Herbal Medicine
Customized Chinese Herbal Medicine Formulas
You have a unique constitution, a unique health history, a unique health goal—and need a medicine that can account for your particularity. That is why our Washington DC clinic customizes Chinese herbal medicine formulas for you and your specific needs. Dysmenorrhea but also allergies? We can do both. GI problems but also insomnia? We’ve got you covered. Constipation, menstrual irregularity, and acid reflux? One formula can help it all.
Benefits of Herbal Medicine
Herbal medicine extends your treatment into your home by bottling Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) benefits.
Our board-certified herbalists will diagnose your unique TCM pattern(s) and create a Chinese herbal formula that is unique to you and your needs. Our custom herbal formulas typically contain 5-15 herbs to help you heal.
We work to treat both your constitution—or root issues—as well as the symptoms you’re experiencing—or branch concerns. You can think of herbal medicine as the internal medicine branch of TCM.
The health benefits of herbal medicine include improved digestion, better sleep quality, improved mood, easier periods and relief from PMS symptoms, fewer night sweats and hot flashes, more energy, relief from acid reflux, and many more!
We’re very proud to have also helped some patients step down their medication dose (with support from their doctors) or get off certain medications completely with herbal medicine.
Chinese herbal medicine can effectively treat multiple symptoms with one formula.
Chinese Herbal Medicine
Chinese herbal medicine is a sophisticated medical system with highly individualized diagnoses and treatment. Our acupuncturists are not taking guesses as to what might work for you but are prescribing herbs based on observable patterns in your body.
It’s an elegant system that takes seemingly disconnected symptoms, brings them together into a single diagnosis, and treats them with a single formula.
Formulas typically use 5-15 herbs. Some of these are chief herbs (treat the main symptoms), while some are guide herbs (telling the herbs where to go in the body), and some are assistant herbs (increase the effectiveness of the chief herbs).
The guiding principle of Chinese herbal treatments is “treat by opposite,” where formulas balance symptoms. For instance, too much heat is treated with cooling herbs. The result is a highly specific treatment that deals with your unique case and works more effectively on your health concerns.
Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine Healthcare
Acupuncture and herbal medicine go hand in hand. Just as acupuncture is used to balance and restore, so does Chinese herbal medicine. However, adding herbs to your acupuncture treatment helps extend your treatment’s benefits throughout the week. This helps to speed recovery and resolve symptoms faster than with acupuncture alone. These two work synergistically—each enhances the other’s positive effects on your symptoms.
Herbal medicine extends the benefits of acupuncture through the week and helps to resolve symptoms faster.
Herbal Medicine & Nutrition
Herbal medicine and nutrition share healing characteristics in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Depending on your symptoms and constitution, our acupuncturists may prescribe herbal medicine and nutrition recommendations that have similar effects, such as warming herbs and food, to counter a cold illness.
These two work synergistically to heal you and resolve your symptoms, providing faster relief and better long-term results than either alone. Learn more about our Nutrition and Wellness planning.
Herbal Consultation via Telemedicine
Our acupuncturists can also do herbal consultations via telemedicine. They’ll discuss your symptoms with you via video chat, diagnose your condition, and create a custom herbal formula for you. You can pick your formula up at our office, or we can ship it directly to you!
To set up a telemedicine consult, book an appointment, and select the “Telemedicine Herbal/Nutrition Consult” option.
Not sure if telemedicine is right for you? Submit our telemedicine form, letting us know you’re interested. We’ll get back to you within about 24 hours and help you figure out what best suits your needs!
We can diagnose symptoms via telemedicine and ship herbs directly to you.
We Include Herbal Medicine to Amplify and Extend the Benefits of Your Acupuncture Treatment
...it has really taken my personal health to a whole new level.
Started coming to deal with stress in my life and they have been amazing—between techniques and Chinese herbs it has really taken my personal health to a whole new level.
Read MoreWhat We Treat
Chinese herbal medicine amplifies and extends the benefits of acupuncture, helping to resolve your symptoms faster. Our treatments fall into five main categories.
Chronic and Acute Pain
Mental Health
Fertility and Perinatal Care
Women’s Health
Internal Medicine
Symptoms We Treat
With Herbal Medicine
Chinese herbal medicine can help heal a wide variety of symptoms, including:
Stress
In Washington, DC, most people are under quite a bit of stress. At Cherry Blossom Healing Arts, we are experts in helping you handle stress. Our acupuncturists can’t eliminate your stressors, but they can help you handle them. We work with many Chinese herbs that are adaptogens and help the body handle stress on a cellular level.
Insomnia
Whether the issue is falling asleep or staying asleep, herbal medicine can help with herbs like suan zao ren, which calms the spirit, prevents night sweats, and lowers blood pressure.
We don’t sedate you—our herbs don’t knock you out. Rather, they treat the root problem that prevents you from falling asleep. That means you will eventually be able to fall asleep without our herbs. Our herbal medicine regimes don’t need to be taken indefinitely and won’t be habit forming.
Women’s Health
You don’t have to have a heavy or painful period, and you can get through a period without taking pain medication. Chinese herbal medicine for women’s health can help regulate all these symptoms and make that time of the month far less stressful and all-consuming. Your period is a monthly report card for women’s health—if it is problematic, the issues will stretch beyond just your period.
