Yeast infections are normally treated with antibiotics, creams and ointments, but there are a growing number of natural yeast infection treatments available nowadays.
Herbal treatment of yeast infection is just one of the options available, and herbal medicine has a long history.
The use of herbs goes back to the very earliest civilizations, where plants were often eaten for their health-giving abilities, although it should be said that not all of the plants used were beneficial. According to some records, Egyptian slaves were given garlic every day to protect them from fevers and infections (and other people no doubt?)
It was the Egyptians that created the first written records regarding the benefits of herbs and Egyptian priests were perhaps one of the earliest practitioners of herbal medicine.
As you would expect, ancient Greeks and Romans also showed an interest in herbal medicine and discovered many new ones in the countries they invaded. China and India also have a historic record of using herbs. During the seventeenth century in Britain, herbal shops became almost as popular as pharmacies are today, with many books written on the subject, listing the various plants and their potential benefit.
With the introduction of more ‘scientific’ medicine, herbal medicine began to lose its popularity and there were many attempts to ban it. In more recent years herbal medicine/natural remedies have seen something of a revival, but there has been a growing pressure (especially from some pharmaceutical companies) to legally control its use and restrict the sale of certain products.
Oddly enough, a very large percentage of the medicines we purchase from our local pharmacies contain compounds derived from plants that were commonly used in herbal medicine.
A yeast infection natural treatment might be possible by selecting the right herbs yourself, although it might be easier (and safer) to purchase a product that includes all the correct ingredients you need.
An example of applying caution to a natural remedy might be an old method suggested for curing candidiasis of the mouth (a yeast infection of the mouth, also called thrush). This involved taking something called Mercurius solubilis (quicksilver), an ore of mercury. Mercury, as most of us know, is toxic in large doses, but it has been used since ancient times and was once considered a remedy for syphilis. A powder is obtained from mercury by dissolving liquid mercury in a dilute solution of nitric acid!
Thankfully, more natural yeast infection treatments include special diets, which are designed to reduce the intake of yeast found in certain foodstuffs, which in turn should help to support the ‘friendly bacteria’ in our bodies which protect us.
More than a thousand different species of bacteria can be found in our bodies, but these will not harm us unless the ‘friendly bacteria’ are outnumbered for some reason. Some believe this can happen with a poor diet, but in many cases it can occur as a result of some underlying disease, or in people who have recently taken a course of antibiotics for other illnesses.
Photo: somegeekintn
