When Herbal Remedies Don't Work....

One of the most fulfilling aspects of working with herbs and being a provider of herbal products is getting feedback on how they help people. This is why we are here and to know that our work has successfully improved someone's condition is highly motivating. However, as rewarding as all of the success stories may be, we are as interested in hearing back when things don't work out.

At Shen, we are constantly and continuously learning, and we learn much by investigating when customers do not get results. We use problem solving techniques like "the 5 Why's" and "Fishbone diagrams" to identify potential causes for the lack of results in order to identify how we can improve.

So then, why do herbal medicines work for some but not for others? Our analysis has revealed 4 main Factors:

Diagnosis

Inaccurate identification of the condition to be treated is the main cause for failure to improve. This leads to selecting the wrong remedy. Shen Martial Arts offers herbal products that have a long history of success for their target condition(s), but if the user does not know what their condition is, they will often purchase the wrong herbal product, which will fail to produce results. Users must know what condition they suffer from in order to select the herbal product(s) that will work.

Compliance

Compliance is simply taking the herbs as minimally instructed without skipping or missing doses. Poor compliance will result in lesser results or full failure. Lack of compliance is a very common cause for poor results from herbal remedies.

Duration

I recently wrote another post titled "Slow and Steady Wins the Race" about the expectation of instant results versus the gentle, incremental effects of herbal

medicine. Lack of patience and the lack of some form of feeling or stimulation from taking the remedy causes users to abandon the treatment for lack of results. This becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and the treatment will fail before it could begin to work. Most herbal remedies and single herb treatments require fairly long periods to provide optimal results.

Dosage

Taking too little or too much of the herb will limit or nullify results. Shen Martial Arts provides a starting dosage for our herbal products. This is a starting point from where to evaluate and adjust the dosage to your individual needs, based on many varying factors such as age, gender, physical constitution, mental state, health, fitness, etc. It is very rare to overdose on herbal medicines, but taking more than you need can actually delay or limit results. It is much more common to underdose. Since traditional herbal dosages are intrinsically low, a lower than needed dose will diminish results.

There are other factors that can limit or nullify the effects of herbal medicines such as improper preparation, poor quality herbs, but assuming these are proper, the 4 described above are the most commonly encountered and key to getting the best results from herbal remedies.