These formulas require a consultation before shipping
Per Evergreen, these are prescription-strength herbal formulas. Orders ship only after you have spoken with a La Santé Vie practitioner. This is not a formality. Chinese herbs are matched to a pattern, and the same complaint can call for opposite formulas depending on what is underneath it.
Before an order goes out we will ask whether you are working with another practitioner, whether you are pregnant, trying to conceive, or breastfeeding, what prescription medications you take (blood thinners in particular), and what you are allergic to. Several of these formulas interact with anticoagulants, and several are contraindicated in pregnancy.
Why I carry this line
Evergreen concentrates its extracts rather than filling capsules with raw powder, which means the dose in a capsule is closer to what a decoction actually delivers. For patients who will not drink a bitter tea twice a day, and most will not, that difference decides whether the formula works.
The catalog splits into two halves, and they are used differently.
Classics
The classical formulas, unchanged: Ba Zhen Tang, Ban Xia Xie Xin Tang, Bai Hu Tang, Ba Wei Di Huang Wan. These are the formulas in the textbooks, some of them 1,800 years old, and they are prescribed the way they always have been, by pattern rather than by diagnosis.
If you have worked with a practitioner before and know your pattern, this is where to look. If you are guessing from a symptom list, you will probably guess wrong. Two people with the same headache can need Bai Hu Tang and Ba Wei Di Huang Wan, which do close to opposite things.
Collection formulas
Evergreen's own modern formulations, named for what they target: Adrenal +, Back Support, Balance, Astringent Complex. These are built for contemporary presentations that the classical repertoire does not name directly, and they are more forgiving to select.
The Back Support formulas are worth understanding, because there are three and they are not interchangeable. AC is for acute injury, CR for chronic, HD for disc involvement. Choosing by name alone is how people end up disappointed.
How I use them in clinic
Herbs move slower than most people expect and faster than they fear. Two to four weeks tells you whether a formula is working for an acute pattern. Chronic patterns want three months. If nothing has shifted by then, the pattern was read wrong and the formula should change rather than the dose going up.
I also watch digestion first. Rich tonifying formulas sit heavily on a weak Spleen, and loose stools or bloating in the first week usually means the foundation needs building before the tonic will hold. That sequencing argument is the same one I make in this piece on gut repair.
Pricing on this line is set by Evergreen, so it does not vary between practitioners carrying it.
Not sure which formula fits? Call 725-800-8930 or send a message. If your pattern needs something outside this catalog, I formulate custom granules through my clinical practice.
