Chinese "skullcap" herb may help with pain & inflamation

By Bob Livingston  February 2018

I've written to you about eating the Chinese vegetable bok choy for better bone and joint health. And how the Chinese have long used black walnut extract for its antiseptic properties to fight fungal and bacterial infections and Chinese skullcap to block the painful symptoms of arthritis and inflammation.

I've also described how the Chinese use acupuncture — their ancient healing process of inserting small needles along pressure points of the body — to alleviate migraines, tension and other pain.

Today I want to tell you about another Chinese herb that takes away another kind of pain: Nerve pain.

Here's my colleague Dr. Adria Smedhorst writing for Easy Health Options:

Working with Chinese scientists, researchers at the University of California, Irvine set out to screen 10 traditional Chinese medicines known as analgesics, testing nearly 500 compounds for their pain-relieving abilities to determine how well they performed for patients suffering from nerve pain. Here's what they found... Of all the medicines and compounds tested, one stood out: Dehydrocorybulbine (DHCB) from the roots of the Corydalis yanhusuo plant. In tests on rodents, not only did DHCB prove to diminish both inflammatory pain, which is associated with tissue damage, but also the severe pain caused by damage to the nervous system — in other words, nerve pain. Even better, the researchers discovered that DHCB did not generate the tolerance seen with continued use of most conventional pain relievers, like morphine, so it could continue to provide pain relief over time without the need to repeatedly up the dosage. ...Corydalis is a flowering herbal plant that grows in Siberia, Northern China and Japan. People utilize its root extract to alleviate menstrual cramps, chest pain and abdominal pain. It's been previously studied for its analgesic properties, but this is the first time its active compound, DHCB, was been identified, extracted and tested. And, DHCB is just one of the active alkaloids in corydalis that has potential for providing pain relief, so there's no telling what other painful conditions this plant may help alleviate.

Do you live with the daily suffering brought on by nerve pain? If you have been put on statin drugs, are a true diabetic and suffer from nerve pain or have sciatica or tennis elbow, you know the sensations of stabbing, prickling, burning and tingling that make it hard to work, to do what you want or simply enjoy yourself.

If you're ready to say goodbye to the pain, without the dangerous side effects and poor results of prescription medications, you now have a natural option.

DHCB alone is not currently available, but it is a component of the Corydalis yanhusuo root which you can purchase in health stores or reputable online outlets.

You can buy the whole herb, just the root or the rhizome, each as a dried powder, or you can get the powdered root extract and the extract as a pill supplement. 

You can also get it as a tincture which you can put a few drops of in your favorite tea, the way I like to take it. There is no recommended dose, so you can try and see what works best for you.