Self-Heal | Short
26 Jul 2023 · 15 min
Rita Hogan, a clinical canine herbalist, explores Self Heal (Prunella vulgaris) and how this herb can benefit dogs. The episode covers the plant's properties and practical applications for canine herbal care.
Hi, this is Rita Hogan and welcome to the Dogs are Individuals podcast. I'm a clinical canine herbalist and I've been practicing for over 20 years. This podcast is all about your dog through an herbal lens. So let's get to it and dive right in. Hi, welcome to another edition of our shorts.
These are little episodes that you can.
Share and use and delight your dog loving friends with.
Right?
I love it.
I love doing these shorts. They're tiny, they're bitty.
Let's look at something fun. A lot of times I'll do a short on a question and I've got that today. But you want a short of your own. Write into the podcast.
Let me know what you'd like to.
Hear on a short. I would love to hear from you. I want to thank my sponsor of our shorts today and that is earth buddy.
Okay.
Earthbuddypet.com As I explained on our last.
Short, Earthbuddy has provided a coupon code for dogs or individuals podcast listeners, a coupon code for us. And it is herbal buddy 20. All capitals herbal buddy 20.
All one word.
All capitals herbal buddy 20.
20% off their products.
Okay. That's huge. And their products can be found@earthbuddypet.com well, when they decided to be my podcast supporter for shorts, I was pretty excited about it and I have been using their products. I like to, I don't really like to talk about a lot that I have not used. So I've been going through the box, the lovely box they sent me and I started using a product they have called Max Life. And Max Life is a glucothione supplement. Liposomal glucothione. And glucothione helps the liver reduce oxidative stress and it helps phase two of liver detoxification and it really helps with free radical damage. And definitely as our pets age, the levels of glucothione decrease. And so glucothione is really important for environmental kind of interaction with your dog pollutants, things like mental well being and physical well being. And it's known as the master antioxidant because it really is good at combating fractures. Free radicals, it's hard to absorb into the body. So that's why they're using liposomal glucothione. And I started giving it to my 12 year old basset hound who does not like to take any cbd. We have to put it in a pill. And since she is aging and we want to support her, I been trying this capsule and I'm super Excited about what we have seen over the last two weeks. She is definitely got a little more pep in her step. She's calmer. She seems less stressed. She seems to her a little bit. I think she's got a little bit of dementia and that seems to be better. So I'm gonna keep giving it to her and see how she does kind of over the long term with this supplement. Probably the next. I'm going to give it to her probably over the next couple months and just see where we get. It's a blend again of glucothione, a liposomal glucothione. It has L glutamine, L cysteine, so some amino acids in there. L glycine, which is good for liver health. And phase two detoxificate, detect detoxification. Alpha lipoic acid, vitamin C, vitamin D, definitely quesirtin. So it helps with allergies and with histamine sensitivity. And it has a one to one to one ratio of cbd, CBDA and cbdg. So I definitely have noticed her much more calm. And this is hemp that is produced on their farm organically, sustainably and definitely grown in the sun. So check them out. It's earthbuddypet.com and I am using the MaxLife glucothione. So for our short today we're gonna talk about Self Heal. Self Heal is also called Prunella vulgaris and I was just picking Self heal in the yard just, just the other day. I plan to pick some more tomorrow. I dried some for tea. I love Self Heal. It's not an herb that you hear about all the time, but it's totally dog and cat friendly. It's in the mint family, the lemonacea family. And it's this little short kind of upright plant that kind of calls to you. It's purple, it has. It's kind of like a. Looks like a little hive kind of. And it's got purple little flowers on some parts of its kind of its base, right. And it's blunt. It's blunt. The leaves are not very shiny and they don't have teeth on them. Check out Google Self Heal. Prunilla. P R U N E L L B U L G A R I S Prunella vulgari. Check it out so you can see what it looks like. But it's nickname or common name. Self Heal also Heal All Heart ease. It has a lot of common names depending on where you are. Wound, wart. So sometimes it's just called Heal and it's chemical like Chemical constituents include like vitamin A, B, C, K. It has a fatty acids in it. It's bitter, it contains rutin. It has some triterpenes in it, definitely some tannins, caffeic acid and some rosemary acid, rosaraminic acid. I love this little plant. It's definitely tiny but mighty. It's edible, it's quite bitter. Okay, so just know that you can cook it if you'd like, you can give it to your dog. That way you can make a tea out of it. And then I use the tea and also give the herb along with it in the dog's food. I actually had it as a tea this morning. It was lovely. So the energetics of Self Heal is cooling, it's drying. I think it adds a little bit of moisture in the beginning, but overall it's drying. It's good for heat, it's good for true heat. Definitely. It relaxes, it's bitter. So it has some liver affiliation there, some liver affinity and its herbal actions. It's an antioxidant, which we love. It's antibacterial, it's astringent, meaning it's tightened. It tightens things. It's diuretic, which means that it makes the kidneys help. It helps the kidneys filter blood. It definitely stimulates the liver for healing, works with oxidation. It can bring down blood pressure. It has some affinity towards the nervous system. And as a wash, it can clean wounds. It