Donna M. Merrill
Registered Nurse, BSN
Registered Herbalist, AHG

The classes described here are a partial list of the subjects Donna covers. Please feel free to contact Donna if you have an idea for a class, or would like her to offer one of her courses in your venue.

Learn the basic principles of herbalism, the forms of herbs, and herb safety. Herbal medicine has special strengths that conventional medicine cannot offer. Learn the six unique herbal actions and herbs in those categories that support health and wellness.

Are you confused by the food pyramid and all of the diet fads? Do you want to know the essentials of healthy eating and a diet that works for you? Donna will paint broad strokes of what constitutes a good diet. Bring your diet questions to this class.

Explore how diet and herbal remedies can be used to enhance this exciting life passage. Nutritional and herbal support for the two commonly feared conditions of osteoporosis and heart disease. For women seeking information and support for using natural products.

We will discuss herbs to nourish and support the entire cardiovascular system. Learn dietary and herbal suggestions for the chronic conditions of hypertension, atherosclerosis, high cholesterol, and palpitations.

The Mayo Clinic has reported that psychological stress is the strongest risk factor for predictive future cardiac events. Chronic stress increases blood pressure, increases the heart rate and increases platelet aggregation. We know that the Type A personality has a higher incidence of heart disease. Basically, chronic stress is a big factor in all degenerative disease. Any chronic, negative emotion constitutes stress (chronic anxiety, depression, anger, worry, fear, sadness, chronic pain or sickness). Come hear about stress management techniques and treatment of cardiovascular disease from a holistic and herbal medicine perspective.

Suffering from chronic colds, or sinusitis? Come learn herbal treatments for colds, allergies, sinus infections, sore throats, laryngitis, bronchitis, and pneumonia. Learn herbs to strengthen the immune system.

A discussion of dietary and lifestyle choices, and herbal therapies for the prevention and treatment of cancers. Learn herbs to support the immune system, herbs to help the body eliminate waste and herbs to support specific body tissue weakened by the cancer.

Tired of the endless round of earaches, antibiotics, thrush and another earache? Want tools to manage common childhood complaints like colic, teething, otitis media, pink eye, colds, runny nose, sore throats, coughs and more? This is the class for you. It includes fever management and how to get the dosage right for childen when using herbs. You will also learn lots of ways to get children to take herbs! The extensive handouts include herbs appropriate for children and book recommendations.

Are you seeking alternatives to Ritalin for your child? Come learn dietary, and herbal alternatives to drug therapy. After the talk there will be an open session where you can Ask the Herbalist questions about your other health concerns for your child.

A discussion of herbal therapies for kidney stones, and kidney support, as well as urinary tract and bladder infections. We will also discuss interstitial cystitis.

Interstitial cystitis (IC) is a condition that results in recurring discomfort or pain in the bladder and the surrounding pelvic region. People may experience mild discomfort, pressure, tenderness, or intense pain in the bladder and pelvic area. Symptoms may include an urgent need to urinate (urgency), a frequent need to urinate (frequency), or a combination of these symptoms. We will discuss dietary and herbal strategies for this painful condition.

Headaches are one of the most common ailments that plague mankind and are a daily occurrence for many people. We will discuss tension headaches, menstrual headaches and both vasoconstrictive and vasodilative migraines with dietary and herbal strategies for the different headache types.

Millions suffer the chronic pain of fibromyalgia. This syndrome is a constellation of chronic symptoms that tend to occur in clusters including deep muscle aching, burning, stabbing, throbbing pains, and profound fatigue and muscular weakness. Approximately 70% also have symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome. Come learn the dietary and herbal strategies for dealing with this complex syndrome.

Diabetes and insulin resistance is epidemic in the United States predominantly secondary to the standard American diet. The complications from this disease, which include blindness, kidney failure and peripheral vascular disease, are projected to bankrupt our health care system as the baby boomers age. Learn dietary and herbal strategies for dealing with this common condition and its side effects.

