Recent Cases
Clogged Sinus
Patient came with clogged sinuses. And I was told that many years he had polyp removal which had been fine for a long time until recently after he got a cold a few months back. Modern medicine would peek inside the nose to check what is going on but really at the end of the day what is prescribed is all steroids of one form or another. Sometimes I wonder what is the point, other than maybe to see if there are polyps or if the septum has any deformities perhaps. Majority of people with sinus issues don’t fall into those two camps anyway. Patient is worried may polyps have come back. In Chinese medicine we check the pulse to see what is going because the nose is the extention of the 5 major organs. The nose belongs to the lung system. His pulse reveals that his lung system and entire upper body is clogged up, not just his nose. And sure enough he did admit that his circulation is as good as it used to be. Even in basic anatomy class we are taught that the lungs and heart are physiologically linked together but oftentimes they are treated as separated issues completely in modern medicine which is bizarre. It’s like going against what you were taught??? I treated him by clearing out the stagnation in the upper body and his nose improves dramatically over the few visits. Now it is much much better.
Longstanding neck and waist back leg pain
A fellow gentleman came to visit me over the last while complaining of all problems on the left side of his body. It has been plaguing him for many many years. And he has been to many many different practitioners. It has not served him much. He has also had acupuncture or some form of it such as IMS. The thing is most people don’t know, Chinese medicine acupuncture comes in all sorts of forms as I’ve mentioned in previous posts. But I have to say IMS IS NOT acupuncture in the sense that it doesn’t use Chinese medicine theory in the practice of acupuncture. So people who have had IMS and didn’t benefit from it should not assume that acupuncture doesn’t work. Nor should they assume that after having ineffective acupuncture from other acupuncturists means that acupuncture as a general therapy doesn’t work, because acupuncture comes in many different practice styles. Patient is a really big guy. And I can sense that he really needs the acupuncture needles, because his pulse shows his entire body is submerged in a thick layer of mud due to years of inactivity as caused by the pain of this muscles and tendons. Over the next few visits we do really intense acupuncture over the entire body and he feels relief he has not felt for a very very long time. Although, since the problem has been very long, it will likely take a while before the patient fully gains his life back. But at least right now he is feeling much more mobility than before.
Intractable skin rashes
Patient is the young child of my other patient. There was a period of time when I treated the young child with herbs for his sinuses and skin issues last year. Unfortunately at that time only the sinus improved and healed for the most part but the skin had been a challenge at that period of time. As I had seemingly done all what I could do to not much avail I referred them to another TCM dermatologist which I said they could try out. They went there and it was seemingly treated but unfortunately for only a few months until the problem came back early this year. They went back and 2nd time around it didn’t work as well. They brought the little one back to see me and I tried some newer herbal methods I garnered while treating other patients while they were out of my care. Fortunately I was able to effectively control the problem from getting worse and it is gradually coming under control. Dermatological issues are not easy to treat because it’s like putting out a forest fire, so you get the idea. And plus kids are different than adults, they have psychological tendencies which they cannot resist and control as well as adults which actually adds another layer of complexity to the problem. This is something I actually didn’t consider before as I always thought kids were ‘simpler’ because they tend to have less ‘emotional’ and ‘psychological’ burden. Not true, especially in this age when they’re glued to lcd screens all day!!!
High blood pressure
This other patient I remember I may have talked about before, or not, I am not too sure as I haven’t flipped old posts when typing this. But he initially came for pain the back of his head. I told him your problem is because you watch the computer screen all day. But when I check his pulse I also discovered he may have high blood pressure. So I told him I suspect your issue isn’t too simple as just neck muscle strain; there is something else going on. So he did actually listen to me and went to his GP to get a blood pressure check and sure enough it was pretty high(why didn’t the GP know or test this before???). He was immediately put on blood pressure pills. But I also immediately gave him Chinese herbs too. He started taking them before the pills. Of course we also did acupuncture to deal with the neck. Over the next 2 months his blood pressure gradually comes down. BP pills definitely helped his blood pressure but to be honest his pulse still feels like high blood pressure so it is my assumption that the problem is merely controlled, and the root has not be treated. We are Chinese medicine to treat his root while Western drugs tackle the ‘branch’. This ‘root-branch’ concept is an age-old TCM treatment strategy used for a wide variety of problems.
UTI
Female UTI is often treated with antibiotics but they are notorious for lingering long periods of time and coming up periodically. It almost seems like you cannot kill the germs off. And the answer is probably yes. People wonder if you cannot kill the germs then does that mean you live it forever? A female patient came in recently to deal with her UTI. It had been there for a few months. Took antibiotics, went away(or under control???) and then recently resurfaced. Typical symptoms included urgency, burning, incomplete sensation of voiding and the like. In Chinese medicine there is a saying, where there is "evil", the "righteous qi" is deficient. It means in this context where there is germs and microbial havoc it means the immune system has a done a poor job patrolling and policing that area so the riots start and things get burned, etc. Exactly like what you get in real life riot scenarios except you just picture this with hundreds of millions and billions of bacteria and white/red blood cells. Going back to the question, if you cannot kill the germs then what??? Well you cannot fully kill the germs, because that would be like throwing everyone in jail; it don’t work that way. You have to restore order and things become harmonized and peaceful again. It is a completely different idea which Western medicine feels very foreign. In TCM this is achieved by doing two things at once just what we mentioned prior---root and branch treatment. You tonify the root, aka make the immunity stronger, while clearing the branch, aka clearing the inflammation way. In three visits she felt ok and while I suggested perhaps on-going treatment may be more beneficial she opted to wait and see how things go about by themselves.