Angelica 14, 250 tablets

Angelica 14 is a pain relieving formula, mainly intended for treatment of headache, neck pain, and other upper-body pains. The formula is based on several traditional prescriptions: Ophiopogon and Asarum Combination, Cnidium and Tea Formula, and Chiang-huo Combination. The traditional description of the pain syndrome is stagnation due to invasion of wind. This is a condition in which the blood vessels contract, producing the pain sensation. The upper body is most susceptible to wind. Several of the herbs of this formula are said to dispel wind and relieve surface congestion, including angelica, chrysanthemum, cnidium, chiang-huo, siler, and vitex. Except for chrysanthemum, these herbs have a warming quality: the warming nature of the herbs is a contributor to the desired rapid effect, which is a strong dispersing action. Scute, rehmannia, and chin-chiu clear internal heat and prevent heat agitation from exacerbating the surface wind. Although this formula is intended for short-term use in treating individual bouts of wind invasion, with appropriate accompanying treatments it can be utilized as a preventive agent for those who experience repeated wind invasion. Easy susceptibility to wind invasion suggests that the vessels are not richly supplied with qi and blood. In cases of blood stasis causing headache, add or substitute Cnidium 9 or Upper Palace Tablets; for wind-heat, try Chrysanthemum 9, and for liver fire headache, try Long Dan Xie Gan Wan.