Herbal and botanical treatments

Chamomile flowers
There are lots of things you can do with herbals (usually leaves) and botanicals (various parts of the plant).  I mean, besides drinking or eating them.  I’ve written about some of these before, but I found it interesting when I was reading Migraine and other Headaches that Drs Young and Silberstein list some different uses for different herbs.  Here are the ones they list as the most commonly used therapies in this class:

Inhalation using melissa, peppermint and chamomile.

Massage with lavender, peppermint, anise, basil and eucalyptus.

Warm baths with eucalyptus, wintergreen, and peppermint.

Compresses of peppermint, ginger and marjoram, and vinegar.

They also mention herbal footbaths.  According to this section of the book, these things are great not only for treating pain, but for relaxing and balancing the body.  I’ve found treatments like these helpful, although some of these I wasn’t familiar with – I’ll have to check some more out!