New from Monday 9th November! Herbal medicine clinics at Neal's Yard Remedies, Tunbridge Wells3/11/2015  This will be a short, snappy post announcing the first of two exciting new opportunities and offerings from the HerbSmith: a weekly clinic at the wonderful Neal's Yard Remedies (NYR) premises in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Herbal medicine clinics beginning Monday 9th November Every Monday from next week, Monday 9th November 2015, I will be available onsite for herbal medicine consultations between 9.30 am and 1.30 pm at the Tunbridge Wells branch of Neal's Yard Remedies. I'll also be available on an ad-hoc basis on Tuesday mornings between 9.30 am and 12.30 pm - in other words, I'll be there if there's a client booked in! Here's the address: 64 Mount Pleasant Road Tunbridge Wells Kent TN1 1RB Tel: 01892 524 523 Email: tunbridgewells@nealsyardremedies.com You can make an appointment either by contacting NYR using the above details or via the HerbSmith website. And here's a handy map: To begin with, I'll be working in the NYR graduate clinic where a 60-minute consultation costs a very reasonable £25, plus any herbs or supplements purchased following the session. A bargain, I hope you'll agree. I'll be working to build the clinic over the coming weeks and it would be great if you could help me out by sharing this story via Facebook or your preferred form of social media. Neal's Yard Remedies is unique in the UK I'm delighted to be involved with NYR as it occupies a unique position in the UK natural medicine landscape. I'm not aware of another brand specialising in products manufactured from the highest quality, organic, natural ingredients and which has premises in towns and cities throughout the UK. Neither can I think of another operation that offers a wide range of natural therapies to the public from many of those premises. As double-whammies go, it's about as natural, effective and ethical as you get - and I'm very excited to be part of it.
If you know anyone in the Tunbridge Wells area who might be interested in a herbal medicine consultation on Monday or Tuesday mornings with your friendly local HerbSmith, at a very reasonable rate, why not let them know? Maybe I'll even see you at NYR Tunbridge Wells at some point in the future - I certainly hope so.
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 The chances are, you've never heard of iridology - the study of the coloured part, or iris, of the eye to gain information about an individual's health status. This is a shame, since iridology deserves a place among the pantheon of better-known methods of health assessment, such as tongue and pulse diagnosis, used by herbalists and naturopaths the world over. The eyes have it! It's important to note at the outset that iridology is not a diagnostic technique. If you came to me for a consultation in Forest Row, I would take photos of your irises - more correctly, irides - using the rather Heath Robinson-esque equipment lurking in the corner of my consulting room. I would then use these images to tell you more about yourself and to guide and shape my advice to you, but I would not look at your iris pictures and say, "Your eyes tell me you've got rheumatoid arthritis/an underactive thyroid/type 2 diabetes/insert medical condition here." Some iris features and groups of features are more common in people with certain conditions, providing clues to the iridologist as to why the condition may have developed and the appropriate treatment approaches. This is very different to diagnosing the complaint using iridology in the first place. There are two areas where iridology is most useful. On the one hand, it provides plenty of extremely useful information on an individual's inbuilt strengths and weaknesses. This allows the iridologist to share with their patients strategies to help them live within their own constitutions - the keys to a hopefully problem-free health future. Secondly, iridology offers numerous clues as to why specific conditions may have developed - the 'dynamics of disharmony' in my iridology tutor's memorable phrase - information that naturally points to the appropriate treatment. Colour and constitution The most obvious characteristic of an individual's iris is their eye colour. This is caused by the presence or absence of pigment. Blue eyes, for example, are not actually blue: the fibres that make up the blue iris are colourless. It is the layer below the iris fibres that contains blue pigment, and this colour is reflected in the blue eye because the iris fibres do not contain any pigment themselves. Green/hazel and brown eyes contain increasing amounts of brown pigment covering some or all of the iris fibres. The first level of the iridology assessment is the individual's overarching constitution, which corresponds to the blue, brown and green/hazel eye colours. We'll take a brief look at the three broad iridological constitutions below. The lymphatic (blue-eyed) constitution  Blue eyes are known as the 'lymphatic' constitution in iridology, named after the lymphatic circulation. The lymphatic system lies just below the skin, draining and recycling metabolic wastes produced by cells and tissues. Rich in circulating white blood cells, lymph fluid is also an active part of the immune system. Lymphatic iris types show a high degree of reactivity in their systems and are prone to infections and inflammation. These are the body's way of trying to rid itself of unwanted irritants, with the lymphatic system playing a central role. Blue-eyed kids usually suffer from the classic inflammatory childhood diseases, such as measles, mumps and chickenpox. Lymphatic types are prone to arthritis and rheumatism, allergies and especially hay fever, swollen glands and irritations of the mucous membranes such as sore throats and tonsillitis. The haematogenic (brown-eyed) constitution  Iridologists call the brown-eyed constitution the 'haematogenic' constitution. Brown-eyed people are at the opposite end of the reactivity spectrum from blue-eyed, lymphatic types. Rather than setting up a powerful inflammatory reaction to rid itself of unwanted material, the haematogenic system tends toward accumulation and excess. There are fewer early-warning signs, such as fever, in brown-eyed people, and as such any health conditions are likely to be more serious as and when symptoms do appear. Common conditions among haematogenics are metabolic disorders, including raised blood sugar leading eventually to type 2 diabetes, anxiety and stress, and lumps, bumps and cysts of all kinds. The mixed (hazel/green-eyed) constitution  The final iridological constitutional type is the mixed iris, which contains both pigmented (blue) and unpigmented (brown) areas upon examination. Mixed eyes look green or hazel to the observer. The watchword for mixed iris types is digestion, as there is often a reduced supply of digestive secretions from the pancreas, liver and gallbladder. As such, mixed iris types often suffer from bloating and gas after meals and may tend toward constipation. They are also more prone to dysbiosis, where the natural balance of beneficial bacteria in the gut becomes disturbed. An iridology assessment is as individual as you are After the constitution, the next level of the iridological assessment is the disposition, or broad structure of the iris fibres. The disposition tells the iridologist about factors such as energy usage, resistance to stress, immunity and susceptibility to injury. This is followed by the diathesis, which is mostly concerned with the patterns of pigment that usually exist above the level of the iris fibres. The diathesis provides information on acquired as well as innate factors - that is, things that have built up over the course of an individual's life. As well as these, the iridologist would take many other features into account when assessing an individual's health status - so as you can see, this brief discussion of constitution barely scratches the surface of iridology. And that's without even mentioning behavioural or emotional iridology! As witnessed by the increasing use of iris-scanning technology in our paranoid modern world, the iris is as individual as the fingerprint. It's no exaggeration to say that iridology provides a truly individual method of health assessment, one that can shed light on problems both past and current and which offers the promise of living a healthful life within the limits of the bodies in which we are born. Why not give it a try sometime?   What is herbal medicine? And what about iridology and naturopathy? Well, herbal medicine is medicine using plants instead of drugs. Simple, eh? Thanks for stopping by and see you next time! Except it's not that easy. While it may be true to say that herbalists use plants instead of drugs, that rather glib introductory phrase doesn't begin to touch upon the rich and varied threads that weave the tapestry of herbal medicine past, present and future. Neither does it acknowledge that pharmaceutical medicine would not exist without plant-derived chemicals, which represent some of its most important weapons even in 2015. But I'm getting ahead of myself. An introduction to herbal medicine, iridology and naturopathy |
An irregular blog
I'm Adam Smith, a Herbalist and Naturopath practising in the Surrey/West Sussex/Kent border area. Although I hope it will change, I don't currently post here regularly. Archives
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