I can’t imagine having to continue to take the toxic synthetic drugs for another 40 years! I would have been long gone and no longer writing, or fast-walking 20 to 25 miles a week at my age, a young 88.
Coming from tropical Hong Kong to Ann Arbor, Michigan, for graduate studies in 1962, I developed hay fever within 3 years. The attending physician in the student’s health service took one look at me and extended to me his greeting, “Welcome to hay fever town!” Since then, I had to take all kinds of drugs (antihistamines, nasal decongestants, etc.) for at least 20 years and suffered through all the side effects.
Then, between the 1st edition (1980) and 2nd edition (1996) of my Encyclopedia of Common Natural Ingredients Used in Food, Drugs, and Cosmetics (Wiley), I was seriously involved in building a library of Chinese herbal medicines while growing my business to include a manufacturing facility and a lab. By around 2000 my library had probably the best and the most extensive collection of traditional Chinese herbal books and journals in America in a single location. That was when my company, Phyto-Technologies, won a SBIR research grant for $1.5M. All the above information is recorded in the memoir part of my last book, My Life & Rollercoaster Career (CreateSpace/Amason, 2018).
After over 20 years of taking synthetic drugs for months yearly, the magnolia flower buds got rid of my hay fever. No more synthetic drugs for my hay fever or runny nose since around mid 1980s. Now, whenever it strikes me, maybe once to a few times yearly, xinyi always works. So far this year, a couple of weeks ago it struck me again. But all I did was to take 1 dose of xinyi (2-3 tablespoons of crushed buds in a cup, filling it ¾ full with boiling water, let stand for ~10 min & screened off the fuzz). Yesterday, it was a bad one, I sneezed not long after getting up in the morning and my nose was dripping. As I needed to go out and I didn’t want to keep blowing and wiping my nose. So, I took a dose 30 minutes before I went out. The sneezing and dripping stopped in 10 to 15 minutes. I was able to interact with others with not much inconvenience. When I came home 4 hours later, I didn’t want to use a handkerchief anymore that day, so I took another dose. I slept with no problems last night. It’s now early evening; my hay fever is no longer there.
Here, I want to make one point about natural medicines. Unlike synthetics, we have tried unsuccessfully to make using them precisely scientific at least for a short time, like the past 8 decades. We still have to depend on the trial-and-error experience just as our ancestors. These synthetic drugs would have disappeared decades or a century ago if not for the vicious cycle (VC) they continue to cause. By now, if you have not heard of the VC, you are either asleep, a synthetic drug maker and peddler, or an interdependent associate (insurance agent, advertiser, promotor, or crooked politician). Please ponder it! Our poor health is mostly caused by synthetic chemicals (drugs & additives).