Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Choreito is a herbal mix used in Kampo, the herb system of Japan. It has five parts. Two are mushrooms, one is a marsh plant root, one is a soft mineral called talc, and one is gelatin made from hide.
People take it for burning or painful urination. It is also used when urine is dark, scant, or has a trace of blood in it.
Choreito sits on Japan's list of 148 Kampo formulas that the national health plan will pay for. A doctor there can write it on a script. In other countries you can buy it as a powder or in tablets.
Long use in a tradition is not proof that a remedy works. The human trial base for Choreito is thin. Most of what we know comes from small Japanese reports and from lab work.
No one has shown how Choreito works in the body. What follows is the idea behind the mix, not proven fact.
Three of the five parts act as mild water pills, which means they make you pass more urine. The hope is that more urine flushes the bladder and eases the sting.
Gelatin is said to soothe raw tissue and to slow light bleeding. Talc was used in old texts to cool heat in the lower body. In Kampo terms, the mix treats heat and damp held in the bladder.
Some lab work hints that parts of the mix may calm swelling. That work was done in cells and in mice, not in people.
Granules are the main form. They come in a sachet of powder that you tip into warm water and drink. This is what most Japanese doctors hand out.
You can also find tablets and capsules. Some clinics still boil the raw parts into a tea, which is the old way.
Granule strength differs by brand, so check the label each time you switch.
Choreito first appears in the Shanghan Lun, a Chinese medical text from about 200 CE. Its Chinese name is Zhu Ling Tang.
Japanese doctors took up the formula long ago and kept it under the name Choreito. It is now a set item in Kampo practice and one of the 148 formulas Japan's health ministry has approved for insurance cover.
See a doctor within a day if your urine burns and you also have a fever, chills, sickness, or pain in your lower back. That can mean the infection has reached your kidneys.
Go to a doctor the same day for more than a trace of blood in your urine, for severe side pain that comes in waves, or if you cannot pass urine at all.
Stop the herb and get help if you get a spreading rash, swelling of the lips or tongue, trouble breathing, yellow skin or eyes, or dark urine that begins after you start taking it. Also check in with a doctor if your symptoms have not eased after three days.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
Reviewed by the HealisticMD editorial team How we grade evidence →
The published evidence for Choreito is weak or absent. That usually means no controlled trial has tested it, not that a trial found it ineffective — the two are different, and we grade only what has been published.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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