herbs

yesterday the china town pharmacy called to confirm my order and told me it would be ready that afternoon, so i took the relatively easy 20-minute trip to pick it up. the pharmacy itself was a pretty impressive place. it looked like an old-school apothecary with floor-to-ceiling drawers, barrels of dried items, and hanging scales for measuring. the clientele was mostly chinese people, but given the prevalence of non-chinese who now receive traditional chinese medicine they had some folks on staff to deal with us english-speakers. my herbs came in granules, all mixed together into one container... that looks like a regular plastic container with a plastic-sealed top. nothing old-school or mystical about that at all. it came with a tiny spoon that is what i'm supposed to use to measure it out: 5 spoonfuls into hot water, two times per day.




this is what's in there:
Shu di huang - Chinese foxglove root
Shan yao - Chinese yam
Mai men dong - ophiopogon tuber
Fu ling - poria (a type of fungus)
Ze xie - type of tuberous stem
Mu dan pi - peony tree bark
Bai zhu - white atractylodes rhizome
Gou qi zi - Chinese wolfberry
Tu si zi - Chinese dodder seeds
Du zhong - eucommia bark (rubber tree)

i did some (minimal) research on each item to see what they're used for in TCM, and overall it seems like all general health stuff. liver and kidney function, yin balance, that sort of thing. definitely can't hurt. when i mix it with the hot water everything dissolves really easily, and it doesn't taste terrible. it doesn't taste good, either. but it's not awful. i can definitely get through it without trouble. so we'll keep this up for the week and by the time i see my acupuncturist again friday afternoon we'll know if i'm pregnant or not. !!!