Purple echinacea is a medicinal plant with immunomodulating properties. Thanks to him, our body quickly copes with a variety of ailments, such as acute respiratory viral infections, influenza.
A variety of medicines are made on the basis of echinacea, but raw materials prepared on their own have the best effect, since it will be free and you can be sure of the freshness of the collected funds.
Echinacea for disease
Purple Echinacea is a plant that came from North America. Each part of it has healing properties. Roots, leaves, flowers contain immunity stimulating substances that can destroy viruses, fungi, bacteria.
For many years, Indians have used echinacea to treat colds, diphtheria, malaria, blood poisoning and more. This plant has a lot of useful properties, but there are contraindications.
Plant description
Echinacea purpurea is a plant from the genus Astrovia. Almost until the middle of the twentieth century, the flower was used in folk medicine, and then began to be grown as a garden culture. Since 1938, it began to be used in official medicine. Dr. Madaus conducted a study of purple echinacea, after which he began to use the plant for tonsillitis, tonsillitis, and inflammation of the internal organs. The list of diseases from which the plant helps is constantly updated. Later, echinacea was officially introduced into the pharmacopeias of many foreign countries, and also began to be used as a medicinal raw material in the production of various pharmaceutical preparations.
Chemical composition
In the terrestrial 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 has essential oil, phenol carboxylic 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 above all, the plant is used as an immunostimulant. Pharmacological companies produce tinctures of Echinacea purpurea. She is ready to use. The drug is made on the basis of purple echinacea extract or from the juice of a plant.
The grass has antibacterial, fungicidal, virologostatic and anti-inflammatory properties. Echinacea preparations are powerful activators of macrophages, lymphocytes and granulocytes. Thus, the functioning of the immune system is stimulated: the plant gently stimulates the adrenal cortex, increases the production of hormones. Also, the drugs that make up the plant have anti-allergic and anti-rheumatic properties.
The instructions for the 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.
In folk medicine, decoctions, extracts, infusions are used. Drugs are taken as an antiseptic, to remove warts, with physical overwork. Good results are shown on the basis of echinacea after treatment with antibiotics, radiation therapy and the use of cytostatics.
Echinacea can be brewed in the form of tea to strengthen and enhance immunity. To do this, it is enough to pour a teaspoon of raw materials in a teapot with boiling water. Tea infused ten minutes. It is taken 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 immunity.
Contraindications
The instructions for the use of Echinacea purpurea say that this plant can not be used during pregnancy and during lactation. 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, purple coneflower in the form of tablets can be used for children from the age of twelve years and adults, one tablet three times a day. For children aged six to twelve years, the drug is prescribed in a dosage of 1 tablet 1-2 times a day. Children aged four to six years are prescribed a tablet once a day.
The oral solution is applied three times a day in the dosage prescribed by the doctor. Be sure to dilute the solution with water before use.
Duration of admission is 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 is manifested.
With prolonged use of echinacea, leukopenia may develop.
The use of echinacea during pregnancy and lactation
Scientists cannot say what effect echinacea has on pregnancy, since such experiments have not been conducted. Because of this, it is not recommended to use the plant during pregnancy and lactation.
Echinacea Alcohol Tincture
You can buy tincture at the pharmacy, or you can do it yourself at home. All parts of the plant, including rhizomes, are used for it.
To prepare the tincture, you need to take fifty grams of crushed raw materials, place in a container of dark glass and pour alcohol (0.25 L). The tool is infused for two weeks, occasionally shakes. After the composition is infused, it is filtered.
Alcohol tincture is used to treat a variety of ailments. It can be used for rubbing in painful joints, do night compresses with it.
Well-recommended tincture to enhance immunity. For this, fifteen drops of the drug are taken three times a day before meals. For children, the drug is shown at the rate of one drop per year of life.
Alcohol helps well for the treatment of purulent wounds. For this, a tablespoon of tincture is bred with a spoon of water. The resulting product treat the wound.
With radiculitis and myositis, compresses are indicated. For them, you need to take a piece of tissue, moisten it with tincture and attach to a sore spot. It is covered with polyethylene and a scarf from above.
Plant infusion
To prepare the infusion, flowers are used. A teaspoon of raw materials is poured into a glass of boiling water and insisted for two hours. Then the product is filtered. Ready-made infusion is used for emotional stress, as well as for chronic stress. To this end, a glass of the drug is drunk during the day in small sips.
With a cold, take the drug in half a glass three times a day.
Good results are shown by taking the infusion to enhance potency: for this purpose, the infusion is drunk in a glass twice a day.
In obesity, to reduce cravings for sweets, it is recommended to drink half a glass of infusion before eating.
Oil
You can cook the oil yourself, but you can buy ready-made, especially since the price of Echinacea purpurea is low (a tincture of 50 ml will cost 150 rubles).
To prepare the oil, the roots are taken, washed thoroughly 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 product is filtered. The finished product is stored in the refrigerator.
Oil is good for 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.
With bronchitis, 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. Oil helps with eczema, dermatitis. For treatment, it is applied to the affected areas several times a day.
When jamming, oil is lubricated every three hours in the corners of the mouth for two weeks.
Echinacea decoctions
From Echinacea, you can cook decoctions. They use flowers and leaves. Dry, crushed raw materials are poured with water and put on fire. The product boils for five minutes, then cools and filtered.
The broth helps to cope with a breakdown: for this, they drink a glass of funds, dividing it into four doses. With kidney diseases, a decoction of one hundred milliliters three times a day is taken.
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 simple. This plant is propagated by seed 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. When bush division in the first year, you can collect raw materials.
When sown with seeds in the first year, there will be no flowering. The plant is actively increasing root mass, and blooms in the second year. Flowering begins in mid-July and lasts until the 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 growing in the shade, the bushes are more powerful, with large leaves and huge flowers. There are no other differences.
Echinacea purpurea is very simple. The plant must be watered abundantly. This plant loves moisture, so it is watered very abundantly. It responds well to fertilizer application. For the entire growing season, the plant is fed twice a season. At the end of September, the stems are pruned.
After flowering, the seeds ripen. To get new plants, just scatter them where you want to get new bushes. The next year they themselves will ascend, and in a year they will delight with abundant flowering and a large amount of medical material.
How to collect
For the treatment of ailments, all parts of the plant are used. Collect it in dry sunny weather, immediately after the morning dew. When collecting rhizomes, weather conditions do not play a role.
Leaves in young plants of the first year of life are collected 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, since 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 place for drying the raw materials.
Inflorescences of plants are harvested at the very beginning of their flowering. At this time, they contain many useful substances. After a cut, about three weeks later, Echinacea blooms again.
Inflorescences are dried in the same way as leaves. This video shows a way to brew flowers.
Rhizomes are harvested either in early spring or late autumn, after trimming the aerial parts of the plant.
All prepared raw materials are stored in containers made of glass or in cloth bags. Raw materials are used not only for the treatment of diseases, but also as prophylactic agents for various ailments.