The experiment paid off. Any time I consistently was able to consumer a leaf or two of feverfew a day, I saw a dramatic decrease in headaches, with the intensity lessening and the frequency dropping from an average of about one a day to one a week.
However, as with many great things, there was a problem: feverfew leaves do nasty things to your mouth after a while. Some of the known side effects include irritations of the mouth and deadening of the taste buds, and I experienced these. It became very difficult to want to take the feverfew, even when the positive impact was so dramatic. Swallowing the leaves whole seemed to decrease the effectiveness.
I dried some feverfew, but man, is that stuff seriously gross to try to swallow on its own! I stopped taking feverfew, especially in winter, and my headaches came back. For the past six months, I've been hearing radio commercials about "frequent headache" being defined as 15 or more headaches a month, and I've had a few fantasies about how awesome it must be to have only 15 headaches a month. That's how bad it was there for a while.
So, Mr. FC&G and I went to the local ultra-expensive organic foodie store, and we found vegetarian gelatin capsules, ready for filling. I am experimenting -- currently I'm using a size 00, I believe -- and I am filling it with dried feverfew. Once again, my headaches are diminishing and becoming further apart, and it appears I am experiencing the benefits sooner than expected when eating the leaves fresh, probably because I'm consuming more feverfew dried in these capsule. Best of all, no more sore mouth and dead taste buds.
I'll keep you posted on the continued results. But so far, I'm a big fan of encapsulating herbs and spices that may be beneficial to your health yet unpalatable to eat in quantity. I have some ideas for future capsules, but I'd like to hear your experiences. Leave them in the comments below!
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