Last week I had the privilege of interviewing
Andrew Bentley who practices as a herbalist
in Lexington, Kentucky. A short excerpt
from my interview with him follows:

Question:

Many people ask me very specific
questions about how they can get help with
specific symptoms. For example, many people
have asked me recently about excessive
salivation. They have a lot of worries and
troubles with that.

Is there anything off the top of your head
that you would suggest as a possibility in
the herbal area for that?

There are some things that might help with that.
For example, oat bark extract taken in very
small amounts can sometimes help with excessive
salivation. Also, sometimes if you have better
muscle control in the muscles of the neck and
throat and the face, that can sometimes help
for the excessive salivation not to be a problem.

How about tremors? 

Oat straw is one thing that is sometimes helpful
for that. A nice thing about oat straw is that
it usually does not cause drowsiness. A lot of
things that are anti-spasmodic also cause sedation.
Sometimes people aren’t looking for that. That
is a helpful thing about that particular herb
because it doesn’t have so much of that effect.

Valerian is a much stronger herb for helping to
suppress tremors but it does carry some risk of
sedation, of feeling more drowsy and so forth
especially when people first start taking it.
Sometimes that lessons as time goes on.

It is a very strong substance when it comes to
helping control involuntary muscle movement
tremors and involuntary movement of otherwise
involuntary muscles. It is a good one for that.

Passion flower is also one that is helpful for
some particular individuals.  These are all
things that would go into that category of
working on tremors.

Robert Rodgers, Ph.D.
Parkinsons Recovery

© 2008 Parkinsons Recovery