Sometimes, it just doesn’t. A bit like if you attempted to fix your car when it breaks down. If you aren’t a mechanic, you may or may not get it right.
Also, mechanics don’t always get it right first time as cars (and bodies) are complex.
However, if you tried an over-the-counter herbal preparation there may be many reasons why.
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It wasn’t prescribed for you
When you visit a medical herbalist, you are being assessed using the same approach to understanding your body that nurses and GPs do.
A herbalist looks at everything about your health before prescribing for you.
In a shop, the staff may not have had a medical training.
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You chose it from a list of herbal options in a book
Whilst there is nothing wrong with this, it is a symptomatic approach and which can be very helpful, it may also simply not work for you.
Herbs are complex and so are we. To get it right may require some understanding of the herb’s full action picture before being used.
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You chose it for symptomatic relief
Again, there is nothing wrong with that but the cause of your symptoms is not addressed when you just treat the symptoms. Symptom relief is often very effective with herbal treatment but is not going to stop the illness. It also doesn’t take into account how a few apparently minor symptoms may all contribute to the same condition and the herb of choice wasn’t treating all of those things.
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It wasn’t good quality
Some of the herbal supplements available in shops use different plant parts than those which are used by herbalists. For example, Echinacea is a brilliant herb. Herbalists use the root. Some capsules contain leaf and root. Now, the leaf also contains some of the good stuff but nothing like as much as the root.