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Traditional Chinese Medicine TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE AND YOUR FUTURE "Just The Facts, Ma'am" Traditional Chinese Medicine is firmly founded upon the triple legs of acupuncture, herbal medicine and the ancient art of Tui-Na (the system of massage, adjustment and body working). These three pillars form the support of this 5000 year old medicine. With acupuncture the physician balances the electrical body, the Chinese herbal formulas balance the chemical body, and the use of Tui-Na balances the physical body. If your electrical, chemical and physical bodies are all in balance it is known as HEALTH ! ! ! There are, unfortunately, far too many of us who fall far too short. The focus of this series of articles will be to bring this ancient healing art into focus for you in order to improve the quality of your health. The ancient Chinese physicians understood the relationships between health and happiness (mental ease of mind) and over the millennia developed the most holistic of all medical systems. To the "TCM" Physician a patient is the sum total of his mortal body and all of the influences which may affect it. These include literally all forces to which you are exposed, the air you breath, the water you drink, the food you eat, the place you work, the job you do, etc. The first thing that most of us think of about Chinese Medicine are the acupuncture needles. We see them in martial arts movies, so they are known to work for trauma pain. Some of us are also aware that they have used it in anesthesia for many operations for many years. However, for most Americans, just what is being done, and why, is still an unfathomable mystery. The most basic way to understand acupuncture is to picture the channels-meridians as gas-water pipes or electric circuits within your body and the acupoints as valves or rheostats to open or close the flow. Acupuncture is used to treat conditions of excess or deficiency within the body. In actual fact, the selection and manipulation of the points is primarily to aid the body in the natural process of healing itself. Excess conditions, brought about by various energy blockages within the organs, cause a large number of diseases. Deficient conditions bring on another set of diseases for the physician to cure. In their herbal formulations the Chinese have developed a pharmacopeia which is almost mind-boggling in its complexity and scope, yet subtle and straightforward. TCM makes use of up to twenty or more herbs in a single formula recipe. Each formula is designed to be balanced energetically to the needs of the patients body so as to treat the specific condition yet avoid the side-effects which are too common with the harsh chemicals used in most other modalities. The Chinese have spent thousands of years and billions of man hours in the study of their Materia Medica. They have isolated and systematized the properties and functions of hundreds of medicinal substances as well as clinically tested and cataloged hundreds of useful combinations. These formulas are available in many forms Traditional Chinese Medicine from pills and powders to decoctions and tinctures. The last two being herbal teas and in wines. There is a large group which we refer to as Medicinal Meals in which herbal formulas are used to cook regular meals so that health can be attained or maintained through eating. Tui-Na, the body working system of TCM is, in China, a medical modality which is indispensable. It is the primary treatment modality for pediatric medicine, especially for the treatment of infants. By using the various massaging and rubbing techniques the child's metabolism can be successfully manipulated to bring them back into health. The pediatric Tui-Na techniques can and should be taught to all parents so that they could easily help their children remain healthy. In adults, many of the same manipulations are applied very successfully as are other massage and manipulative adjustment techniques. The scope of Chinese Medicine encompasses the full range of human illness. In some areas, like surgery, the western model is far better, and the patient should be advised to make use of them. However, in areas such as prevention, immunology, gynecology, infertility, male sexual dysfunction, urology, pediatrics, geriatrics, soft tissue injury, internal medicine, addictionology (drugs, food, cigarettes etc.), dermatology, pain control, respiratory illness, migraines, insomnia, digestive disorders, edema, stroke and many other problems our first choice would be TCM. In the future, we will be going more in-depth to bring you to an understanding of both the strengths and weaknesses of Traditional Chinese Medicine so that you can appreciate the oldest human Medicine and then decide when to include it in your plan for health and longevity.
