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Stinging Nettle – An Astonishing Medicine That REALLY Wants Your Attention!
As we wander through the woods enjoying the peaceful bliss of the Good Lord’s garden, we are struck by the majesty of the glorious trees, the intricate beauty of the lovely flowers, the verdant green splendor of leaves and ….. OUCH! What The Heck Was That!!!?
Stinging Nettle!
Yes it’s stinging nettle, Urtica dioica, that delightful, medicinal wonder that REALLY wants to get your attention. It does so by lovingly injecting formic acid and other irritating, itchy wonders into your skin using brilliantly designed botanical hypodermic needles that are spread all over its surface.
As we grumble about this humble helper’s tactic for getting our attention, “Really?! You couldn’t have just had a pretty flower or something?!“, we are startled to notice something remarkable. Our sore knee, that was aching from arthritis moments ago, doesn’t hurt anymore. Sure, it stings and itches a bit, but the arthritis pain is gone and stays gone for several days after the nasty itch has ended! This somewhat unconventional plant therapy is called urtication. It’s been used for ages by folks all over the world for joint pain and inflammation. The process involves effects on histamine release and modulation of neurotransmitters involved in pain pathways like serotonin and substance-P.
For those that don’t have an achey knee, herbs like plantain, yellow dock and teasel leaf (or the Venom & Sting formula) can be applied topically to relieve the sting from nettles. They’re usually growing somewhere near the stinging nettle….well the plantain, yellow dock and teasel grow near nettles. The Venom & Sting formula grows on my website.
The good news is that nettles also has some amazing medicinal benefits that don’t have anything to do with the sting. Once the plant is dried and powdered it has no sting. Nettle leaf taken internally also has good anti-inflammatory effects for arthritis pain. Nettles leaf is also a great antihistamine for allergy sufferers. It interferes with histamine production, decreases histamine release and, as if that weren’t enough, it also interferes with histamine binding with the cells it likes to irritate. That combination of benefits can markedly decrease allergy symptoms.
Nettle leaf is also amazing for stomach ulcers, bladder infections, and even has some benefits in Alzheimer’s and demential cases. It can also help skin conditions like eczema and psoriasis and a number of other issues.
The seed is a wonderful blessing to weak or damaged kidneys and can help them to do their job better. The root is a great remedy for prostate enlargement.
Nettle leaf is also an amazing nutrition source. It’s very safe and can be taken as a daily tonic for good health. I think that about everybody ought to be putting a spoonful of dried nettles powder into their morning smoothie. It is literally an amazing nutritional and medicinal buffet that your body can browse to get just what it wants each day.
I could go on and on (but you probably know that about me). In fact I do go on and on in a brand new monograph on nettles that I’ve just put into The HomeGrown Herbalist School of Botanical Medicine. If you’d like to learn how and why nettles can solve all sorts of health problems and how you, with a few handy weeds, could learn to be a tremendous blessing to those around you, I’d invite you to join us for a really great adventure learning all about this amazing plant!
Have a great day!
Doc Jones
just made some little cookies with stinging nettle powder (sweet potato and pumpkin seeds) – actually I just ate the last 3 today 🙂
My dreaded but well loved “weed” in my yard (confined to a corner).
Strong nettle tea greatly helped my summer allergies. One good strong cuppa nettle tea and the sneezing stops. It is great!
Thanks so much for the information on nettles. It really is a helpful plant for so many things once you get past it’s “wall of stingers.” A mentor of mine also told me that if you rub fresh mugwort leaves on the place were the nettles stung you, it will help alleviate the discomfort. Glad to hear there are other things available to do that as well. Our chickens just love eating nettle. I make dried nettle tea when I want to boost nutrients in my diet.
There are several plants that will relieve the sting. When treating a condition using the sting you really do want the sting to persist and not neutralize it.
My husband has an enlarged prostate. I’d like to get him off his medicine. How would he go about taking stinging nettle from the root and dosage.
Marcella Stockin
Is there a difference between “stinging nettle” and “wild nettle”. Or are they the same thing?
Common names of plants vary wildly by region. If it stings, it’s likely Urtica dioica (the nettle I’m talking anout). If it doesn’t it’s something else.
Will stinging nettle work for Neuropathy pain?