Pharmacological question: Side effects of nettle tea? Catnip marshmallow and fennel tea?

[septimus]

Some medicinal herbs can be dangerous. I discovered one bad combination myself, as I reported here 6 years ago:

@septimus

I had an interesting close call about 2 weeks ago I almost started a thread about. My wife made me star gooseberry tea for a headache; a little later I took an isordil sublingual; later still I stood up. … Whoooo! Low blood pressure(??) I thought I was a goner. I lay down, wife asked if I wanted more star gooseberry tea which I hadn’t connected to the sensation. I said “Yes … wait, I’ll drink some water first.”

While drinking the water I recalled that the symptoms were similar to (but worse than) the time I had isordil a few days after a small dose of sildenafil. Using Google, I found some ambiguous comments about remedies in the same Phyllanthus genus as star gooseberry being dangerous for heart patients. (I thought about starting an IMHO thread: “I’ve learned something about Phyllanthus – is it well known?”)

Had I gone ahead and drunk some more star gooseberry tea, it might have been MUCH worse than a double dose of sedative.