Frequently Asked Questions

Is Wild Roots Herbal Medicine physically accessible?

Face-to face appointments at my home are accessed via Back Lane South in the village of Kirkby Malzeard. You will find detailed instructions on how to find me on the Contact page (on the main menu at the top of your screen). If you have accessibility needs please feel free to contact me to discuss. The following may provide useful information:

There is plenty of on-street parking within a few minutes' walk. There is no parking directly outside the building, although you could be dropped off a few feet from the door if someone is driving you.

There is one step up into the building. I do not currently have a ramp.

If you would like to discuss accessibility please contact me. There are other options, including online or home visits.

Can you accommodate other accessibility needs?

If you are neurodivergent, or have differences in communication, please know that I am used to communicating with people who have a variety of different ways of expressing themselves. The 'clinic' is part of my home, and as such is a welcoming space. If - for example - you prefer to communicate in writing that is okay. You could bring a list of points you want to show me, or to use as a reminder during the consultation.

I understand that for many people talking about their issues can raise discomfort. While it is normal for me to ask questions about your life experience, please be assured that you do not need to disclose anything you feel uncomfortable with, unless you wish to.

If you feel anxious about any aspect of your appointment please contact me and I will be more than happy to talk you through the process.

If there is anything I can do during the consultation to accommodate your needs - for example wearing a microphone to help you hear, or giving a verbal description of your physical surroundings I will do my best to accommodate your individual needs.

If you need to, you are welcome to bring a carer, family member or personal assistant to your appointments.

What is Herbal Medicine? Does it work?

Herbal medicine uses plants to improve health, try and reduce illness and treat disease. It can support people at all stages of life. There is an ever-growing body of scientific research supporting the use of herbal medicine for a vast range of conditions - and it is also important to remember that many thousands of years worth of experience also show us that these remedies work.

We are quite used to using rather a lot of plants in something of a medicinal way every day - think of the cup of coffee you have that perks you up in the morning, the shot of vermouth that used to be popular before eating that primed the digestion, the cup of mint tea that settles your stomach after a big meal, or the spices in your curry that make you feel warm inside and out! These are all examples of plants working quickly and noticeably to change how our body is behaving and how we feel. Herbal medicine simply uses a much larger range of plants to address a much larger range of conditions.

I am not sure if Herbal Medicine can help me...

If you have explored the information on this website, especially in the About Herbal Medicine section and you are still unsure, please contact me via the Contact page and I will be happy to discuss your concerns. I believe everyone can benefit from herbal medicine - there are very few of us who could not benefit from improving our digestion, supporting our immune system, or increasing our ability to handle stress! I am trained to safely prescribe herbal medicines alongside pharmaceutical medication, and to consider allergies and any other factors that may affect the safety of taking herbs.

How long does treatment take to work?

Good question. This really does depend on the problem. As a rule, the longer you have had a problem, the longer your treatment may need to last, and acute conditions often respond faster than chronic ones. So, in many cases you will start feeling better quite quickly - for example people often experience a reduction in acute anxiety after just a few doses of medicine, or even just one, depending on the remedy! They then experience a gentle and sustained improvement in their 'baseline' levels of anxiety, and feelings of resilience over subsequent days and weeks of treatment.

For some problems such as high blood pressure, fertility issues or chronic fatigue, you might need several weeks or months of treatment before you see a noticeable improvement - although not always - If high blood pressure is linked to stress, for example, we can often reduce stress and tension fairly quickly, and with it the blood pressure will often come down.

Some people with chronic or complex issues take herbal medicine all or most of the time, and their prescription may change over time to focus on different issues as they become most relevant.

Is it all about the herbs?

Yes and no... while herbs form the main part of the medicine I provide to you, the healing that occurs is an interaction between them and your own body. Sometimes this requires you to be willing to 'do the work' necessary to allow the plants to help your body move in the direction of health. Sometimes this work will be easy (eat more chocolate for those antioxidant polyphenols and lower your risk of heart disease? yes please!), and sometimes it may be hard (herbs can support your lungs and take the edge off nicotine withdrawal, but they can't make you give up the cigarettes which are the key to your chronic cough...thats down to you!).

How do I know my herbalist is qualified?

