LopezRocks - Item

Pacific Bleeding Heart (Dicentra formosa) is in the poppy family (Papaveraceae), is native to the Pacific Northwest, and can be seen growing wild or ornamentally in lawns and natural areas throughout the region. There are some varieties sold in plant nurseries that look somewhat similar but do not share the medicinal qualities I will be discussing in this post.

Some years back I had a friend renting an old farmhouse here on Lopez Island and they hadn’t been doing any mowing or anything. All sorts of herbs and things were growing wild and she invited me over to come dig up what I wanted. I was able to transplant Bleeding Heart in numerous shaded areas on my property and they are thriving to this day. The timing turned out to be good, because after my friend had to move out that summer, the property was totally mowed down and nothing has been allowed to grow on it since.

Bleeding heart has a pretty specific medicinal focus: it helps with pain and all kinds of trauma. The leaves and flowers are more for shock, anxiety or emotional trauma, and the root is the more potent painkiller, although some would argue that the most benefit comes from mixing all parts of the plant together in a tincture.

The Skagit Pacific Northwest tribe used it for things like toothaches and worms (https://www.wnps.org/native-plant-directory/102:dicentra-formosa-ssp-formosa#:~:text=Ethnobotany,been%20chewed%20to%20relieve%20toothaches.), but modern research is lacking, so often you will hear that it is poisonous. I’m noticing that AI searches online are just calling more and more plants poisonous if there isn’t solid scientific research on them, although if you ask AI to show you proof these plants are poisonous they often can’t do it. They might cite a case of someone from 1815 who might have been poisoned by the plant although the cause of poisoning turned out to be inconclusive-that sort of thing. It is probably better that AI is erring on the side of safety, but it also means you aren’t getting reliably great info about herbs.

So what do herbalists have to say about it? Well, we are not all in agreement about Bleeding Heart, and it isn’t at all well known outside this region. Some herbalists will say ‘just take one drop’ which is certainly a safe way to go, although I would say that is more of a symbolic dose than a medicinal one (and I have never heard anyone say that who has lived with intense pain).

So if you decide to proceed, you are doing so at your own risk. I’m writing about this for educational purposes only, and am certainly not advising anyone in any direction on it.

Is it a narcotic then? Well, that depends on what you mean. I don’t think that is the best word to use in this case, because when we say ‘narcotics’ we usually are thinking about pharmaceutical drugs like fentanyl, morphine, oxy, etc. Working with the entirety of a plant, rather than one isolated compound in epic concentrations, is incredibly different and substantially safer. It is possible that if certain alkaloids in this plant were isolated and then consumed in massive concentrations in the form of a drug, you would end up with similar associated risks as those other pharmaceuticals. But consuming a tea or small amounts of tincture of the whole plant is a very different scenario.

One thing herbalists do seem to agree on is that this is not a plant to consume in large quantities for long periods of time. Working with it in low doses could mean anywhere from 1 drop to 20-25 drops, and ideally you would be taking that along with other herbs that would be helping in other ways.

Ginger, for example, is highly anti-inflammatory, increases circulation and relaxes the muscles, so for many pain scenarios that would be quite beneficial.

Like any plant though, Bleeding Heart has more going on than just the one thing it is most known for. In his book Pacific Northwest Medicinal Plants, Scott Kloos writes of it: “In addition to their numbing effect, the alkaloids restore the flow of knotted and blocked energy at sites of physical trauma. The tea or tincture works just like acupuncture in this regard.” I would call that a complimentary action to the painkilling action, and is a quality that could actually facilitate healing rather than simply numbing the pain.

In my own experience, Pacific Bleeding Heart is reserved for occasional acute pain or trauma, like following a car accident or something like that. I used a bit briefly right after my hip replacement when I did not tolerate oxycodone or steroids, and also used some in a bad hip-flare up I had last year before the surgery and was not sleeping due to the pain. Pain does have a way of creating tension and other blockages that can get trapped in the body and create secondary problems over time, so being able to loosen those blockages is pretty valuable.

One really cool thing about a tincture is that you can apply it topically and take some internally as well and get much more targeted results than you would with pills. And, if you apply something topically it won’t alter your mental state the way it would internally, so that is an added bonus. I have found this topical-plus-internal combination to be more effective than anything else I have tried for pain. And if you feel squeamish about taking it internally, just using it topically is for sure a safer option.

The best way to get the most from the herb is to apply some tincture directly over the affected area, and then put a salve over that to lock it in so it lasts longer. The salve can have other herbal helpers in it like lymphatic herbs, circulatory stimulants, anti-inflammatories, etc., but if you don’t have that you can just use some olive oil or something you have on hand (olive oil itself is highly anti-inflammatory). Then take a small amount of the tincture internally as well (you could try anywhere from a few drops up to one dropperful). Like with anything, you would always want to try a very small amount first to make sure you do not have an allergic reaction or adverse effects. The most likely adverse effect would be a skin rash.

For anyone who has trouble with alcohol, Bleeding Heart can actually be extracted well with vinegar. That’s because vinegar extracts alkaloids very well, and the alkaloids are what are giving Bleeding Heart its medicinal actions. You might have to experiment a bit with the dose on that, but I would not advise taking much more of it in the vinegar format-the vinegar really does the job so well that you don’t have to take a whole lot!

If all of this sounds intriguing but you are looking for something a little less controversial, you could look into Wild Lettuce (ideally one that has been tinctured with the milky sap). In herb school it was hammered into us that Wild Lettuce (Lactuca virosa) is as an extremely safe herb for the kind of pain that keeps you from sleeping, and it could be grown here. While it’s not my personal favorite, I do know many people who swear by it. Finding a high quality tincture can be tricky though, although I have seen some people getting a lot of benefit even from just tincturing the dried herb using a simple folk method. It’s worth a try.

Do we have all the scientific studies we need to back up what they teach in reputable herb schools? Sadly, no. We just don’t have enough scientific data on most herbs to know exactly how safe they are, although active clinical herbalists who regularly consult with other clinical herbalists do at least have 1000’s of their own case studies to compare with (something that was not possible before online collaboration became possible), and that is its own kind of research. It’s what we have, and for now, it’s looking like less research is going to be happening rather than more, so we are not likely to get the studies we would like to see happening on many of these herbs (at least in the US).

If you do decide to grow some Bleeding Heart, the internet will tell you it is deer resistant. In my experience, that is just not true. The deer will eat it. It will grow back though, so don’t lose heart if that happens. I just cover mine with cages, although I get annoyed that I don’t get to look at those beautiful flowers all the time.

And if you’re not interested in the medical aspects but are all about planting native species, this one is great at providing nectar early in the season (it starts growing often in February), and the distinctive heart shaped flowers stick around for months. A lovely addition to any woodland garden!