Dear Stephen,
Can andrographis make your blood pressure TOO low? My normal BP is 90 over 60. I haven’t started andro yet but the book mentions that it lowers BP. I think a few of the other herbs also have this effect. Could this be potentially dangerous? Thanks!
Stephen’s response:
This is a good question and I am not really sure of the answer. My review of the literature does not turn anything up on that particular question and I have not heard from anyone using the herb that they have had that experience.
I would suggest taking it in a small dose and seeing what happens. If you experience a significant drop, stop the herb.
My gut response is that the herbs will most probably have a pressure normalizing effect, rather than a pure hypotensive effect and that the knotweed will moderate any hypotensive effects of the andrographis, but this is only a gut feeling.
The best thing to do with most herbs (and pharmaceuticals for that matter) is to see how they effect the individual person and then adjust the dose for their particular body ecology.
Stephen
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Stephen Harrod Buhner was an Earth poet and an award-winning author of twenty-four books on nature, indigenous cultures, the environment, and herbal medicine including the acclaimed book Healing Lyme: Natural Healing & Prevention of Lyme Borreliosis & Its Co-infections.
Stephen came from a long line of healers including Leroy Burney, Surgeon General of the United States under Eisenhower and Kennedy, and Elizabeth Lusterheide, a midwife and herbalist who worked in rural Indiana in the early nineteenth century. The greatest influence on his work, however, was his great-grandfather C.G. Harrod who primarily used botanical medicines, also in rural Indiana, when he began his work as a physician in 1911.
Stephen’s work has appeared or been profiled in publications throughout North America and Europe including Common Boundary, Apotheosis, Shaman’s Drum, The New York Times, CNN, and Good Morning America. Stephen lectured yearly throughout the United States on herbal medicine, the sacredness of plants, the intelligence of Nature, and the states of mind necessary for successful habitation of Earth.
He was a tireless advocate for the reincorporation of the exploratory artist, independent scholar, amateur naturalist, and citizen scientist in American society – especially as a counterweight to the influence of corporate science and technology.
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