Matthew Wood is available for therapeutic consultations. Appointments can be in-person or over the phone. In-person appointments may be conducted at either of his Twin Cities offices. Matthew is also available for in-person consultations when he is traveling abroad.

Send him an email at greenmedic@gmail.com for more information.

           

Testimonials

First Aide with Yarrow
A woman in her late fifties was involved in a serious car accident. I helped her by telephone.
Your quick advice about poulticing my head with Yarrow may have saved my life! There was such swelling and pain throughout my skull that I was worried about blood clots, aneurysms, stroke, brain damage, you name it. On Friday, 3 days after accident I did my first yarrow poultice and left it on for an hour or more. I felt relief almost immediately. Somewhere in that hour(s) I felt a sudden 'whooshing' in my brain, like a clogged drain opened up, and felt much better. Saturday, the pain came back, so I did another compress/poultice of Yarrow. Again, that same sensation of 'whooshing' happened.
Valerie, Arizona, July 2007.

Terrible Spinal Pain
Terrible nerve pain is something I and my students are very good with, giving partial to complete relief. The main remedies are prickly ash, St. John's wort, and (sometimes) calamus root. If they whine, give chamomille. I never got to thank you PROPERLY for what you did to help me get through the after pain of my spinal surgery. The herbs helped a lot. Period. Within 6 weeks, my hips stopped hurting (so badly I had to lie on the floor for an hour at dinner time). Thank goodness for you. I have no idea what I would have done with that kind of pain for another 6 months or a year.
Jack, guest client in class, Massachusetts, 2002.

Breast Cysts
When we were chatting, I had mentioned that my two friends and I did a self-clinical study on Easter Lily for fibrocystic breast disease and cyclical breast pain and swelling. We took 1-3 drops of Easter Lily tincture (from Bear Wallow Herbs, they make delicious remedies!) directly on our tongues each morning. After one month we all felt an increase softness in our breast tissue. One woman experienced a heavier and darker than usual menstrual cycle with a feeling of relief afterwards. She was struggling with the decision to divorce after cheating on her husband several times, she also has sexual and substance abuse in her background. Once she finished her cycle, she decided to leave her husband and no longer needed the remedy. The second woman noticed that she had no pain in her breasts before her menses and that her cycles became more regular. I noticed (after 2 months) that my breast lumps were almost completely gone and I have had no symptoms of soreness premenstrually.

I hope that helps. I have also been using Easter Lily in my clinical practice it seems to help especially with women who have had some kind of sexual trauma in their lives. It seems to soften them and release tension around sexual identity. I use 1 - 3 drops daily with them. I look forward to trying it with uterine cysts. Would PCOS also be a good pattern to use it with?
Ashley., Virginia, 2012.

PCOS
Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome responds well to Easter lily. I have seen it remove the cysts dozens of times. Case histories are given in my book, Seven Herbs, Plants as Teachers, as well as other case histories on breast cysts.

Infertility
This is another condition treatable by Easter lily. This remedy is indicated when there is mucus in the womb or fallopian tubes, causing eggs to stick fast in the mucus and become ovarian cysts (PCOS), or, if the egg descends, not allowing it to adhere to the mucous membrane of the womb. The presence of mucus is indicated by a menstrual discharge with brown and stringy mucus mixed with the blood. I had to discover this symptom myself, it is not in the biomedical books, nor in traditional Chinese medicine.

Infertility
Here are some case histories of infertility from memory using yet other herbs.
I came back after lunch to the chiropractic clinic where I worked but forgot my key and had to wait on the front steps. A woman in her mid to late thirties I had seen seven months previously came up to the stairs. 'Oh, hi,' I said, and explained we would have to wait a bit. 'Nice to see you again. Did I help you last visit?' She patted her pregnant belly and her eyes shined. 'Oh yeah, I forgot.' The remedy in this case was Lactuca scariola (prickly lettuce).

A few years later I was in Vermont. A 43 year old woman was rather intense about getting pregnant; she had one seven year old but had not been fertile for several years. Slow, hard pulse, as in the above case, indicated Lactuca. Apparently I said something that led her to believe I predicted she would be pregnant within five days. Well, she was. I don't remember that!

I told that story to a 31 year old woman who wanted to have a second child. She had not ovulated for two years, had spent ten thousand dollars on fertility treatments, and was declared to have 'premature menopause' by her physicians. Her skin, tongue, and pulse indicated dryness, probably lack of good oils. She took burdock root and true unicorn root, about which Dr. Christopher said, 'If you don't want to get pregnant, don't get near this herb.' She was pregnant in five days and called me to joke about it.

Endometriosis and Infertility
A twenty eight year old woman emailed me for help with endometriosis. She and her husband wanted to have a baby. Her doctor recommended a hysterectomy. She received birth root (Trillium spp.), 1-3 drops, 1-3 times a day. Within ten months she sent me the sonagram of their six month old fetus.

When she brought the sonagram to the doctor he yelled at her, 'You trusted your life to an herb?' He didn't ask about it, didn't know it was nontoxic (but tastes terrible), and didn't know that I gave tiny doses. Surgery, on the other hand, can kill. I ask my readers to judge: was this the reaction of a true scientist or was it superstition?

