Patient's Corner
- Autoimmunity
- Gynecology
- Chronic Pain
- Mental Conditions
- Obscure & Rare Conditions
- Gastrointestinal Conditions
Autoimmunity
Autoimmunity is an interesting disease because it is recognized to be the body's immune system attacking itself. Current methods of treatment, conventionally speaking, involve predominantly the use of steroids.
In most acute cases steroids can curb the inflammation, but in some more chronic situations there are often difficulties. When the inflammation is however controlled, the patient is usually only partially recovered according to test results, because in many instances the discomfort that comes with the autoimmunity remains, and possibly complicated further by the sideeffects of steroid administration.
Chinese Medicine does not regard autoimmunity conditions to be the body attacking itself, because this makes no sense to Chinese Medicine The body's energy fends against outside invaders, not harming its host. Instead Chinese Medicine regards the condition as an imbalance of the energetic yin and yang forces within the body.
In modern speak, it is more related to the malfunction of the immune system rather than the system besieging on its master. While there are standard protocols of treatment for modern medicine mainly in the form of steroids, there is none for Chinese Medicine. This is because autoimmune conditions are multifaceted and generally speaking encompasses problems across the entire body.
We like to call it a systemetic condition, rather than limit it to just the immune response. So for Chinese Medicine, the method of treatment is holitically analyzing the imbalance and presence of toxins within the body. Once such anomalies are corrected, the patient usually sustains longer lasting relief and accompanied by dissipation of their subjective complaints.
Gynecology
Women's diseases and conditions have a long history in Chinese Medicine. While men are usually the attention of history, women are technically the unsung heroes, because if it weren't for them, there would be no men. As a result gynecological conditions deserved special attention in Chinese Medicine.
Femalespecific conditions despite technically, anatomically speaking, being mostly confined to the female reproductive systems, include a dizzying array of ailments.
To Chinese Medicine, the essence in gynecology lies in the understanding that women are "yinoriented", which means their physiology is internally oriented and is focused on the blood related systems of the body. As a result of this understanding, Chinese medicine, regardless of what gynecological "disease" a female patient may be suffering from, places particular attention on the condition of the female's menstruation and elements surrounding it.
This includes whether or not the menstruation enjoys a regular monthly cycle, whether the number of days of the period is within normal parameters, whether the ammount is normal, whether the consistency and color of the menstruation are normal, and whether there are other longstanding discomforts along with the period, one of which is bloating and pain. Experience shows that the majority of females would usually have something wrong in any one of multiple of the above items.
Therefore, when dealing with gynecology, Chinese medicine foremost aims to rectify the monthly period, because once that is rectified, many other problems tend to improve as well.
Chronic Pain
Chinese medicine is not the only modality that treats pain. Pain is a multibillion dollar business apparently; it seems everyone wants to get a share of the pie. Conventional therapies are limited only in the understanding of nerves, whether peripheral(limbs) or central(spine and brain). Conservative methods usually involve painkillers of various patients should be extremely careful about due to its inherent, often nearly irreversible risks.
Chinese medicine looks at pain differently. It looks at pain from an etiological and energetic perspective, trying to find the cause of the pain. This cause of pain is alien to the concept of the "cause" to modern medical thinking. In most instances modern medicine would believe there is something wrong with the nerve or some sort of physical cause, whether it is impinged, inflammed or damaged, in itself or by something else.
Chinese medicine goes a step further asking why the nerve is either impinged, damaged, or inflammed.
In Chinese medicine there is the concept of deficiency and excess when dealing with pathology. In terms of pain, excess means there is some kind of either tangible or intangible toxic blockage of the energetic meridian channels through which nerves traverse. If it's a deficiency, it means there is an empty void, a hallowness in which there is not enough energy and blood flow to the area, causing malnourishment, and leading to pain. And so pain is really only a signal. It is either a signal that tells the body that there is blockage in the area or it is a signal that alerts the body to the area of nutritional undersupply. Chinese Medicine aims to rectify these imbalances.
Mental Conditions
In modern medicine there is no cure for mental conditions, even for the most simple of them being insomnia. Billions have been spent on mental asylums and facilities to house individuals with such conditions. More and more people are getting diagnosed and the number of drugs for these conditions are being prescribed at increasing numbers.
In Chinese medicine, we strive to tell patients that mental conditions are not diseases to us. We look at it as an kink in the workings of the body, and possibly only exacerbated or triggered by social and environmental agents. This is the first step to recovery, to understand that the issue shouldn't be viewed as a disease. Thinking positively is already half the solution.
The way Chinese Medicine views the mind is interesting. We ascribe five elements of the emotion and sentiment to the five major organs of the body. Joy is ascribed to the heart, anger to the liver, sorrow to the lung, fear to the kidneys and pensiveness to the spleen. Such ideas were considered to be near mysticism in the past by the mainstream medical community. But these ancient ideas are starting to get serious attention due to recent advances in biology. We frequently hear cases of personality alteration following organ transplants, and this is because, as some schools of modern science believe, there is a "cellular memory" component to organs. It means the gears of mentality and consciousness are not completely confined to the brain, but also partly within other places of the body. As such we can see why many lower level organisms do not have brains, but have "neural networks", which spread across their entire body. Humans being related to many organisms on earth should not be too remotely different.
In this regard when treating mental conditions, Chinese medicine does not specifically treat the brain but focus the attention on rectifying the normal function and balance between the major organ systems and throughout the entire body. Essentially, many mental conditions should not be termed as diseases, but merely as reflections of underlying pathology.
Obscure and Rare Conditions
Chinese Medicine treats illnesses not based on the modern understanding of diseases, but based on an holistic and ancient traditional understanding of the human physiology and disease process, an unique way of thinking that has been tested since time immemorial to be clinically effective. Hence, from common conditions, to conditions without names, even to many extremely rare medical diseases, Chinese Medicine has associated treatment protocols for all of them, simply due to the very fact that every ill person will give off clinical signals regardless of what "disease" they have. It is only a matter of whether or not if the practitioner can pick up on these "signals". Through individualized assessments and personalized treatment plans, Chinese Medicine can help individuals regain their health naturally, often when there are even no proper conventional drug therapies available for their "disease".
Gastrointestinal Conditions
Problems of the digestive system is one of the most commonly encountered complaints in the clinic. It is also buffered by huge industries that span across many fields and disciplines. These days with the general heightened awareness of food safety, gastrointestinal conditions are getting more and more attention.
Chinese Medicine has long since valued the importance of digestion and all its associated systems. In Chinese Medicine the digestive system is valued to the point that it marks the difference between a dead person and a living individual. In the long experience of Chinese Medicine, digestive strength and appetite are the clinical markers in protracted and difficult to treat conditions. In the modern environment as well, cancer patients eventually die not because of the cancer as most people believe, but usually because they can no longer ingest any food and thus their energy become depleted.
In Chinese Medicine the digestive system is characterized by the element of earth. Just like the earth, its connections are complicated and so are its pathology. To put this in context, the earth is nourished by the rays of the sun and irrigated by the fluids of flowing water. On it grows the trees, grass and every living thing under the sky, while underneath it is treasured the vast supplies of minerals and crude supply. As can be seen, the earth concerns everything, and so is digestion. This is why in Chinese Medicine, digestive issues are almost never simply treated as digestive issues, because it is associated with other pathologies of the body, such that it may even not be the main issue but actually the side issue.
Like all chronic conditions, gastrointestinal ailments are treated with a holistic mindset as well, through analysis of problems in the complex connections within the body and aiming to correct any errors within them.