I'd be interested in reading some more opinions on recommending echinacea for
mastitis.  After reading Angie's suggestion I checked the archives and only
got a couple of hits from '97 on this.  I've often thought this would be a
wonderful thing to recommend, but I'm hospital-based and Hale's book rates it
as an L3 (only moderately safe) and as AAP: Not reviewed.  So that makes me a
little leery of recommending it to a nursing mother--I don't feel like I have
decent references for my recommendation.  Personally, I think it's absolutely
wonderful stuff.  In the last several years since I started using it, every
time I feel the first twinges of a cold coming on I start taking it and the
symptoms are always gone within a day.  Since I have a garden full of purple
coneflowers I've made my own tincture the last two years--a bit
time-consuming, but CHEAP, and tasty since I steep the roots in blackberry
schnapps.  :-)

Becky Krumwiede, RN, IBCLC
Appleton, Wisconsin

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