Just why would anyone want to let someone stick needles in them? That is the question that has been asked by the uninformed for several thousand years. Of course it didn't start out by using needles. During its Stone Age beginnings there were no needles to use, in fact the original term, "bian" referred to a "press-stone". The prehistoric peoples of China used pointed stones to press on the painful areas of their bodies. Over time, as medicine men and women began noting the reactions of the body to the various points, the arrangement of points and channels began to take form. Also, the use of various materials changed. First stone, then bamboo and bone were used. Then with the metal ages came copper, bronze, silver, and gold. Today we have stainless steel and even laser devices. The primary needle in use today is known as a Filiform Needle and is generally from 0.22 - 0.45 cm in diameter, typically from 0.5 - 1.5 inches in length and made of surgical quality stainless steel. Almost all TCM Physicians today make use of "disposable" needles, which are actually no different than non-disposable needles except that they are discarded after one use. The needle itself is never inserted to its full depth, usually only 1/2 its length. The preferred tip is slightly rounded to allow it to move between the muscle fibers. The hairlike fineness of the acupuncture needle allows it to penetrate with the least amount of trauma to the patient, unlike the hypodermic needle which must be large enough to allow it to be hollow. It tears through the tissues. In the hands of a well trained Practitioner the acupuncture needle should penetrate the tissue so quickly that it is painless. The acupuncture treatment itself is generally described as stimulating and most patients find the 20-30 minutes that the treatment lasts so relaxing that they either nap or slip into an Alpha-like meditation. But what does it do, and why does it work? To answer these questions is almost like the riddle of the Sphinx. Literally thousands of books have been written on just the subject of Acupuncture. In one sense, the acupuncture needle does not heal you of anything; your own body does the healing. The needling just tells your body what and where to balance. The easiest way to understand the concept is to see the body as a system of energy networks (as Chinese Medicine does) not just pumps and filters (as Western Medicine does). Think of the channels as pipes carrying the Qi (Chi) energy through the body, and the acupoints as valves to control the flow. If an insufficient or excess amount of Qi is moving through the Jing luo (network of channels), by needling various points the valves can be opened or closed to allow the organs of the body to receive the energy which they need to function properly. Knowing which of the 361 regular channel points or hundred or so "extra" points to use is the art of Acupuncture. The ancient Chinese Physicians began compiling the system in prehistoric times, first by noticing consistent reactions at the same points, then over time by noticing that certain groups of points had similar reactions, then by beginning to chart them. The earliest known reference book is the Huang Ti Nei Ching Su W'en (The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine) sometimes simply the Nei Jing, Internal Classic which was written before the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. to 220 A.D.). This text sums up all the medical knowledge to that point and includes physiology, pathology, diagnosis and treatment using acupuncture as well as herbal formulations. In other words, a complete medical system outlined and documented. Before 1000 A.D. they had constructed life-size bronze figures with all of the channels and most of the points indicated. Each of the regular channels relate to a specific internal organ, zang-fu, which is either Yin or Yang in nature, and go from or to the organ to the extremities. By differentiating (diagnosing) the patient to determine the Yin-Yang balance of the body, the excess-deficiency condition and the organ(s) involved, the trained TCM Practitioner determines which combination of points to use for the Acupuncture prescription as well as which Herbal Formula to use. In addition to the body points which can be used for treatment there are over 300 ear points which correspond to all of the body systems and form a complete modality known as Auriculotherapy. Although the current use of ear points owes most of its development to modern Acupuncture Physicians, its foundation can be traced back as far as the Yellow Emperor's Classic. In 1950 Dr. Paul Nogier, a neurologist form Lyon, France, developed the system which in enhanced form has become the Auriculotherapy in current use. His original work, when translated into Chinese, was verified and further refined. Today in China, Auriculotherapy forms a speciality within Acupuncture found in all their hospitals. In U.S. clinical practice, the use of ear points is a major aspect of all forms of addiction therapies, including food, tobacco and drugs of all types. It is also used for conditions such as hypertension, high or low blood pressure, musculoskeletal pain, skin problems, weight control, nausea and digestive disorders, insomnia, vision problems and many more. The actual use of needles in the ear is, of course,a primary treatment, but we also make use of magnets, lasers and special herbal seeds. By making use of body points, scalp points and ear points the modern Acupuncture Physician has available a wide range of treatments which may be varied to fit the needs of each patient's changing condition. Acupuncture at
