Herbal therapies side effects

Although herbal medicines tend to be less expensive than their FDA-labeled counterparts, the cost can still be substantial if examined over several weeks to months. Costs related to delayed effective therapy, side effects, drug interactions, and hospital admissions might also be considered in this regard. As herbal medicine becomes more popular and as herbal medicine manufacturers spend more and more on advertising, the margin of cost difference between the two types of drugs will diminish. 

For treating psoriasis, UVB phototherapy and PUVA are effective treatments that permit rapid control of the disease, but their side effects are similar to those of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. While these treatments can suppress the pathogenic change and rapidly improve the skin lesions, the heat penetrates into the blood, consumes the blood and Yin, and generates heat-toxin. Once the therapy is finished, the heat quickly arises and the skin lesions appear again, even worse than before the treatment, and the skin becomes more sensitive in general. In herbal treatment, one needs to reduce the heat-toxin, cool the blood, promote blood circulation and nourish the Yin. 

From the results, most of the extracts tested were relatively non-cytotoxic, which could be an indicator of some safety aspects of the tested plants, hence justifying the generational uses of these plants in traditional medicine. This information could be a basis for development of safe herbal therapies with fewer or no side effects compared to conventional medicines most of which have been reported to have many side effects. Since only a preliminary screening was done for the reported extracts, there would be a need to carry out further studies on their toxicity and safety margins, and develop standardized herbal formulations based on this. There would also be a need to screen the extracts against a panel of more than one cell line as different cell lines exhibit different sensitivities towards various extracts or compounds. 

There is a lack of uniformity of the information about the use, dosage, side effect, and contraindications of herbal therapies. Likewise there are not any qualitative monographs that provide guidelines for compounding and standards of purity, which are well defined for pharmaceutical medications. 

Herbal therapy may interact with other herbal therapies and pharmaceutical medication, causing an undesired side effect for the patient. 

Assess whether the patient s current condition is a side effect of herbal therapy ... 

Monitor the patient s response to conventional and herbal therapy, looking for adverse side effects. 

Name three side effects of herbal therapy that might appear in a patient who is undergoing herbal therapy. 

The patient must be instructed to Provide their healthcare provider with a complete history of over-the-counter medications, prescribed medications, and herbal therapies to identify contraindications for macrolides. Explain that there might be a chance of hearing loss as an adverse side effect of macrolides. Monitor for adverse effects (see 13.21 Macrolide Antibiotics), and call the healthcare provider immediately if one is present. Macrolide Antibiotics Pregnancy Category B ... 

Even when modern, Western medical services are available, Asians frequently consider using indigenous or alternative remedies, and folk or traditional medicine may be tried first for treatment of a psychiatric disorder. Such treatment must be noted and monitored to avoid adverse drug interactions between traditional Asian herbal medicines and Western psychotropic medications. Also necessary is assessment of drug efficacy and toxicity, as well as placebo effects. Several studies have found that compliance with psychopharmacotherapy may be more problematic in non-Westem than among Western populations. For example, Western medicines are believed to be more potent and more likely to cause side effects than are non-Western therapies, and interpretations and perceptions of side effects differ as well (Lee 1993 Smith et al. 1993). 

Increasingly, consumers are choosing alternative forms of therapy, such as herbal medications including St. John s wort." " Some evaluations have found that the active ingredient in St. John s wort, hypericum, is a safe and effective treatment for mild to moderate depression" " when compared with placebo, TCAs, and fluoxetine." " In most cases, side effects appear to be mild. St. John s wort is available as an over-the-counter medication. Although this... 

Women often seek relief for premenstrual and perimenopausal symptoms from alternative or nontraditional treatments without consulting their health care providers. Herbal therapies, phytoestrogens, progesterone creams, megavitamins, folk remedies, and homeopathy are marketed to women without scientific evidence of efficacy or safety. Clinicians should ask women if they use alternative/ complementary therapies and become familiar with the products (e.g., mechanism of action, efficacy, dosing, side effects, monitoring, and drug-herb and herb-herb interactions). 

There are three main therapies which rely on plant-based medicines, namely Aromatherapy, Homoeopathy and Herbalism. All three, because they are plant based, exemplify the green, natural image of alternative/ complementary medicine which has helped in making these techniques so popular and so acceptable. Equally the holistic approach of practitioners of these therapies, which embraces the whole person rather than seeing them as a set of symptoms or receptor-sites, has struck a sympathetic chord with patients disenchanted with the impersonal nature of high-tech modern medicine. Allied to this is a sometimes naive view that natural medicines are somehow free from the toxicities and side-effects of synthetic drugs. Chapter VIII shows just how erroneous such a view can be. 

Side efiects. The patient might be experiencing nausea, diarrhea, headache, fatigue, and other symptoms that are side effects of herbal therapies. 

Herbal therapy is the use of plants called herbs to treat symptoms and diseases. The government and the medical community do not regulate herbal therapies. This results in a lack of standards for the manufacture and sale of herbal therapies. The quality, purity, dosage, and side effects may be different for the same herb. 

The nurse should instruct the patient on how to monitor for adverse side effects of herbal therapies. 

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