Purple Echinacea is a medicinal plant with immunomodulatory properties. Thanks to him, our body quickly copes with a variety of ailments, such as SARS, influenza.
A variety of medicines are made on the basis of echinacea, but raw materials prepared by yourself have the best effect, as it will be free and you can be sure of the freshness of the collected product.
Echinacea for diseases
Purple Echinacea is a plant that came from North America. Every part of it has healing properties. Roots, leaves, flowers contain immune-stimulating substances that can destroy viruses, fungi, and bacteria.
For many years the Indians used Echinacea to treat colds, diphtheria, malaria, blood poisoning and more. This plant has a lot of usefulproperties, but there are also contraindications.
Description of the plant
Echinacea purpurea is a plant from the genus Asteraceae. Almost until the middle of the twentieth century, the flower was used in folk medicine, and after that it began to be grown as a garden crop. Since 1938, it has been used in official medicine. Dr. Madaus conducted a study of purple echinacea, after which he began to use the plant for sore throats, tonsillitis, and inflammation of the internal organs. The list of diseases from which the plant helps is constantly updated. Later, echinacea was officially included in the pharmacopoeias of many foreign countries, and also began to be used as a medicinal raw material in the production of various pharmaceutical preparations.
Chemical composition
The ground part of echinacea contains many different useful elements. There are mucus, resins, polysaccharides, essential oils, hydroxycinnamic acids, saponins, polyamides, echinacin, echinacoside, enzymes, vitamins, phytosterols, palmitic and linoleic acids.
The root contains a lot of inulin, polysaccharides, resins. It also contains essential oil, phenolcarboxylic acids, betaine, echinacoside and echinacin, vitamins, enzymes and other useful elements.
The flowers of the plant contain a lot of essential oil.
Plant properties
The use of Echinacea purpurea is very wide. This plant helps to cope with many diseases, but primarily the plant is used as an immunostimulant. Pharmaceutical companies produce echinacea tincturespurple. It is already ready for use. The drug is made on the basis of purple echinacea extract or plant juice.
The grass has antibacterial, fungicidal, virusostatic and anti-inflammatory properties. Echinacea preparations are strong activators of macrophages, lymphocytes and granulocytes. Thus, the functioning of the immune system is stimulated: the plant gently stimulates the work of the adrenal cortex, increases the production of hormones. Also included in the plant drugs have antiallergic and antirheumatic properties.
The instructions for use of Echinacea purpurea say that this plant helps with depression, SARS, inflammatory pathologies, rheumatoid arthritis, hepatitis, cystitis, prostatitis, as well as wounds and ulcers, burns.
Decoctions, extracts, infusions are used in folk medicine. The drugs are taken as an antiseptic, to remove warts, with physical overwork. Echinacea-based products show good results after antibiotic treatment, radiation therapy and the use of cytostatics.
Echinacea can be brewed as a tea to strengthen and boost immunity. To do this, it is enough to pour a teaspoon of raw materials in a teapot with boiling water. Tea is infused for ten minutes. It is taken in a cup once a day, but not longer than a week. It is better to alternate such teas with other means, taking echinacea once a week, and on other days - other vitamin teas that can strengthen the immune system.
Contraindications
The instructions for use of Echinacea purpurea say that this plant should not be used during pregnancy and while breastfeeding. Do not use the plant for multiple sclerosis, leukemia, tuberculosis and in case of individual intolerance. In any case, the drug should be taken only after consulting a doctor.
Dosage of tablets and solution
Pharmacological companies produce echinacea in the form of tablets and solutions. According to the instructions, echinacea purpurea in the form of tablets can be used by children over the age of twelve years and adults, one tablet three times a day. For children aged six to twelve years, the drug is prescribed at a dosage of 1 tablet 1-2 times a day. Children aged four to six years are prescribed the drug in a tablet once a day.
The oral solution is applied three times a day at the dosage prescribed by the doctor. Be sure to dilute the solution with water before use.
Duration of admission - no more than eight weeks.
Side effects
Echinacea is a herbal remedy that can cause side effects. Sometimes there is an allergic reaction to plant preparations in the form of itching, rash, bronchospasm. In isolated cases, anaphylactic shock occurs.
Long-term use of Echinacea may cause leukopenia.
Use of Echinacea during pregnancy and lactation
Scientists cannot say what effect echinacea has onpregnancy, as such experiments have not been conducted. Because of this, it is not recommended to use the plant during pregnancy and lactation.
Echinacea alcohol tincture
Tincture can be bought at a pharmacy, or you can make it yourself at home. All parts of the plant are used for it, including rhizomes.
To prepare the tincture, you need to take fifty grams of crushed raw materials, place in a dark glass container and pour alcohol (0.25 l). The remedy is infused for two weeks, periodically shaken. After the composition is infused, it is filtered.
