Herb Effectiveness:

The Effectiveness of Herbal Remedies

Many people around the web -- on forums, in chat rooms, on mainstream sites like CNN.com -- often hear how herbal remedies and alternative medicines are a crock. Often a friend will tell a story about how so-and-so herbal treatment didn't do a thing for them, and then they'll come to the conclusion that all herbs are worthless.

Here's the truth. One herbal remedy that does wonders for some people might not seem to do a thing for others. It's the same thing with prescription and over the counter medications too -- some people will have adverse reactions to a drug when everybody else seems to take it with no problems. After all, there's a reason for the "rare" side effects listed on the back of pill bottles.

This is because everybody is different. Our bodies respond differently to a variety of things. And there are many things our bodies might be allergic to, or simply things our bodies disagree with for one reason or another, that we're unaware of.

One of the biggest reasons some people see no results when taking herbal medications is often due to what's known as "user error." If you utilize your right to diagnose yourself and decide that you have X or Y illness, and procede to go about treating that particular problem, you won't usually have much success if you have misdiagnosed yourself. It's like trying to take cough medicine to try and bring down your fever. It won't usually work, because cough medicine is not made to reduce fevers.

The same basic concepts apply with herbal remedies and medications too. If you don't know enough about what your condition is, you'll find yourself having a very difficult time treating it properly.

An excellent example is kidney stones. In some mild cases, kidney stones may be treated naturally with lemon juice. This won't work for everyone, of course, because there are actually four different types of kidney stones.

The most common type of kidney stone is a calcium stone - about 80% of people who get kidney stones get this type, and the lemon juice works wonderfully to dissolve these types of stones. If you have kidney stones that are one of the other three type, the lemon juice remedy may not work for you at all.

Still other types of herbal remedies will work on a particular condition, just not nearly as well as another herb would. There are also many times people have been misinformed about what a particular herbal remedy will do.