The Herbal Practice in Louisville at Abacus Chinese Medicine
The herbal practice in Louisville at Abacus Chinese Medicine is a core feature of Jeffrey Russell’s work in Chinese Medicine. His work employs the concept of Fang Jia Fang or ‘formula plus formula’. This practice is not taught in the majority of Traditional Chinese Medicine schools in the U.S., but Jeffrey was fortunate to learn this very efficacious style of herbalism while interning with Jimmy Chang, L.Ac. in Los Angeles. Chang is a world-renowned practitioner of Chinese medicine who is highly esteemed for his diagnostics and herbal prescriptions.
At his clinic, Abacus Chinese Medicine, Jeffrey personally prepares his customized herbal prescriptions. He has a Chinese herbal medicine compounding pharmacy unique in his region. He works with 200 individually combined mixes of herbs and 200 single herbs. Working with so many ingredients, the possibilities of finely-tuned, customized prescriptions are countless. This enables Jeffrey to treat each patient as the individual with individual needs that he or she is.
In his unique Fang Jia Fang practice, Jeffrey uses granular mixes of herbs and granulated single herbs from Evergreen Herb Company. These are decocted from raw roots in a highly controlled lab setting that uses up to 15 tests prior to release.
Evergreen follows current standards for the Good Manufacturing Practice of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the World Health Organization (WHO). This ensures the safety, quality, purity, potency and therapeutic quality of their herbs. You can see their state of the art standards for manufacturing and quality control here.
Jeffrey’s Chinese herbal practice in Louisville is significantly different than that of herbalists who work with raw herbs, and consequently, there are significant therapeutic benefits of his work not found elsewhere. One such benefit is that Jeffrey’s Fang Jia Fang method removes many barriers for patients in herbal treatment.
Using raw herbs, patients must prepare their own herbal decoctions at home, following precise instructions to cook them, and spending extended periods of time to prepare their doses. These things lead to poor compliance with prescriptions, inconsistent doses, and interrupted courses of treatment due to the effort and time involved at home. Also, raw herb preparations have a strong taste that many find so unpleasant they do not continue with them long enough to benefit.
Jeffrey’s method makes the use of herbal medicines more efficient and more pleasant to use. It dramatically ensures customized prescriptions created from precise and high quality, therapeutically controlled herbal formulas made with attention to quality from farm to practitioner.
The herbs used in Jeffrey’s pharmacy are obtained from growers who adhere to quality agricultural standards by testing soil and water for contaminants, and by employing sustainable farming practices. Geo-authenticity is also a standard because herbs grown in their indigenous regions have the best medicinal qualities.
Master herbalists make accurate identifications of raw herbs in multiple ways, including the use of electron microscopy to examine cellular structures. They also carefully screen for heavy metals, parasites and bacteria in the raw herbs. All of this elevates the use of Chinese herbs to standards of excellence, purity, safety and therapeutic value not found elsewhere. If you are considering Chinese herbal treatment, Jeffrey’s work is unique in this region, effective, and a benchmark of excellence in his profession.
You may learn a more about the type of Chinese herbalism Jeffrey practices here.
If you would like to make an appointment, contact Jeffrey at (502) 299-8900.
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