There are a number of wonderful safe accessible herbs that can be used in todays’ modern world to help boost your immune system.  Using herbs to fight infection is a great way to heal the body and to build up and strengthen its ability to repair itself.

A couple of popular herbs to consider are Cats Claw and Echinacea.

Cat’s Claw is a powerful anti-viral antioxidant from the Peruvian rainforest plant Uncaria tomentosa. It contains alkaloids, one of which is isopteridin, which has proven to boost the immune system.  This product is available as a tea or in a supplement.  Cats Claw tea can taste quite nice when mixed with black-current and apple concentrate. Dosage will vary dependent on other treatments that you may be having and subject to the advice of your therapist.  Usually when fighting an infection you would take 2-6 grams per day progressing to a maintenance of 2 grams daily. 

Echinacea is the original American Indian snakeroot, which later became known as snake oil.  This herb is an all-rounder with anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties.  Echinacea was probably the most used medicinal plant by Native Americans in the midwest. The leaves and roots were used for toothaches and applied topically to the skin to fight infection and the tea using the leaves and roots were perfect for helping to sooth sore throats.

You can usually obtain this herb in capsules and in extracts, taken in drops.  To fight infections, 2-3 grams a day or 15 drops of concentrated extract three times a day is often used.  Maintenance would only be 1 gram per day.