helps stop bleeding. So it's a stipic. It definitely, you know, I like to use it in place of calendula when there's infection. I'll mix it with certain herbs like that have berberine in them when there's an infection. I love to use Self Heal as a base so you can mix it with like Oregon grapefruit or goldenseal. Just make sure that your goldenseal is ethically wildcrafted or produced. It's goldenseal is one of those little herbs that needs our attention and love. So you another thing that I like to use in the rinse department, I like to use Self Heal for is in the mouth. It's very good at treating mouth problems. Sometimes I mix it with an herb called spilanthes and I love using it as kind of just a rinse and like, you know, a mouthwash for dogs. I definitely use it myself. It's good at when you have like mouth ulcers and inflammation in the mouth. I used it on a tooth recently, so I mixed it with salt water, like the water that I Used to like the warm water that I used with the salt was Self Heal, basically a tea. So I guess you would call it an infusion because we're talking about herbs here. So it's an infusion. But I just made a quick infusion of it, added salt and did like a gargle and a rinse in my mouth. Self Heal is also good as an antiviral. So it's antibacterial, it's antiviral and it stimulates the immune system. It has actually it has quite a bit of research for an herb so I find that interesting. I didn't know about a lot of the research of this plant until I started doing a monograph for it which is kind of like a plant's, you know, what a plant would give someone if they were applying for a job. Like this is all about me. It's a plant's resume. It does have a lot of research on it so you could look up some self healed studies if you wanted to. But a few things that it's good for just right off the bat. It helps stimulate the lymphatic system. Again antiviral, antibacterial. It moves lymph, which I love, so that's like swollen glands. It's anti cancer, it's anti infection. It's good for allergies, it's wonderful for seasonal allergies. And it has a lot of like what they called immunomodulating polysaccharides which really help with allergies, also help support the immune system in general and kind of how the body takes to allergies, how it responds to allergies. And it's pretty balancing for the endocrine system, especially the thyroid and hypothyroid. Well actually it's kind of like yarrow, where it's. Yarrow is very balancing. It can be cooling and warming depending on the situation. Very I would say highly intelligent herb. Self Heal is another one of those things. It helps balance the thyroid. Okay. So if it's underactive, that's okay. If it's overactive, that's okay. It's going to balance it out, which I think that's a really good quality of this little plant. And it's so beautiful in the. On the lawn. It grows all over on my lawn and especially the parts that my dogs don't run on. It does grow. My dogs nibble on it. It's one of those self forging herbs for sure. But on outside of my gate in my backyard where my animals don't go, they go out in the front yard. Our property is kind of big for being in the city, but all over the backyard I have tons of Self Heal. I'm going to go get some tomorrow for tea. Just a wonderful, wonderful plant and it's so beautiful and inviting and you just kind of sit with it and, and it'll talk to you for sure. It'll tell you all about itself just by looking at it. It's beautiful. In fact, I think it's pretty much a little kind of a breathtaking plant in itself. And as I said before, it's, it's self heal. Heal all. It's good for cancers. It's definitely good as a cancer support. It helps with anemia, it can help with side effects from chemotherapy. You know, it depends. Of course you want to get some help with that. If you're going to use it as a cancer support therapy, you want to work with an herbalist that has some knowledge about that. But it has been known and researched for cancer treatments. It's good for the urinary system and it's good for urinary tract infections, being its antibacterial. And it also has some research around it with combating E. Coli. There's actually a lot to say about Self Heal, but I just realized this is a short I think I could talk about Self Heal for probably a couple of hours.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app. And don't forget, sharing is caring. So if you love Dogs Are Individuals podcast, share it with your friends and family who love dogs. This will help me so much. And remember, as a listener, I appreciate you much. Thanks to Resonant Media, my podcast production team. This podcast is produced by Drake Peterson.
And edited by Mike Fry.
Any questions, email the show, go to k9herbalist.com Click podcast contact in the menu and then fill out that form and I'll answer any questions here online. Okay, so thank you so much for.
Listening to this episode of Dogs Are.
Individuals Podcast and I'm going to talk to you in our next episode. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for veterinary care. This podcast doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship. As always, talk to your doctor, veterinarian, or healthcare provider first before starting anything new. And that includes herbs. I'm not a doctor and I don't treat disease or prescribe anything. I'm a traditional herbalist providing herbal support education only. Regarding any products I may suggest the Statements made regarding these products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. The efficacy of these products has not been confirmed by FDA approved research. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. All information presented here on the podcast is not meant as a substitute or alternative to information from your vet. Please consult your veterinary professional about potential interactions or other possible complications before using any product.