Alcohol tincture is used to treat a variety of ailments. It can be used for rubbing with sore joints, make night compresses with it.
Tincture has proven itself well for boosting immunity. For this, fifteen drops of the drug are taken three times a day before meals. For children, the remedy is shown at the rate of one drop per year of life.
Alcohol remedy helps well for the treatment of purulent wounds. To do this, a tablespoon of tincture is diluted with a spoonful of water. The resulting remedy is used to treat the wound.
Compresses are indicated for sciatica and myositis. For them, you need to take a piece of cloth, moisten it with tincture and attach it to the sore spot. From above it is covered with polyethylene and a scarf.
Plant infusion
Flowers are used to prepare the infusion. A teaspoon of raw materials is poured into a glass of boiling water and insisted for two hours. Then the agent is filtered. Ready infusion is used for emotional overstrain, andas well as chronic stress. For this purpose, a glass of the drug is drunk during the day in small sips.
For colds, take half a glass three times a day.
Good results are shown by taking an infusion to enhance potency: for this purpose, the infusion is drunk in a glass twice a day.
When obese, to reduce cravings for sweets, it is recommended to drink half a glass of infusion before meals.
Butter
You can prepare the oil yourself, or you can buy it ready-made, especially since the price of Echinacea purpurea is low (50 ml tincture will cost 150 rubles).
To prepare the oil, the roots are taken, thoroughly washed and passed through a meat grinder. Then one hundred grams of the resulting slurry is poured into 0.5 liters of sunflower oil and infused in a cool dark place for three weeks. After that, the agent is filtered. The finished product is stored in the refrigerator.
The oil helps well with duodenal ulcer or stomach ulcer, a teaspoon of oil is mixed with the same amount of sea buckthorn oil and taken orally once a day on an empty stomach. The therapy lasts two weeks.
For bronchitis, the oil is used three times a day. Be sure to drink water.
Good results are obtained from the use of echinacea for the treatment of dermatological diseases. The oil helps with eczema, dermatitis. For treatment, it is applied to the affected areas several times a day.
When seizing with oil, lubricate the corners of the mouth every three hours for two weeks.
DecoctionsEchinacea
Decoctions can be prepared from Echinacea. They use flowers and leaves. Dry, crushed raw materials are poured with water and put on fire. The product is boiled for five minutes, then cooled and filtered.
Decoction helps to cope with a breakdown: for this, they drink a glass of the remedy, dividing it into four doses. For kidney diseases, a decoction of one hundred milliliters is taken three times a day.
Echinacea can be used to wash wounds.
The plant shows good results with a rash: lotions are used to cope with it.
Growing Echinacea
Growing echinacea in your garden is very easy. This plant is propagated by seeds and division of the bush. The latter method allows you to quickly get large plants with a powerful root system. Planting Echinacea purpurea is best done in the spring. With cluster division, raw materials can be harvested already in the first year.
When sown with seeds, there will be no flowering in the first year. The plant actively increases the root mass, and blooms in the second year. Flowering begins in mid-July and lasts until frost.
The plant is planted in sunny areas. Although it grows well in the shade. If we compare the bush in the sun and in the shade, then when grown in the shade, the bushes are more powerful, with large leaves and huge flowers. No other differences.
Echinacea purpurea care is very simple. The plant needs to be watered abundantly. This plant loves moisture, so it is watered very plentifully. Responds well to fertilization. For the entire growing season, the plant is fedtwice in a season. At the end of September, the stems are cut.
After flowering seeds ripen. To get new plants, just scatter them where you want to get new bushes. The next year they will sprout themselves, and in a year they will delight with abundant flowering and a large amount of medicinal material.
How to collect
All parts of the plant are used to treat ailments. Collect it in dry sunny weather, immediately after the morning dew. When collecting rhizomes, weather conditions do not play a role.
Leaves from young plants of the first year of life are harvested in autumn. In plants of the second and subsequent years of life, the leaves are cut in the spring, as soon as they bloom. It is impossible to completely remove the foliage, as in this case the bush will not bloom.
The resulting greens are dried in a ventilated area. The sun's rays adversely affect the workpiece, so you need to carefully consider the choice of a place for drying raw materials.
The inflorescences of the plant are harvested at the very beginning of their flowering. At this time, they contain many useful substances. Echinacea re-blooms after about three weeks of cutting.
The inflorescences are dried in the same way as the leaves. This video shows how to brew flowers.
Rhizomes are harvested either in early spring or late autumn, after pruning the above-ground part of the plant.
All harvested raw materials are stored in glass containers or in fabric bags. Raw materials are used not only for the treatment of diseases, but also aspreventive remedies for various ailments.
