Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
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Shi Wei is the dried leaf of a fern in the Pyrrosia group. In Traditional Chinese Medicine it is used mainly for urinary problems. Herbalists reach for it when peeing is painful, scanty or hard to start.
It is also used for cough and wheezing, and for blood in the urine. It is nearly always one herb inside a larger formula. You rarely see it given on its own.
The honest verdict on proof is short. Good human trials are lacking, so we cannot say it works for any illness. Long use in one tradition is not the same thing as proof of effect, and that applies to everything below.
No one has shown how Shi Wei acts inside the human body.
In Chinese medical theory it is said to clear heat and free the flow of urine. That is a traditional idea, not a lab result.
In animal studies, leaf extracts appear to raise urine output a little. In test tubes, the flavonoids in the leaf seem to calm inflammation and slow the growth of some bacteria. Whether any of this happens in people has not been tested.
Shi Wei is sold mainly as cut and dried leaf for a decoction. A decoction is a strong tea made by simmering the herb in water.
You may also see it as granules that dissolve in hot water. Some shops sell it as a powder, a tincture or a pressed pill.
In practice it usually arrives mixed with other herbs in a named formula.
Shi Wei appears in the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing, a Chinese herbal text from roughly 200 CE. It has stayed in use for urinary complaints ever since.
The name covers a few related ferns, chiefly Pyrrosia lingua, Pyrrosia sheareri and Pyrrosia petiolosa. All three are listed in the modern Chinese Pharmacopoeia.
See a doctor within a day if peeing burns or hurts, or if you see blood.
Get urgent care if you have a fever, chills, vomiting or pain in your side or lower back. Those can mean a kidney infection.
Also seek help if you cannot pee at all, or if you have severe waves of pain that come and go. Stop the herb and call a doctor if you get a rash, swelling or trouble breathing.
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 Shi Wei 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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