Rethinking Arthritis: A Whole-Body Herbal Approach

By Tyler Dickerson, Clinical Herbalist & Educator When most people hear the word arthritis, they think of stiff, swollen joints, aching knees, or the bottle of pain relievers in the medicine cabinet. But arthritis isn’t one thing—it’s an umbrella term for

Why My First Session Takes 90 Minutes

An herbal consultation isn’t a quick “this herb for that problem.” We spend 90 minutes to two hours together, because everything matters—your digestion, stress levels, sleep, energy, even how you respond to your environment.

This isn’t extra detail; it’s the foundation. We look for patterns in your body and life that conventional medicine often overlooks. That’s how we get beyond symptom relief and create real shifts in health.

Think about stress headaches: when your shoulders knot up, your jaw clenches, and the pain pulses at your temples. To an herbalist, that’s not random—that’s a pattern. And there are specific herbs to meet it: kudzu for spasmodic neck tension, blue vervain for tight shoulders, mullein root for the jaw, Ashwagandha for stress resilience, skullcap to calm the nervous system.

This is the precision of herbal medicine—supporting the body at multiple levels so the same problem doesn’t keep coming back.

Two People, Same Diagnosis, Two Different Plans

Let’s say two clients come in with rheumatoid arthritis and knee pain:

Client A eats a highly processed diet, struggles with gas and bloating, and shows signs of leaky gut and inflammation.
Client B works a high-stress job, smokes when anxious, sleeps poorly, and has cortisol-driven fatigue and weight gain.

Both have RA, but their bodies are telling completely different stories.

For Client A, we’d focus on gut repair—healing the intestinal lining, soothing the digestive tract, and calming immune reactivity.
For Client B, the work begins with nervous system resilience—supporting sleep, regulating stress hormones, and reducing inflammatory load.

Yes, both feel knee pain. But pain is just the tip of the iceberg. The real work is uncovering and addressing what lies beneath.

The Power of Energetics

Here’s where herbalism goes deeper. Symptoms express themselves in patterns we call tissue states—hot or cold, damp or dry, tense or lax.

That’s why some people’s arthritis flares in the summer heat with red, swollen joints, while others ache more in the cold. Grandma predicting rain with her knees wasn’t folklore—it was body wisdom.

Herbs, too, have energetics: some cool, some warm, some moisten, some dry. Choosing the right herb for the right tissue state makes all the difference. For cold, throbbing pain, I might reach for ginger or Chuan xiong. For hot, inflamed joints, a cooling ally like devil’s claw might be the match.

Energetics keeps the care precise, effective, and tailored to you.

What Clinical Herbalism Really Offers

At its core, clinical herbalism is about seeing the person, not just the diagnosis. It’s whole-body, root-cause, individualized care.

If you’ve been living with arthritis and are ready for something beyond generic treatments—something that listens to your body’s unique story—I’d be honored to walk alongside you.

✨ Your healing is personal. Your care should be too.