When spring is in the air it is the time of year when most of us feel the need to start anew, whether it be cleaning the house, preparing garden beds, or reawakening the body and mind with a cleansing diet and herbs, saunas, soaks and an exercise program. Learn how and when to cleanse and what to do after the detox to support healthy digestion.

Learn strategies to decrease the allergic component of reactive airway diseases to minimize the need for rescue therapy in these conditions. There is much that can be done to decrease environmental, stress and dietary triggers. Learn supportive therapies for immune balance and lung strengthening.

In “whole body” medicine the skin is seen as an organ of vicarious elimination, thus reflecting a larger disorder within the body when its organs of elimination lose their ability to detoxify the end products of unhealthy diet and environmental contaminants. Mental and physical stress may lead to a breakdown in tissue integrity. Come learn natural strategies to handle common chronic skin disorders.

Stressed and blue? Come learn the herbal remedies used for these conditions. We cannot talk about stress, anxiety, depression and insomnia without discussing nutrition and lifestyle choices. We give lip service to the degree of illness caused by stress, when clearly most chronic illness is caused by the body’s inability to balance the demands we place on it.

How well we digest, assimilate, and eliminate what we eat often leads to either health or disease. We will discuss helpful herbs for the common problems many people suffer, such as chronic reflux, diarrhea, constipation and irritable bowel syndrome. Learn about leaky gut syndrome and how this condition can lead to many chronic diseases like migraines, arthritis, and auto-immune diseases. Herbs are useful for treating both the symptoms and causes of these conditions.

Suffering with osteoarthritis, bursitis or gout? Tired of the side effects of NSAIDs? An herbalist’s holistic approach to these conditions can offer pain relief, anti-inflammatory herbs, reduce and prevent further damage, and help to restore normal function. We will not discuss rheumatoid arthritis (see The Hyperactive Immune System), but much we discuss will be useful in this condition.

The hyperactive response of the immune system can be viewed as a continuum from mild conditions, such as allergies, to severe or extreme examples, such as autoimmune disease. Autoimmune diseases are rampant including Graves’, Hashimoto’s, Sjogren’s, Lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis. Come learn ways to normalize the overactive immune system.

Are you having trouble making it into the store during Donna’s regular consultation times? Bring your questions to this “open mike” session and we will discuss your topics of interest in the open group format. Be sure to bring paper and pen to note the answer to your questions.

We use plants daily as food and medicine, but herbs have also traditionally been used for treating emotional and spiritual disease. In this capacity we utilize the plants’ unique personalities and energies in addition to their medicinal qualities. Herbs are often used to cleanse energy fields of negativity or to bring in positive energy. Plants can be used as incense, as baths, as perfumes or paints and in mind altering ways. Come let the plants teach you.

This is a four hour class in which we cover how to make herbal medicines: teas; alcoholic tinctures (fresh and dry herb); medicinal vinegars, honeys, and oils (culinary and medicinal). We also make an ointment, a beauty cream and a clay for bug bites. We discuss the derivatives of these processes, e.g. cough medicine from teas and cordials from tinctures, etc. Students usually take home vinegar for osteoporosis, and Boo Boo Balm (ointment), a Beauty cream, a bug bite balm (clay) and recipes. We also discuss the external application of plants. We usually have a 30 minute lunch break in the middle, so it’s really four ½ hours.

I have an extensive medicinal herb garden in my back yard. I have an 18 page handout of the uses for the herbs growing there, but truly you could spend many months learning in the herb garden. I have herbs from the Native American, Eclectic, European, and Chinese Tradition of Herbal medicine. There are a few Ayurvedic plants. It is best to visit the herb garden often, because at different times of the year, different things are blooming. I grow many of the threatened and endangered woodland herbs in a tiny bed.

Herb Walks of a less formal nature can happen anywhere there are plants, and I can discuss the medicinal uses of everyday, common weedy herbs. I can also do this in my backyard, or yours.

Both of these classes run for three to four hours.