In the UK herbalism is an unregulated profession. Anyone can call themselves a herbalist and start working with patients. I firmly believe that plants are 'the people's medicine' and as such I believe this is the right legal status for herbalism.

I also think there are good reasons why people may prefer to consult with a herbalist that they know has achieved a certain standard of training, competence and qualification. There are several courses in the UK that provide such training, and there are several professional bodies that accredit them. My training course provided me with four years of full-time education in many of the same clinical skills that GPs are trained in, as well as specific knowledge of plant medicines, and 500 hours of practical, in-clinic, hands-on training with patients under the supervision of qualified herbalist practitioners. I graduated with a Diploma in Herbal Medicine with Distinction.

I am a member of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists (NIMH) which is the largest body of professional herbalists, established in 1894. NIMH ensures its members have degree-level or equivalent education from an accredited course, and provide codes of conduct, practice, and ethics, as well as enduring practitioners stay up-to-date through continuing professional development.

What did you do before becoming a herbalist?

Long story...! The short version is that I was an anthropologist with a fascination for all things human - who we are, where we came from, and why we behave the way we do.

The slightly longer version: I obtained my PhD in Osteoarchaeology in 2007, having done research on human skeletons in the UK and Europe that aimed to answer the question of whether there was mass migration of Angles, Saxons and Jutes into what is now England during the early medieval period. Following my PhD I changed my research focus completely, and worked at Durham University as a senior research associate and manager of the Parent-Infant Sleep Lab (now known as the Durham Infancy and Sleep Centre).

I studied the way babies sleep from an evolutionary perspective - thinking of humans as primates, and as mammals, and trying to work out what that meant for understanding how and why babies sleep as they do. We also considered the way social change and cultural factors affect the way we think babies should sleep, and how that affected certain behaviours - particularly decision making about where to put babies to sleep (cot or crib? own room? parents' bed?), and expectations about how babies should sleep (should they be sleep trained? when should they sleep? for how long?).

A lot of our work focussed on how all these issues affect breastfeeding, and also the risk of sudden infant death (SIDS, also known as cot death). We did pioneering research looking at how mums and babies (and sometimes dads!) sleep with their babies, and worked with national and international charities, the NHS, and government bodies, to improve the information and support available to parents. If you want to find out more about our work, or baby sleep research, check out the public information website I co-founded www.BasisOnline.org.uk or the DISC website.

My former colleague and Lab director Helen Ball has a new book out which distills her 30 years of experience researching baby sleep into a book aimed at parents - it is called How Babies Sleep: A Factful Guide to the First 365 days and Nights. Along with the BASIS website, it is a great resource for new and expectant parents and caregivers.

Why did you become a herbalist?

I loved being an anthropologist (I think I will always be one in a way!) and am extremely proud of what I achieved at Durham with my colleagues - we changed the narrative around baby sleep, and especially around babies sleeping in bed with their parents, When I started the advice was a simple "don't do it" because of a fear of SIDS. By the time I left Durham this message had changed to - "if you do it, here is what you need to know. There are benefits and risks that parents need to know about to make an informed choice". This is a much more appropriate message that acknowledges that co-sleeping is normal and natural for all babies, and is beneficial in lots of ways, but there are risks for some, and it's important to be able to talk about these.

In 2020, with COVID, the whole country went into lockdown, and many of us turned our focus back to the natural world immediately around us. For me, a number of factors aligned in just the right way at just the right time: I was taking a sabbatical from work having just completed treatment for cancer, and my father was on hospice care, I was making the most out of this unique 'pause' to reconnect with the natural world, and something made me google 'herbs for grief'. This led me to the enormous Hawthorn tree which stands behind my clinic, and which I now know not only helps with healing the physical heart, supporting circulation and lowering blood pressure, but can also help with emotional heartbreak and grief. I went outside, plucked a sprig of flowers, and made a cup of tea... and the rest, as they say, is history! My goal as a herbalist is not simply to make patients feel better with medicines, but to provide them a space to be truly heard, and to facilitate a connection with the plant world which has so much to offer.

If you have any questions that aren't answered on the website, please get in touch using the contact form or via charlotte.herbal@icloud.com.

Thank you for choosing Wild Roots Herbal Medicine. I look forward to welcoming you to my practice!