Our herbalists can treat menstrual pain, dysmenorrhea, amenorrhea, PMS, urinary problems, and bladder problems. For instance, hong hua is a warm and spicy herb that regulates the blood. It is analgesic, anti-coagulant, anti-inflammatory, and a uterine stimulant.
GI Conditions
Who doesn’t have a little heartburn and constipation with the pandemic raging? Chinese herbal medicine for heartburn can soothe, and Chinese herbal medicine for constipation can help keep things moving.
Huang lian is a bitter herb that treats heat (too much acid = heat), and sore throat, reflux, or other problems in the GI tract, such as diarrhea. It contains berberine, which helps with hyperlipidemia and hypertension.
Herbal formulas can help soothe and repair the digestive tract, including the esophagus.
In formulas of multiple herbs, we can aid digestion, help with constipation, and treat heartburn. We’ve got the whole GI tract covered, from your mouth to your colon.
Seasonal Allergies
Don’t dread your spring and fall seasonal allergies! Chinese herbal medicine for allergies can open your nasal cavity and boost your immune system to help protect against future allergic attacks.
Our herbalists utilize herbs like cang er zi, which helps clear a stuffy nose with thick mucus and also treats sinus headaches. It is antibacterial and anti-inflammatory—and often paired with other herbs that help prevent future allergic attacks.
Migraines
Migraines are deadly to productivity. They have an infuriating way of arriving right when life has turned into a train wreck.
Work is stressing you out, and because of that stress, you haven’t been eating well or skipping meals, and then your boss yells at you for something that maybe was your fault, and then your child gets sick and…migraine, and lights out on taking care of any of these other problems.
Chinese herbal medicine for migraine headaches takes a comprehensive approach to the sources of migraines. They’re a complex medical phenomena that usually result from multiple causes. The root problem is often a deficiency, or what some call being “wired and tired.”
Our herbal formulas deeply nourish and help people rest well, which reduces the deficiency and helps prevent the physiological problem that triggers migraines. We’ll often use chuan xiong which specifically treats pain in the head.
Our herbs can reduce the amount and severity of migraines by treating the multiple patterns associated with stress, sleep, and nutrition that usually lie at the root of migraines.
Anxiety
Herbal medicine for anxiety can help you focus, relieve palpitations, eliminate insomnia, and give you a sense of calm.
Wu wei zi, for instance, is a vasodilator and adaptogen, which promotes blood flow and can lower blood pressure. We are adept at working with patients taking a few medications and can even prescribe herbal medicine for patients who are on an SSRI.
Depression
There has long been Chinese herbal medicine for depression. A classic Chinese medicine herb is he huan pi, which literally translates to “everybody happy bark!”
Chinese herbal medicine can help improve your mood and works especially well to treat symptoms related to depression, such as insomnia and other sleep disorders.
Chinese herbal medicine also supports traditional mental health care and your work with a therapist or your SSRI or other medication.
Pain
Chinese herbal medicine for pain offers targeted pain treatment through guide herbs. These herbs have a special place in Chinese herbal medicine, as they guide a more complex formula to a specific location in the body.
Ji xue teng, for example, guides herbal formulas to target the legs, feet, and hands, and thus is especially helpful at reducing pain in those parts of the body.
Inflammation
Chinese herbal medicine for inflammation uses “blood movers,” which help the body get resources for healing to an area of inflammation.
The classic herb is yu jin, which contains curcumin, is anti-inflammatory, and inhibits inflammatory cytokines (small proteins that cells use to communicate with each other).
Inflammation almost never occurs by itself but is accompanied by unwelcome companions like acute pain. Herbal formulas for inflammation can treat these related symptoms with additional herbs to treat arthritis, acute pain, or postoperative pain.
Your Acupuncture Treatment Plan
Your journey to better health begins before you step through our doors. You'll be able to easily schedule an appointment online as well as fill out your health history form before you arrive at our office—maximizing conversational and treatment time with your acupuncturist.
At your first appointment, your acupuncturist will discuss your health history, get input from you on what your treatment goals are, and develop a treatment plan. They'll then treat you using whatever services are best suited to your specific symptoms.
Although plans vary depending on the patient, most typically run for four weeks. At the end of your first visit, your acupuncturist will give you a written treatment plan. At subsequent visits, you'll discuss your symptoms and whether they've improved, regressed, or stayed the same. Your acupuncturist will adjust the treatment plan based on your input and their ongoing diagnosis of your condition.
When your main complaint is resolved, you can reduce treatment or work on another symptom. Still thinking it over? Take a look at our Testimonials page to see what other patients are saying.
It All Comes Down to This
Chinese herbal medicine enhances acupuncture, accelerates your healing timeline, and can handle the complexity of multiple symptoms at once.
You don’t have just one thing that needs to be addressed—you have a series of related symptoms that all need to be resolved for YOU to feel better. Our board-certified herbalists have the expertise to treat the complexity of—YOU.
Ready to experience this for yourself? Head to our booking page and schedule your first appointment.
Be well,
The Cherry Blossom Team