Perhaps the most complex of all topics in Traditional Chinese Medicine is their Herbal system. Unlike western herbal medicine, which was virtually destroyed during our middle ages (when we burned all our witches), the Chinese have over 4000 years of continuous development. Approximately 2700 B.C., Shen Nong recorded the earliest existing book on Chinese Herbal Medicine, the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing (The Classic of Materia Medica), which contained over 365 different substances. The complete Chinese Materia Medica of today, compiled by the Jiangsu College of New Medicine in 1977, contains 5767 materials which can be used in formulations. These are mostly of plant origin, however many are of mineral or animal sources. There are many which are in common usage in the clinic as well as a large number of very rare ones that are used only in certain cases. Additionally, you will find that a substance that was used traditionally in the north of China was not known in the south, where another herb which grew locally was used for the same function. In modern TCM there has been an effort to categorize all of the various substances to enable the Practitioner to choose the most effective medicinal for the specific patient need. In fact, in the Clinic of today, the typical herbal pharmacy consists of only around 300-400 various bulk medicinals. In addition to formulating raw herbs into various decoctions (Tangs), today we have available a large selection of "Classical" formulas which have been prepared into pills by factories in the Orient using the pure herbs and recipes which are hundreds of years old. There are also Modern formulas available in pill and tablet form. These modern formulas are generally variations of the classical formulas which have been modified to treat a specific aspect of a problem better than the basic formula. In the clinic the Physician does precisely the same thing with the bulk herb decoctions. It is in the compounding of the formula that Chinese Herbalist differs most radically from his Western counterpart. In the west, until most recently, the use of herbs has been pretty much a system of using only single herbs to treat a specific problem, while in the Orient formulations containing upwards to 30 or more substances are the norm. How and why this difference developed, I believe, goes back to our own middle ages when the healing herbalists of the day were superstitiously considered to be witches and many were literally burned. They had just reached a point in their art that they were making use of complex concoctions to try to cure various illnesses. In the Orient, especially in China, the Herbal Physician was held in a place of high regard and was very educated. In this type of atmosphere the art of Chinese Medicine became very advanced, while in the West it received a disastrous setback. Today, Western Herbal Medicine has once again begun to make the type of steps that will allow it to become another effective modality. There are now Physicians trained in both schools of herbal medicine: my wife Melanie, Lisa and Michael Tierra, Bob Flaws and others. The dually trained herbalist has a distinct advantage in his ability to understand the western herbs in a more Chinese format. To the Chinese herbalist each substance in the Materia Medica is categorized in several ways, allowing the herbalist to combine them in a manner which is beneficial to the patient. Each herb is known to have several specific properties such as temperature (cold, cool, neutral, warm, hot), taste (bland, bitter, sweet, spicy, salty, sour), and channel entered (the 14 meridians). They are categorized further into specific functions such as diaphoretic, diuretic, damp resolving, antitussive, antiasthmatic, phlegm resolving, hemostatic, heat clearing, Qi (Chi) regulating, topical, emetic, etc. It is by understanding the energetic condition of the patient that a formula is individualized. For instance, if a patient has a very Yin (cool) nature and his condition requires the use of several herbs which are also of a cold or cool nature then there must be several herbs included in the formula which are hot or warm in order to avoid causing the Yin condition to worsen. This is a simplistic example but it points out the fundamental thought behind one aspect of formula writing. The effects of the various herbs on one another must also be taken into consideration. Many times there is nothing to contraindicate the use of a specific herb, but when used in conjunction with another herb the effect of the two could be detrimental to the patient. For this reason it may be required to use one specific herb to counteract the properties of another. These considerations must all be taken into account when using herbal formulas. In closing, we would like to say that you will find within Chinese Herbal Medicine a large number of herbal remedies which, when properly prescribed, are both very safe and effective. However, we must caution you that the key word was properly prescribed. Just because it is herbal does not guarantee it is safe! Never believe anyone who tries to tell you that herbs are always safe and can't have side effects. They are generally safe and effective when a trained Herbalist has correctly diagnosed your condition. Remember that most of the western pharmaceuticals originally came from natural sources and were then isolated and condensed. After all, Hemlock is a natural plant, but as Socrates said, "I drank what...?" In our next article, we will expand further on Chinese Herbal Medicine and more specifically what you can expect it to accomplish for your health.
So just what do you mean by a Patent Medicine? These are, for the most part, traditional formulations that have been commercially prepared by one, or more, manufacturing companies in Asia, or now in the U.S. Some formulations are available from more than one manufacturing source, and in these cases the actual composition may vary. For instance, Guan Xin Su He Wan, which is a newer formula specify developed for the treatment of blood stagnation in the heart and blood vessels (arteriosclerosis), leading to angina, numbness in the arms, and chronic heart disease. Useful for the prevention of, as well as acute myocardial infarctions, it is available from both the Shanghai Chinese Medicine Works in Shanghai, China, and also from the Tianjin Drug Manufactory, Tianjin, China. While both of the formulas are in essence the same, they are slightly different in the specific percentages of the ingredients, and also in the recommended dosages, the former company recommending 1 pill, 3x/day, and the other recommending 2 capsules, 2x/day. While this example is not significantly different to warrant concern, there are other examples that may. Also, there are some cases where the Chinese Characters on the package are the same, but the formula itself is completely different. For this reason, it is very important to acquire your medications from a Practitioner who has been trained in the Chinese Pharmacology, both patent & bulk herbal formulations. Now, what