herb drops

Many moons ago, and I won’t tell you how many because I have reached that point in my life where I am getting vain about my age, before I started acupuncture school, I had a computer programming job in the financial services sector in Boston. My work place is not what I would describe as having been a nurturing or healthy environment. Probably toxic is the correct start to a description of the place.

In retrospect, it comes as no surprise that I had a lot of health problems. Migraine headaches, chronic neck pain, acne, digestive woes, atypically high susceptibility to colds and flues…. I once had a double ear infection that ruptured both ear drums; nothing quite so comforting as waking up to find blood dripping out of both ears.

Blah, blah, blah, started getting acupuncture, blah, blah, realized my lifestyle was having a significant impact on my health, blah, blah, needed a career change, blah, started acupuncture school part time while continuing to work full time in the emotional super-fund sight. Wow, what a year that was.

Traditional Chinese medicine places a premium on the effects of lifestyle on physical health. When I started acupuncture school, I also started to make an extreme effort to improve my lifestyle. I cleaned up my diet (more vegetables, less French fries), I made sure I slept enough (I even got B’s on some of my tests because I prioritized sleeping over cramming), and started doing Tai Chi. My health got moderately better, but it was by no means perfect.

The first Christmas break I went to Texas to visit my family for 2 weeks. During that two weeks I did all sorts of things that are not in keeping with the TCM longevity lifestyle- I stayed out too late drinking too much alcohol, didn’t sleep enough, smoked stuff I shouldn’t have, and ate questionable food. I ate fried beef- it’s a Texas thing- more than once. And at the end of those 2 weeks, I felt better than I had in 6 months. And then I had my proverbial light bulb moment. I felt like crap most of the time because of my job. In hindsight, I would like to thank my boss at the time. If she had been even 10% qualified to have the job she had, I would probably still be working in financial services. Luckily for me, she was completely incompetent, and I figured out to quit, move to Austin and go to school full time.

OK, so what the heck does this lovely anecdote have to do with shoemakers? Or herbs for that matter?

To my way of thinking, the unsung hero of our herb line is a formula we call Decompress. It’s based on a traditional Chinese herbal formula called Xiao Yao San. This formula is usually translated into English as Free and Easy Wanderer. Personally, I think this is a terrible translation. In America, if you are a free and easy wanderer, it pretty much means you’re homeless. I think a better translation would be Unencumbered Spirit. But that was too long to fit on the label, so we went with Decompress.

People, those of us on the Herbalogic team included, often say this formula is for stress. But that is such a vague description. After all, taking Decompress yourself won’t make your boss magically competent. But it might make it moderately more tolerable to be in the same room with her. Decompress allows your mind to let go of the day to day trivialities that somehow seem to grow to mammoth proportions. And when that happens, the physical manifestations of emotional stress, see my list above, get under control. A lot like my 2 week Christmas vacation did, only without having to take time off work.

Shoemakers?

It’s true confession time. The other day, I was on the phone for the fourth time trying to straighten out a situation with my financial institution. Apparently, it cannot be straightened. I actually broke down crying with the customer service representative. I believe I concluded the conversation with, “I have a 7 month old baby and a husband in Iraq. I have spent hours on hold trying to get this resolved. Hours I don’t have to spare. And now you tell me you can’t help me?” Commence sobbing. “Well perhaps if you went into one of our offices?” “The next trip I take into one of your offices will be to close my accounts.”

Another light bulb moment- when was the last time I had some Decompress? Yeah, about that…

I am feeling much better now.

Share on Facebook

The other night I had a dream (no, not that kind of dream). In my dream I was giving a lecture to a classroom full of acupuncture students.  I was telling them all about the various permits that Third Coast Herb Company, Inc. holds in order to legitimately manufacture the Herbalogic® concentrated herb drops and how much they cost. When I woke up, I thought, “Damn we spend a lot of money on permits. Why do we do that? Damn I spend a lot of time making sure we are compliant with city, state and federal manufacturing guidelines. Why do I do that?”

When I concocted this crazy company dream (you know, the other kind of dream), it was with a mission to bridge the cultural gap between traditional Chinese herbal (TCH) therapy and American healthcare consumers. There’s a lot of good to be had with TCH. Unfortunately, due to some practices that at best are negligent and at worse malicious, that good has gotten swirled up in a lot of bad. My goal is to do some serious unswirling.

Part of the unswirling is to educate the American healthcare consumers about TCH therapy both in the abstract and the particulars of our products. I have heard people say, “Oh, herbs don’t work and they are dangerous because they aren’t regulated.”  This is a factually false statement.  Herbs are regulated differently than pharmaceuticals, but they are regulated.

At Third Coast Herb Company, Inc., we don’t just cook up some snake oil in our kitchens and sell it. We hold manufacturing permits from the City of Austin/ Travis County Health Department, the Texas Department of State Health Services, the Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission and we are registered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. We produce our product in a commercial manufacturing facility. We also strive to make the best quality product we can make even in the face of an increase in manufacturing costs. For example, regulations only require that we use food grade glycerin. But we use U.S. made pharmaceutical grade glycerin. Even though it’s more expensive, it provides a superior product, so that’s what we use.

As we go forward, I will strive to use this forum to educate and dispel myths. If you have a particular question, send it my way- jeanine@herbalogic.net. If it seems like something that everyone might be interested in, I will answer it here. If you don’t ask me questions, you’re likely to just read more about my dreams (the nocturnal kind- because as it turns out, it really annoys my husband when I tell him about them. Apparently they are mostly boring).

Jeanine Adinaro, President of Third Coast Herb Company, Inc.

Share on Facebook

It’s only July and over a hundred degrees here in Central Texas.  While December might seem like a lifetime away, we on the Herbalogic team realize that we have to start gearing up for allergy season.  Last year we had such an overwhelming success in helping people in Central Texas with their cedar fever and other allergies, we almost ran out of inventory.  So we are starting to produce a stock pile now especially for this winter.  While Easy Breather is very effective for acute symptoms such as nasal congestion, headache, sneezing, fatigue etc., it also strengthens the body’s immune system.  Therefore best results are achieved by starting Easy Breather 4 to 6 weeks before onset of allergy symptoms.

Share on Facebook