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How Traditional Chinese
Medicine treats disease
Traditional Chinese Medicine uses diet
(diet therapy), professional means, evidence-based means for the
treatment.
Diet Therapy
Chinese Medicine emphasizes the diet
therapy more than the herbs or acupuncture, in the prevention of
diseases.
In the diet therapy, the diet recommended
to the patient is based also on the Chinese medicine concept,
the Yin and Yang of the illness, with the aim to release
accumulated illness-causing factors or supply more energy,
blood, Yin or Yang aspect of the body. Therefore it doesn’t mean
that there is some diet that will suit to every one. Each body
is different for their body constitution (cold body, or warm
body, Yin-deficiency body or Yang deficiency body), the seasons
of the year, the nature of the current disease, etc. The diet
will be therefore different. For example, hot pepper might be
recommended for those who is Cold body with cold hands and feet
usually, but it is not good for those who has hot flash, or
fever, skin rash.
It is important that nothing in the diet
should be eaten too much, according to the Traditional Chinese
medicine. This includes sugar, salt, vinegar, ginger or hot
pepper. Each taste belongs to a given element in the Five
Element theory, so too much taken of a given taste will break
the balance of the Five-element in the body to cause disease.
This principle also include vegetables and fruits. Some
vegetables and fruits belong to Hot, and others, Cold. Too much
taken of a single kind of vegetable or fruit will also disturb
the Five-element balance in the body. My patient usually ask me
what they should eat, I usually tell them that the simple way
and most safe way is to eat various kinds of vegetables or
fruits.
One of the principles in the diet therapy
is to take hot diet in the summer and relatively cold diet in
the winter, for those of us having no clear sign of disease.
This is because that in the summer, the warm vital energy is on
the surface of the body (just as the warm is in the surface of
the earth), with relatively cold in the inside of the body. This
is why in summer, and especially in the south area of the earth,
people may still take more hot pepper or hot food in their diet.
Clinically, it is also known that to stomach problems in the
patients in summer, addition of hot herbs in the herbal therapy
increases the clinic effect. Similarly, in winter, the warm
energy is withdrawn into the inside of the body, as the warm
energy now comes into the deeper part of the earth (the Chinese
medicine concept). We should cold down our inside body with
radish (not the carrot!) from time to time, especially if we
have sign of Fire syndrome (such as mouth ulcers, dry mouth,
constipation, etc. ). Chinese says: Winter (eat) radish, summer
(eat) gingers.
Professional therapies
The professional therapies in the
Traditional Chinese medicine includes, but not limited to, the
herbal therapy, acupuncture, tuina-massage (including Chinese
reflexology, Chinese Chiropractics, bone balance technique),
cupping, bleeding, guasha, or moxibustion.
These therapies are definitely touch during the training in the
medical colleges or universities in
China.
Based on personal interest and training,
some doctors may also use various other therapies, such as
Qigong, or Magic figure therapies.
Herbal therapy is the most important
therapies in the whole Traditional Chinese Medicine. This is
true, especially when a disease is very complex, or in a later
stage. Some times, the acupuncture may works much faster or
efficient than the herbal – very much on the doctor’s own clinic
ability – especially if it is used to release pain, or to
improve conditions such as after stroke.
In Chinese herbal therapy, herbs are
usually parts of the plants, e.g. from the roots, barks, leaves,
flowers, but not the whole plants. For a long time, the Chinese
has already noticed that the nature of the different part of a
plant may be quiet different. Sometimes, Chinese also use
mineral stones, or animal parts for the treatment.
The herbs are compiled in a formula for the
treatment. The formula may contain only one herb, or more than
30 kinds of herbs, with an average of 6 to 12 herbs. You should
know that, the function of a given herb in the herb formula
depends on the amount of the herb and also on its relationship
with other herb ingredients, e.g. the present of, and the amount
of other herbs in the formula. With the same herb ingredients
but varying the amount of some herbs in it, the healing effect
could be changed dramatically. A given herb may function as a
king in one formula, but a soldier in other formula. This is
quite common. In another way, we say that, the function of herbs
in a formula is not as simple as one plus one equal to two. The
pattern, the relationship among the herbs, is also a very
important factor that affects the herb function. Unfortunately,
some people, including the conventional medical authorities, can
never understand it. If they found that some herb causes toxic
to the body, they are eager to ban all of the herb products that
contain this specific herb. If their thinking works, we should
urge them to ban sugar in all kinds of foods that could supply
body sugar, since it is well known that sugar is related to the
onset of diabetic!
Evidence-based treatment
There are also some kinds of treatments,
that are not touch in the text book, but are used by layman.
These kinds of treatment also include the use of herbs, but also
tea (tea therapy), wine (wine or liquor therapy), or many
others. We may or may not be able to explain why it works
according to the conventional Traditional Chinese Medicine
concepts, but it works and people just use it.
In Chinese, we call it
Pian Fang, or Mi Fang. It means that the therapy is out of the
scope of the Traditional and professional medicine education,
and it may be passed by heritage from one generation to another,
kept as secret in a family. We should never omit the importance
of such Pian Fang or Mi Fang. It does not only work for ordinary
disease, but also very sever disease!
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