Corydalis

There has been a lot of interest in the herb Corydalis in the last several months. Corydalis is a powerful pain relieving herb. Here's one of the news stories that discusses corydalis: Study Finds a Potent Painkiller in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Dr. Oz also mentioned it on TV and since his programs are frequently rerun the folks at East Earth Trade Winds get many calls from people looking for this herb.

When discussing the effectiveness of the corydalis the folks at East Earth Trade Winds noticed that they don't get a lot of repeat sales for this herb even though it is touted as a fantastic pain reliever. This begs the question "why?".

In Chinese herbal medicine herbs are rarely used alone. The majority of them are used in combination with other herbs. So depending on what type of problem you have a formula would be created that addresses those symptoms. Corydalis invigorates the blood so if you have a pain due to blood stagnation then it may work well but if the pain is due to something else? That's where combining it with other herbs come in. You need to address the type of pain and then, if corydalis is appropriate, add it to the formula. If used by itself Corydalis may give less than stellar pain relief and they think this is what is happening.

However, there are products already available that contain corydalis. One product that has it as an ingredient and has always had lots of good feedback is Tung Shueh Pills. This formula is specifically for arthritis type pain. Tung Shueh contains corydalis but corydalis isn't the main ingredient. Corydalis works as an adjunct herb and in this formula the overall combination of herbs relieves joint and muscle pain very well. Corydalis just adds to the effectiveness. So if you are interested in pain relief for arthritis, muscle, or joint pain the folks at East Earth Trade Winds conclude that the Tung Shueh pills may give you a lot more relief than just using  the single herb corydalis alone.

Google's anti-Chinese herb policy demands removal of advertising Bi Yan Pian from East Earth Trade Winds website

I've previously written about Google's War on Chinese herbs. As a recap, East Earth Trade Winds advertises on Google Adwords -those little ads that pop up when you search for something. In April of 2013 they had their account shut down for three weeks for advertising Epimedium - a Chinese herb that is legal to import and legal to use. In Chinese medicine Epimedium is considered a Kidney Yang Tonifying herb. East Earth had to remove that product listing from the site in order to be able to advertise on Google Adwords again.
Now the Google anti-Chinese censors are at it again. This time the East Earth Trade Winds account violated Google policy by advertising Bi Yan Pian - a common remedy for allergies and stuffy nose. Once again this product is legally imported and there are no restrictions on the sale of this product by the FDA. It is simply that Google's censors don't approve of Chinese herb products.

Here's the violation that they pointed out to me:


"Please be advised that your ads are getting disapproved for promoting Bi Yan Pian on the Landing Page which is an Unapproved Pharmaceuticals monitored by Google. Please remove it from the Landing Page so that we could approve the ads. Please find attached a screenshot of the highlighted term on the Landing Page of your website which needs to be removed.  "

Googles anti-Chinese herb policy restricts legal Chinese herb products.

Instead of removing the product East Earth Trade Winds removed the product name Bi Yan Pian and changed the name listing to the English translation "Nose Inflammation Pills". As of this date we don't know if this will pass their censorship. Bi Yan Pian, by the way, is not a "pharmaceutical" - it is an herbal supplement.
Google  arbitrarily restricts the sale of Bi Yan Pian. There are others who advertise the same product and do not seem to have any restrictions.
I suggest that people use yahoo or bing for their search engines instead of Google. Yahoo and Bing do not seem to have an anti-Chinese herb policy.