Belladonna, Dosing
Answered by: Christine Dennis
Question from: Patty
Posted on: September 30, 2009

I have 3 Belladonna plants that have dill growing all around them. Can I still use the dill ? I just wanted to check first to see if the roots of other plants growing around Belladonna would somehow pick up some of it’s deadly components. I just didn’t want my dill pickles to kill me or possibly make me delirious. Also, the reason I had gotten the Belladonna was because I had read in very small quantities it acted as a muscle relaxant. I take a prescribed muscle relaxant every night at bed time. I thought an herbal one would be better, but in reading all the literature I can find on Belladonna, I’m not sure that’s a good idea, and I thought of just making a tea of the fresh leaf and drinking that , but I’m not sure of a quantity of fresh leaf. Do you have any recommendations? I don’t know how to safely go about this. Please let me know your thoughts.

It would be fine to harvest and use your dill. However, you are wise to be questioning it. Belladonna is a plant that demands a great deal of respect. It is a wonderful medicine but dosing is such a fine line with very little room for forgiveness. As such it is better to use safer herbs for the muscle relaxing properties such a black cohosh or lobelia in small drop dosage.

The way a herbalist may use such a herb is to take 1 or 2 drops of a tincture (1:10) of belladonna and add it to 50 mls of water. Then one would take 1/2 or 1 tsp of the water at a time. But again, one needs to be very careful. Consult a qualified herbalist before you do so.

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