Candee,
There are many dangerous drugs out there, true, and many of them are originally from plants like digitalis or are variants of plant compounds like the penicillins. Plant compounds that are active drugs generally are toxins made that protect the plant from being eaten by animals or having their habitat taken over by other plants. They have no special ability to regulate human metabolism or treat human malady--their compounds are something that has to be tested in humans and the laboratory. When you use the actual plant there are problems concerning identification and dosage. The amount of the active compound varies from plant to plant and leaf to leaf, so there has to be a large difference between an effective range and a toxic one. Many people who use botanicals feel that separating the "active" ingredient from the plant itself destroys important properties, but unless each dose is assayed, you have no idea how big a dose you are receiving. (Certainly we lose a lot separating vitamins from the foods that contain them naturally. But vitamins are part of plant nutrition, not defense, used to maintain health not to treat disease, and since we share the same needs for nuitrition as many plants, they help us maintain our health as well.)

Our usual therapeutic drugs are not ideal, but they have a track record. The death rate for MG was high before they were available. Mestinon only causes symptoms indistinguishable from MG in very high doses. It has side effects however like increasing secretions that may make breathing harder for people with compromised airways like asthmatics--that is not causing MG.

Much can be learned from individual experience, and dismissing something out of hand because it interferes with thinking and has caused enough problems to be illegal may not be wise, but accepting unproven therapies because we feel desperate and our drugs are not satisfactory, have side effects, and are not targeted specifically to our problem (in large part because it is not well understood) is to turn our backs on the progress being made. My neurologist promised me just yesterday to inform me about any magic solutions. I will pass that information on. :-) b.