By Sola Ogundipe

TWENTY years after he began an odyssey into the world of herbal medicine, Dr. Isaac Ayodele, a Naturopathic Medicine practitioner, Public Health expert, environmentalist and Founder, DIAFA Ayodele Herbals, recounts his sojourn into the arena of promoting traditional medicine and healthy lifestyle. Excerpts:

At our arrival in 1996, it was a sin to talk about herbal or traditional medicine. It was then regarded by the elites as medicine for pagans. Herbal medicine in syrups was referred to as concoctions. Those in powdered form were called agunmu.

•Dr. Ayodele

Those in the form of injection were gbere. Indeed, herbal medicine was castigated as voodoo medicine.

The practitioners were called babalawo and servants of Satan. Church leaders told their members to keep off herbal medicine. In fact, you stood the risk of being excommunicated in some churches if you dare take what they referred to as concoction. That was the same time that some churches were terrorized for watching television.

It was in one of those churches that I wedded in 1990. On the wedding day our chief bridesmaid was disqualified because she flew down from London the previous day for the ceremony.

Our video man was told to stop shooting the video and the photographer was not allowed to take any photograph. Our reception which was fixed at Shell Club Port-Harcourt was also disqualified. All these were referred to as sins which God would not forgive.

New order
So it was then with herbal and traditional medicine. This situation made us to know in Ayodele that we were in for a serious work to uplift herbal medicine and make it acceptable to the elite. To start with, we embarked on a new information order. We had to appeal to our media men to give herbal medicine a pride of place. We told them to not to call it concoction, but call it syrup. So, we brought in the gelatin to capsulate our powder to capsules, and packaged the syrup.

We developed tablets, blisters and cream. Even at that, the elite still felt herbal medicine was still satanic, until the revolution that took place at the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, which made herbal medicine to be considered as medicine that the elite could take.

There was product analysis and toxicology was thoroughly examined in standard laboratories to assure the people that herbal medicine was not an agent of death contrary to what they believed.

Health by mail
To confront the tide, Ayodele had to digitalize herbal medicine. We were the first to introduce health by mail with courier companies to deliver within 2 to 48 hours. In the last few months we embarked on re-engineering of our production line. Our factory is better structured. We went into organic farming, from where our raw materials are derived for the production of our products.
Our website is interactive. It is very untraditional for herbal medicine to have a mobile app, but the Ayodele Herbal mobile App is available on Google play.

Music as medicine
I have several eBooks one of which is entitled: ‘’Seventeen medicinal power of music.’’ Music, yes music, what you call ordinary music is not just music, it is medicine. In fact, in some new generation hospitals there is a unit created for music to expedite the healing process of the mentally, physically and otherwise ill of acute or chronic ailments.

In over 20 years of meeting thousands of clients, numerous people who suffered cognitive intelligence problems, depression, insomnia, high blood pressure, among others have been healed through music. Indeed, music plays a great role in optimum health.
In this book, I have given out 17 secrets of how ancient and modern people have used music to cure themselves of acute and chronic diseases, when the doctor is in sight and out of sight. This book is being used by doctors, other medical personnel and patients to equip themselves with the way to get well and treat patients using music.

Miracle in the kitchen
Another very great book is ‘’8 Proven Miracle Foods in Your Kitchen.’’ Do you know that there are many health products in your kitchen which can heal you of unimagined ailments? The foods in your kitchen and water that gushes out from the tap or dispenser are all medicine.

My experience spanning over two decades in herbal medicine both as a registered practitioner of herbal medicine and a doctor of public health has exposed me to the miracle foods in your kitchen, which the medical system will not want you to know because it will collapse their economy.

In this book, I have condensed over 50 foods into eight miracle foods which can heal you and your family as well as your community of health crises that engulf the world due to environmental, physical and self inflicted health hazards that make life short and miserable.

You may be surprised what the ordinary chicken fats can do for you when you bleed. You can absolutely rely in your kitchen to get rid of diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure and more deadly diseases of our time.

Stomach bloating
Also very good is the book on ‘’15 ways to get rid of bloated stomach.’’ You see as we imbibe a denatured lifestyle, eating lots of pastries and gulping sugar and sodium in addition to an alcoholic lifestyle, we are constantly beset with a load of numerous health crises that send us to an early grave. Obesity, hypertension, fibroids, infertility and low blood and sperm count; insomnia and cancer become the order of the day.

One serious problem that we often overlook and which remains the bane of our multifarious medical afflictions is stomach bloating as a result of gas and the inability of our body to digest and break down food. When gas does not leave the body through burping or flatulence, it builds up in the digestive tract and leads to bloating. Sometimes it results in pot belly, chest pain as well as heart related problems. In this book, I gave 15 most effective ways to get rid of stomach bloating. For now, I have made this book a free gift.

We now have webinar where we reach out online all over the world one on one. In terms of efficacy, we have loads of testimonies from Nigeria and abroad of people who had crises with infertility, diabetes, high blood pressure, pot belly and many other debilitating ailments.

We have also embarked on vigorous research. We are resolving some cardiovascular ailments in addition to treating diabetes from the root. High blood sugar is only a symptom. It is not a disease. What triggers the high sugar level is part of the remedies we want to resolve very soon. It has been a wonderful 20 years spent.