Incorrigible Forageables: Japanese Knotweed

I recently went to Herbstalk 2012 in Somerville and learned that you can make Japanese Knotweed tincture that boosts your immune system to help fight against Lyme disease!

Yay, herbstalk!

Japanese Knotweed has a bitter, sour flavor and I don't particularly enjoy it, but some people LOVE it.

Here's the recipe for the tincture to battle Lyme disease and other spirochetal diseases: harvest the root (which is a super pain to dig up) and mix it with a VERY high proof vodka alcohol.

1. five parts HIGH-proof alcohol (vodka, everclear, etc. <-- 190="" a="" alcohol="" corn="" from="" href="http://organicalcohol.com/store/" i="" proof="" use="">Alchemical Solutions

) to one part Japanese knotweed root

let sit one to one and a half months (4-6 weeks), shaking it up every day or two (up to 6 months is ideal)

Sieve out the root pieces

You can use this recipe for humans OR animals!  When using herbs to treat anything, it is best to use as local as possible, so if you have invasive knotweed growing in your backyard and you have safe and healthy soil, then your backyard is the best place to go for your ingredients.

When using the treatment for animals (i.e.: medium sized dogs) the doseage goes as follows: mix 1/2 the vodka with 1/2 veggie glycerin to sweeten the tincture and lessen the burn.  Use 1/2 a dropper 2 times per day.  It is best one hour after feeding but you can also just put it right into your animals food.  

Nancy Anderson, the herbalist who gave me this recipe suggested that for every year of having lyme disease, one treats themselves for 3 months with the tincture.  So if you're using this as a treatment and not preventatively, and you've had lyme disease for 2 years, you should treat yourself for 6 months.