maintenance dose of 4 fl ozs. per day can be continued as a preventative measure to guard against new attacks.  A supplement with high levels of proanthocyanadins can be used in addition during crisis or instead of cherries and blueberries during non-crisis times. 

 

      Reducing inflammation and eliminating uric acid crystals

These two factors need to be tackled together. When my husband developed gout in his hand following an incredibly stressful time at work, the doctor only prescribed anti-inflammatories which, to me, seemed worse than useless so I went to my herbs and he recovered quickly.

I used David Hoffman’s tried and tested formula of equal parts celery seed, burdock and yarrow. Wild carrot is another herbal diruretic which could be used. A gout sufferer needs to increase water intake significantly to help eliminate the uric acid crystals, so I made the celery seed (1tsp) and yarrow (1tsp) into a tea and added 1 tsp of burdock tincture as that was all I had available. Ideally alcohol should be excluded completely from the diet during an attack but I didn’t know this at the time. This dose is taken three times a day.

The principal reason for increasing liquid consumption (think 6-8 glasses per day) is to try to dilute the contents of the blood so that uric acid has less chance of precipitating out and depositing in the synovial fluid around joints.

Other foods which can help are apples, black currants, watercress, kale, strawberries, dandelion greens, potato, potato broth, chicory, cherries, blueberries, raspberries, parsnips, celery, olives, rye, lima beans, rice bran, bananas, sprouts, watercress.

Fresh juices are also helpful such as cherry juice, potato juice, celery and parsley juice, celery juice, carrot and spinach juice, carrot, beet, and cucumber juice or carrot, celery, and parsley juice, potato peeling broth, dried olive tea, nut milk and liquid chlorophyll.

Juices start to oxidize immediately they come into contact with air, so should be made fresh every time. If you are making a juice from fresh cherries, remove the stones first before juicing, otherwise you will damage your machine. 

      Lifestyle changes

Peter Bryam, a Connecticut herbalist, believes that gout can only be successfully treated with a complete lifestyle change to reduce any excess body mass and to maintain a diet which reduces or removes the chance of uric acid precipitation. He recommends a diet comprised of

·        

•  Protein 70% of Calories
• Fat 12 -15% of Calories
• Fiber 5-18% of Calories

He also suggests short juice fasts, which include supplementation with "super food" complexes, followed by a diet very low in purines if you are trying to lose weight. He warns against any kind of fast where only water is drunk because this will cause concentration of toxins and precipitate a gout crisis.

Bryam has put together a set of dietary "standards" or rules for individuals with gout.

• Eliminate homogenized milk as it may be a source of xanthene oxidase which will increase levels of uric acid.  It may be necessary to switch to soy or nut milks.
• Significantly restrict or completely eliminate purines in the diet.  Purines are organic compounds that contribute to the formation of uric acid in the system.  Purines increase lactate production which then competes (and loses) with uric acid for excretion.

Foods with high purine content are:

"Red" meats of any kind: goose, organ meats (e.g. liver, kidney, sweetbreads), shellfish (e.g. mussels, prawns),  anchovies, sardines, herring, mackerel,  baker's yeast, dry peas, alcohol, mincemeat, vitamin B3, ketones, coffee (even decaf), tea , cocoa, cola, saturated fat, refined carbohydrates,

Foods with a moderate amount of purines are:

"White" meats, poultry, spinach, asparagus, beans, lentils, mushrooms, fish and shellfish not listed above.

In addition to avoiding the above purine containing foods, Byram recommends not eating any foods cooked in heated oils. This includes anything labelled “fried” including "roasted" nuts.  It also means staying out of most restaurants or fast food establishments. 

Bryam reasons that fats used for cooking, once heated even a little, will oxidize and turn rancid very quickly and even though they don't necessarily taste bad when this happens, he believes they “have become poison for an individual with gout”.  He says that rancid fats destroy Vitamin E which is a major antioxidant that the body utilizes in cleaning up oxidative damage in the system.  Destruction of Vitamin E triggers the release of increased uric acid into the system which will promote an attack. 

Recently, I have become aware of people who develop gout as a side effect of their medication. It is really important to read all the small print on any tablets you are taking and see if there is a mention of gout as a side effect. If it is there, it is worthwhile eliminating high purine foods and alcohol from your diet and increasing your fluid intake before you experience an attack, rather than waiting for the pain and then acting.

Finally, I would like to discuss the issue of food as medicine. I have noticed that when I suggest something to someone who does not normally include herbs as medicines in their diet, they try to interpret what I have suggested into something they can easily understand and incorporate into their current lifestyle rather than taking on board exactly what I’ve said.

One example of this was an elderly gentleman who was suffering with extreme constipation. I suggested he try including fresh or dried figs in his diet. Both he and his daughter looked at me with a slightly puzzled expression and said, “Would bananas be as good?”

My second example comes from the wife of a transplant patient whose extremely painful gout came from his numerous medications. His doctors could do nothing for the pain. I suggested fresh potato juice but instead of trying this, she reinterpreted my suggestion as “leek and potato soup”. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she would probably see no effect whatsoever from the soup except as a comfort food because the medicinal pain relieving aspects came from concentrated fresh potato juice.

Celery is another case in point. Eating the vegetable either fresh or cooked will help but the diuretic effects will not be as great as using a tea made from the dried seeds. Including celery in your diet can be greatly beneficial but when a gout attack happens, use the concentrated form – the seeds.