Echinacea

echinacea

The basics of what Echinacea is and how it could possibly be beneficial to your health.

Today, it seems you can’t go anywhere without hearing the benefits of Echinacea. While it is used for a wide range of illnesses, Echinacea is often misunderstood or used for the wrong ailment. It is common for people to think that Echinacea will keep them from contracting a cold or the flu, but this really isn’t true. Echinacea can help keep you from getting as sick as you might if you didn’t take it, but it won’t prevent you from catching it completely. So, instead of catching the flu and being stuck in bed for ten days, you may have a mild flu for three or four days. Everyone is different of course, so Echinacea may help your neighbor more than you. How effective Echinacea is will depend on many things.

A strong antibiotic, Echinacea also has antiseptic qualities. What this means is it can actually fight and kill some types of infections, and clean the body of bad germs. An antiseptic herb cleanses the body of harmful bacteria.

Usually combined with other herbs, Echinacea works best against glandular related infections or issues. It is common to use Echinacea for throat or ear infections and lymph gland problems. If you mix Echinacea with Cayenne, for example, it will stimulate your body to heal faster; mixing it with Goldenseal can help you fight off bacterial infections which are not gland-related.

If you combine Echinacea with Goldenseal, Yarrow, and Cayenne, you get a very powerful formula for fighting infection. If you’re looking for ready-made capsules, however, you’ll find it most commonly combined with Goldenseal. If you have hypoglycemia, the Echinacea should be combined with Myrrh instead, as Goldenseal has a natural insulin component that may lower your blood sugar too much.

Combined with Chickweed, Echinacea can assist with weight loss. Echinacea has also been used for eczema (due to Echinacea’s blood purifying qualities), fevers, insect bites and stings, sore gums, mouth sores, tonsillitis, strep throat and excess mucus.