Willow Bark Aspirin

[Me_Again]

My post WTSHTF skills set has been increased in the last year by adding herbal medicines. As a former pharmacist [another job from my wide ranging CV] and as someone who suffers from a chronic pain condition I thought I'd better read up on it and get some practice in. I have been taking, since august, a tincture made from anti-inflammatory herbs, this is to replace the prescription anti-inflammatories, which of course won't be available and besides, are quite harmful themselves over a long period of time. The big thing for me to get my head around is to get used to not having an idea/accurate assessment of the active ingredients like you do in pharmaceuticals.
I located a source of young willows and started stripping bark in a careful and sustainable way. [it is actually best don in spring and I will collect enough for a year come next spring] The wood itself is very useful but the bark has the salicin in it. As people know salicin is a pre-cursor to acetyl salicylic acid [aspirin] and salicylates are what it and aspirin are metabolised to when you take them. I located Mugwort and Yarrow too [I took a yarrow cutting and grew some which will go in the herb garden next year]
I made a tincture in the prescribed manner and flavoured it with liquorice and cloves [something I now maintain a stock of] and honey [we have bee hives not far away]. I was intensely curious to see if I could suppress the prostaglandins with natural extracts and was prepared to suffer a little until I got the dosage and concentrations correct -which I believe I have now.
I can say with hand on heart that if it hadn't worked I'd have been curled up in a ball in a corner somewhere as it gets that bad. Only one period of a week did I get a sort of rising breakthrough pain. I experimented and discovered that increasing the dosage substantially increased the effect and succeeded in suppressing the inflammation and the pain it causes. The thing about salicin as you take it, which is totally different to aspirin, and is why you can take it without ANY gastric issues, is that salicin is alkaline in tinctures or teas. Aspirin is of course an acid and this accounts for its negative effect on the gut.
So I'm able to self medicate now.
I've started looking into salves for cuts and abrasions, honey and garlic dip which is great for colds/flu and a hundred other possible locally available and really useful preparations.

By the way this bit "..potential of Reye's syndrome.. " is just another one of those myths. Manufacturers of paracetomol [which is truly toxic] came up with a way of getting rid of a less expensive but wholly more effective rival by inferring/insinuating and associating aspirin with this reversible blood dyscrasia. Aspirin/salicin is much more effective than paracetamol for anti-inflammatory/anti-pyretic properties and about the same for analgesic properties. I believe the best estimate they could give was that 1:80000 children under the age of 12, may have a reversible blood dyscrasia. This was the information that was released as justification back in 1978-80 I think it was, to stop giving aspirin preps to under 12s. Lo and behold Calpol was plastered all over the adverts afterwards.
Post apocalypse, healers will be in demand too I think so I will re-visit my diagnostic and other skills with a view to having herbal options for the problems I'll be able to diagnose.