Cats
A cat lover contacted me from Edmonton, Alberta. We talked by telephone. I helped her several times over the years. The following is the last communication, from 2011.
My cat Social just had his exam and blood work recheck. Dr. X is thrilled with the improvements. Everything has improved! We are still waiting for the rabbit tobacco. I could not get it here and finally called Walker Farms and they have shipped some. The Linden Flower made it possible for Social to come off the Gravel Root. Currently Social is on Linden Flower, Rosehip, and Scrophularia, for inflammation and glandular disease. His lymphocytes are still high but not up in the sky [like they were when we started]. His thyroid actually showed up on the test this time. Usually it is so low it never shows, but thyroid panels always show that it is working perfect, just suppressed by some other condition. The high calcium [in the blood] is now normal or well on the way. His kidney levels are now also normal. It is his best blood panel he has ever had.

Thank you so much. I will keep you updated. I assume I continue on for now. It is so nice to see the improvement in his fur and to have him holding a nice weight. His breathing is much better too. Still a bit of an issue, but not like before.
Susan, Edmonton, Canada

Migraine
Many months ago we had a consultation about migraines that I was suffering from. The first month I still had a migraine but much less intense and shorter duration. The second month I felt a migraine (that seemed like it would be severe) coming on and took a combination of huckleberry tincture and rosemary tincture, the symptoms subsided. I had to repeat the process 4 hours later, but I never did get a migraine. I have continued to use the Huckleberry tincture daily and the Sumac as needed. The third month I did not have a migraine, nor the threat of one.

I am thrilled that we seem to have found the solution. There are no words to express my gratitude, it has changed my world to not feel so 'out of control' with no solution and it has changed my world to not suffer through such pain for days. I am also thrilled that will help my long term health (since I was totally unaware of the risks that I faced in the future).
Elizabeth, Niagra Falls, NY

Lyme Symptoms
Just a quick note to offer you a heartfelt thanks. Aho! . . . I did book an appointment with you some months ago, so we have had the privilege to speak.
I had a dream last week . . . I was listening to a man's voice speaking about the healing properties of boneset and how important it was for me to take the boneset to encourage my Lyme recovery. I had a chuckle in my dream as I thought . . . is that Matthew Wood lecturing? Sure sounds like it, as he knows everything about healing Lyme. I could only listen . . . as I could not see.
For months and months I've taken teasel. I've had 'intense' sweats and chills from morning to night for a very long time. Sleep has been short and disrupted. However, the spirit of boneset [taken in an herbal tincture] gave me peaceful nights sleep with the first dose. Such a blessing and graceful magic for healing!
Truthfully, I would never have believed in the healing powers it provided IMMEDIATELY. A heartfelt thanks to you and your work in the world. One of these days I'll be booking another phone appointment with you.
I so love my Book of Herbal Wisdom . . . It was a great confirmation of my dream state and your ability to tell stories. It's such a delightful read . .. a rare approach to herbal learning. The Book of Herbal Wisdom gives case histories demonstrating the traditional use of the plant for severe chills, so the dream was right! Bless you my green friend! Thank-you.
M.A., Toronto, Ontario

Agrimony
By the way, when I began reading The Book of Herbal Wisdom, I was interning at this small homestead farm with a guy named A. He and his wife B. were old-fashioned vegetarians of the no-salt, no-oil, no-flavor variety, and meals would often consist solely of steamed vegetables. This was problematic for me because I was working for room and board, and didn't have a kitchen of my own at my disposal. The saving grace was that they kept ten Nigerian Dwarf goats, whose milk was basically my sole source of protein. Some tension developed, however, because B. wanted to sell more of the milk than was available with the three of us consuming it, and I wanted my sole source of protein. As this was going on, I read your chapter on Agrimony and Cinquefoil in The Book of Herbal Wisdom. I thought I'd try taking a sprig of Cinquefoil, which was growing all over the place there, and putting it in the refrigerator, which seemed like the energetic center of the tension. The next *day* B. came up to me and said, "Hey G., what if we bought you raw a gallon or two of raw cow's milk every week so that we have enough goat's milk to sell?" Up until that point everything had been silent passive aggression. Cinquefoil worked it out!

All the best,
G.

Drug Addiction
A loving sister who I helped over the decades in Minneapolis writes,

"Two things really connected Rich back to himself as he freed to disconnect from the drugs, herbalism and Tibetan Buddhism. As 2 and 4 year olds we played in the garden in Virginia, saw the nature spirits and played herbalogist. Rich planted in the yard and grew them around his bed as a child. He loved gardens. The self-medicating disconnected him. Your book woke it up for him and meeting you took it to a new level. Your books show herbs as alive with personality. Rich started growing (literally), doing herb walks, and making tinctures. When he moved to Hawaii he started a community garden and taught others. Thank you."

It has been my pleasure to help many people through consultations, recommendations, teaching, and writing. All I did to help this man was expose him to herbalism. Just by being itself herbalism radiates cure into the body and the soul because it is wholesome, natural, and beautiful.