can I use these formulas for, you ask. The answer to this question is extremely broad and encompasses the complete range of Chinese Herbal Medicine. While there are not "patent" formulas to correspond to every bulk "Tang", there are patents to use for many categories of illness. Oriental Practitioners sub-divide their herbal formulations and individual herbs into several different categories. Within these various groups we will be able to find several formulas to treat almost all of the conditions which a patient may present. If there is not an available Patent Medication, then we must make use of a "Tang" (bulk herb decoction), but in this article I shall center on the Patents. There are formulas to treat those exterior conditions such as: nasal congestion, hayfever, headaches, the flu, cough sneezing, runny nose, etc. These may include Gan Mao Ling, Yin Chiao Chieh Tu Pien or others depending on the exact nature of the problem and severity. Another group is used to treat the conditions in which phlegm is a major condition, and may include dry cough, chronic asthma, etc. These include a number of pills and syrups such as Chi Kuan Yen Wan, Chuan Ke Ling, Loquat Flavored Syrup and many others. A third group includes those heat conditions resulting from an internal condition as well as fevers in young children and infants. In this group we find formulas to treat such conditions as fever with sore throat, skin infections with fever, non-bleeding stomach ulcers, damp heat leukorrhea, gallstones & gallbladder inflammation, jaundice, hepatitis, digestive problems in children, night-crying cough, etc. We depend upon products such as Li Gan Pian, Hou Tsao San, Lidan Paishi Tablets and many more to treat these problems. In yet another group we find the pills, liniments and plasters to treat various problems such as sciatic and joint pain, rheumatism or trauma of any type. With products such as Du Huo Jisheng Wan, Shang Shi Zhi Tong Gao and many others we may offer relief to our Patients. Another very large group of medications is useful in the treatment of blood and heart system problems as well as other types of trauma. With very effective treatments for prostate inflammation, hemorrhoids, menorrhagia & traumatic bleeding, angina, arteriosclerosis, embolisms, sequelae of stroke, joint & muscle stiffness, sprains & breaks. These include formulas such as Prostate Gland Pills, To Jing Wan, Ren Shen Zai Zao Wan, Po Sum On Medicated Oil, and perhaps the single finest stop bleeding product in the entire world, Yunnan Paiyao (this should be in every home in the country as an emergency medication for severe bleeding accidents, it could give you enough time to reach the hospital in the case of even such severe trauma as gunshot or knife wounds). Yet another group addresses itself to digestive system problems such as acute cramping, nausea, diarrhea, morning sickness, stomach flu and the like. With medicinals such as Bo Jen Mi Chinese Tea, Hsiang Sha Yang Wei Pien and others we are able to take care of these and other problems of digestion. In the group of formulas which are designed to address deficiency conditions there are a very large number of tonics which have been used successfully for thousands of years to treat prolapses of the lower organs, hypoglycemia, menstrual cramps or irregular periods, amenorrhea or infertility due to what the Chinese term cold uterus, low back pain, nocturnal emission, premature ejaculation, night sweating, vision problems, high blood pressure and other problems. These use formulas such as Bu Zhong Yi Qi Wan, Bu Tiao Tablets, Nan Bao Capsules and others. Another group deals with problems the Chinese refer to as disturbances of the Shen (Spirit) which manifest such symptoms as insomnia and irritability. Within this group we might choose formulas such as An Mien Pien or Tien Wang Bu Xin Wan. In the last basic group, we find the Chinese condition termed Endogenous Liver Wind which leads to what Western Medicine calls hypertension, and arteriosclerosis. To treat these problems we would turn to Chiang Ya Wan, Niu Huang Chiang Ya Wan and others. These represent only a few of the many Patent formulations that are available to prescribe to patients. With the proper diagnosis most of the problems that are currently being dealt with by Western Practitioners with strong pharmaceuticals can be addressed with Chinese Herbal formulations, in some cases far more effectively and safely than with the chemicals currently being used. This is, of course, not to say that every situation can be cured by TCM Herbs, but many can. I cannot stress strongly enough that you must seek out a trained Professional to guide your use of these Medicinals. Also, once you begin an Herbal Formulation it is important that you follow the recommended dosage and take the formula at the regular intervals indicated by your Physician. Unlike the strong Western pharmaceuticals, Herbal prescriptions depend upon the cumulative dose reaching a required level in your body, and most of them do not work as quickly as we are used to with our Western drugs. If you, the patient, make use of both a Western and a TCM Physician the combination of the two modalities will enhance one another to YOUR benefit. The current problem in America is that not enough Western Practitioners have been educated to the effectiveness of Chinese Herbs, and therefore are not comfortable with the use of them by patients. On the other side, not all TCM Practitioners are well acquainted with the full range of pharmaceuticals being used by our western counterparts. It is now time for this to be rectified in this country. Most of the better TCM Schools in the U.S. are attempting to educate their students about the various Western Medical modalities, and a few of the better Western Medical Schools are likewise teaching some Oriental Medical courses on an elective basis. This process can only benefit the patient. Additionally, more and more insurance companies are accepting Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine as an official modality. Only by your pressure on the various insurance companies can this process be expanded. Find out if your company will accept billing from an Oriental Practitioner, and if not ask why they are not keeping up with the direction of the nation.
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