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Make a gift in honor of the good that comes from BDN journalism in your hands, and help raise $60,000 this spring to support our reporting. Make a donation now.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n Vivian Pratte\u2019s young clients anxiously tell the Richmond herbalist about their health worries.\u00a0<\/p>\n In their 20s, they\u2019ve looked to her for herbal remedies because trying to keep on top of car payments and cover the rent means little money to spare for health insurance or doctor\u2019s visits.<\/p>\n Medicinal products made from plants, like the tinctures Pratte makes from her garden, are nothing new \u2013 tradition is often part of the appeal. But as their use grows nationwide, some Mainers are also turning to them to fill gaps in the state\u2019s strained and increasingly unaffordable healthcare system, despite potential health risks if products aren\u2019t used carefully.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople come in and they want an alternative,\u201d said Pratte, whose own path to herbalism started as a child with health issues and a sensitivity to medicine. <\/p>\n She opened a small shop last year selling products she makes with herbs she grows organically, focused on addressing specific niche ailments. She also offers consultations for clients. <\/p>\n The majority of her clients want to stop having to take so many medications, she said, but about a quarter can\u2019t afford other options. Some are insured; others do have insurance but can\u2019t cover co-pays or the costs of multiple medications. A month\u2019s supply of one of her products ranges from $10 to $30, compared to hundreds some pay monthly for prescriptions. <\/p>\n \u201cPeople need to remember herbs were here before Western medicine,\u201d Pratte said. <\/p>\n The country\u2019s commercial herbal supplement market has grown to reach nearly $13 billion in sales in 2023, according to industry reports, though that\u2019s largely made up of imported plants<\/a>. <\/p>\n Numerous Maine companies sell herbal supplements, tinctures and other products made from plants, and Mainers also make their own products at home. <\/p>\n Earlier this year, the state expanded the ability of naturopathic doctors, who use natural supplements as part of their practice, to prescribe medications and use IV therapy. Multiple conventional healthcare professionals testified in support, saying the providers fill an important role in Maine\u2019s shrinking healthcare landscape. They gave examples of patients unable to get timely appointments or preventative care otherwise.<\/p>\n Several medical groups also opposed the initial bill, highlighting different training standards for medical doctors. <\/p>\n Maine has an ongoing shortage of primary care providers that\u2019s expected to worsen, with hospitals closing or cutting services across the state in recent years. Nationwide, health insurance is becoming increasingly unaffordable<\/a>. <\/p>\n Jennifer May, an herbalist in Cherryfield, ventured into herbalism and traditional Chinese medicine about 30 years ago when conventional medicine wasn\u2019t helping with her Hashimoto\u2019s disease. A plant remedy reversed the condition in a few months and it never came back, she said. <\/p>\n Now, she focuses on helping people manage chronic conditions naturally. In particular, May approaches Lyme disease with flower essences \u2013 which don\u2019t contain flowers themselves, but are supposed to use their energy to heal people \u2013 herbal remedies to support physical side effects and a third prong of \u201cenergy medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n Last summer, she started free \u201cholistic community care clinics\u201d in Cherryfield, letting people meet with a rotating group of practitioners by donation or for free. <\/p>\n \u201cI started them up here\u00a0Down East because I don\u2019t think people should have to choose between groceries and healthcare,\u201d May said. <\/p>\n She previously organized similar events in Northeast Harbor on Mount Desert Island, and has taught classes on making remedies with local herbs for the Maine Seacoast Mission.<\/p>\n May also sees people having trouble accessing healthcare Down East, ranging from waiting months for appointments to lacking access to specialists and struggling to pay for doctor\u2019s visits. Locally, she knows people often go to urgent care in Ellsworth instead of a doctor because it costs less.<\/p>\n Still, May said herbalists and practitioners in her circles aren\u2019t seeing the influx of clients they expected would follow from troubles in the healthcare system, though herbalists generally have lower prices and often want to work with people who need help affording it, she said. <\/p>\n She sees more interest from people who don\u2019t feel they\u2019re getting the level of care they need from doctors for complicated or chronic conditions. Some of her own clients are skeptical, but then find the products work, she said, an experience Pratte has also had in Richmond. <\/p>\n Neither are opposed to Western medicine, and both work with medical professionals, they said. In more extreme cases, they would send people to doctors. <\/p>\n Pratte\u2019s clients start with a consultation, where she tries to narrow down one or two more severe ailments to address first, which she often finds helps alleviate others. She also works with doctors, refers clients to them for more serious ailments and encourages people to visit a clinic at least once a year if they can afford it, she said. <\/p>\n If they do have doctors, Pratte asks clients to bring an herbal plan for approval. For those without healthcare, she\u2019ll talk about their ailments to figure out what may target those particular areas. <\/p>\n That language is carefully chosen: federal regulations bar people from claiming herbal products will diagnose, treat, cure or prevent diseases.<\/p>\n Maine practitioners have run afoul of those rules in the past, like a farm in Athens warned by the Federal Trade Commission in 2020 for recommending people protect themselves against COVID-19 in a variety of ways: through herbal remedies,\u00a0spraying \u201cbeautiful aromas\u201d into the air, burning herbs to kill germs, using amber oil as an \u201cenergetic shield\u201d to protect against parasites, and wearing a protective amulet or carrying a \u201csmall magic bag<\/a>\u201d of protective herbs or stones. <\/p>\n Pratte attended the Academy of Natural Health Sciences in New Jersey, one of the few accredited institutions for herbal knowledge. She\u2019s seen people be harmed by advice from herbalists with less formal training, she said.<\/p>\n Herbal products can also interact negatively with pharmaceuticals, and people taking them incorrectly or at the wrong dosage can cause new health problems. <\/p>\n Not everyone is drawn to medicinal plants because of healthcare costs or access; interest in medicinal herbs and mushrooms also overlaps with Maine\u2019s homesteading and local food movement. That\u2019s been the case for Andrew Millard, a mushroom grower and forager in Belfast who sells to local accounts and at the city\u2019s farmers market. <\/p>\n He sells culinary mushrooms, powdered lion\u2019s mane he grows from local wood shavings and a glycerin-based \u201cwellness tincture\u201d made with lion\u2019s mane and locally foraged turkey tail and chaga mushrooms.<\/p>\n Some research has shown those mushrooms can help with immune and gut health, along with mental clarity and nerve support.<\/p>\n But Millard said he\u2019s mainly focused on eating as locally as possible and introducing people to the world of fungi, which he sees as an underutilized food group. <\/p>\n He experienced people becoming more health conscious after the pandemic, he said, and has observed them wanting to know what they\u2019re putting in their bodies, where their food is coming from and that it has a source they can trust. That\u2019s also become a focus in people\u2019s approach to their health, according to Millard.<\/p>\n \u201cMaine is unique because people are more hands-on with their food,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Make a gift in honor of the good that comes from BDN journalism in your hands, and help…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704529,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[97,243,43433,6394],"class_list":["post-704528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-health","tag-medication","tag-new-perspective","tag-polls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704528\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}