Traditional Chinese Medicine

[Maya314]

I just started doing acupuncture a week ago with almost ulcerous symptoms from stress and with a little diet/portion modification and ancient know-how. Being mindful of one's qi (chi) flow is SO essential to maintaining a healthy state of well being. The human mind/body rock. I suggest anyone try this; whether dealing with moderate back/body aches or severe/chronic pains.

 

[mariacallas]

Acupuncture is fantastic. I had a series of treatments about two years ago for a sluggish spleen and it has worked very well for me. Finding a good physician /oriental medicine practitioner is very important though.

 

[The Monkey Mantra]

I'm with the "gotta love the placebo effect" school on this one. I mean, I'm not arguing whether or not it works, but... mariacallas, what the hell does a "sluggish spleen" do to you? I ask, because I haven't even GOT a spleen (car accident last year) and I'm feelin' right as rain!

 

[mariacallas]

Traditional Chinese Medicine puts a great deal of importance in the function of the spleen, in contrast to how it is viewed from a Western medical viewpoint

The Spleen is the root of all post-natal Qi. Combined with the Stomach it takes all things consumed and converts them into energy. If any lack of qi is found in the body, the Spleen is the first place to look for an imbalance. It is internally-externally related to the Stomach. Its element is earth.

The spleen is responsible for the intake, processing, and shipping out of food and fluid. From the food and fluid, the spleen derives key components of making qi and blood and is thus the primary organ looked at when these two essential substances are not balanced. The spleen extracts the qi of the food (gu qi), and sends it up to the heart and lungs. In the heart, it combines with the pre-natal qi to form blood. In the lungs, it combines with the qi of the air (kong qi) and the original qi (yuan qi) to form the True or Upright Qi (zhen qi). It is this final type of qi that will be sent through the blood and channels of the rest of the body. When functioning properly: qi is strong, digestion goes smoothly, body is kept moist. When malfunctioning: qi is weak (lassitude), appetite is poor, digestion is sluggish, stools may be loose, phlegm and damp may accumulate.

About three years ago, I had serious pain in the middle of my foot for no apparent reason. I had been to a regular doctor, had massages, used all kinds of liniments , and nothing relieved my pain. I had it treated by a very good acupuncturist (a licensed physician who specialized in oriental medicine) and it turns out my spleen meridian was blocked and needed to be decongested.

Whether it was the years of drug abuse, poor diet and unhealthy lifestyle that did it, I'm not sure. I suspect it was all of the above. Anyway the pain in my foot was just the icing on the cake..my body had been feeling very worse for wear and I knew I really had to make an effort to take better care of myself.

Acupuncture is based on the notion that the body's vital energy force, chi, travels through known channels or "meridians." The acupuncturist inserts tiny, thin sterile needles at particular, selected points on the body to unblock or correct the flow of energy.

I had several sessions and the pain disappeared and has never returned to this day. In conclusion, that was just one of the few experiences that paved the way towards my eventual detoxification and a sober, more healthful way of living.

 

[Furious George]

When I saw mariacallas' response my instant reaction was 'placebo'. So I went and checked my physiology textbooks, and sure enough, your spleen deals with redundant red blood cells and is involved in your immune function. So I guessed a "sluggish" one of those wouldn't feel great and perhaps needs to be dealt with (I'd have thought using antibiotics as with most cases of asplenia, but this is a Chinese medicine thread). But Monkey Mantra is doing just fine and dandy with no spleen at all... I'm just confused. Do you need to take any medication for that, or is it really a fairly insignificant organ?

 

[assembled]

I have no doubt that chinese medicine is complementary if not superior to western medicine. Just from taking chinese herbal which the west is so damn ignorant about proves this to me.

I was wondering if acupuncture is good for a person with no particular ailments, just wanting a "boost" if you will, or possibly some preventative measures.

 

[Dtergent]

The only answer I can give about this, is that in Chinese medicine (at least how my doctor explained it to me), what they refer to as organs may sometimes be systems or complementary groups of organs.

For instance, when I had a liver problem, they addressed not only my liver per se, but a whole system that performs with and helps out the liver.

I have witnessed TCM to work where others have failed, but I don't think it is easy to understand. I much prefer ayurveda, which is (I think) explained more simply. It may be the language barrier...

All I can say is that, acupuncture under a good and knowledgeable doctor, is generally really effective (in my and others' experience). As I mentioned, I used the treatment when I was experiencing hardcore liver effects from drugs. 2 people I know are doing it now, one for breast cancer (remission already) and one for hepatitis. One person I know went from being ultra-obese (think Fantasia) to slightly overweight shortly after treatment.

Acupuncture for me is not something that is wishy-washy. I could actually feel twitches in some parts of my body, and quite remote areas reacting to certain points (which I later found to be part of the same "system"). In my case, it actually hurt sometimes, not because of the needle, but I could feel like some things inside me were sort of being electrocuted. Haha. After every treatment I felt wonderful-- like really "wow" wonderful.

After 15 or so (?) treatments (along with some herbs) I was infinitely better. The hospital I went to had one Western and one Chinese doctor work on your case, and honestly the Western one was really nice but shitty. The Chinese one needed a translator every time and would always say hilarious Engrish things to me.

The girl I mentioned who is doing it for breast cancer now also has the same system-- her Western and Chinese doctor are working together and review her progress together.

 

[The Monkey Mantra]

Furious: No spleen, no problem! There are some very *specific* immune functions it takes care of, but most people with no spleen will never have *any* symptoms. I'm doin' alright - strong as a horse!

 

[The Monkey Mantra]

Oh, and... can someone explain what this "blocked energy" is? Like, you know, in terms that aren't total BS? I mean, hypnosis works in helping people quit smoking, sure. If you're suggestible enough, you can even have minor surgeries while hypnotized! That's all well and good, but a lot of this can be better explained as smoke and mirrors rattle-shaking to put you in an altered state that lets you deal with the psychological components of suffering. The stuff about blocked energy is just the woo woo they tell you to help you picture things while they plant a hypnotic suggestion.

Note that I do not discourage anyone from getting acupuncture treatment. The stuff works, but MAYBE, just maybe, it's got nothin' to do with meridians and energy flow.

Also, I don't trust the chinese journals. They're way too nationalistic as a country to be unbiased when it comes to proving or disproving ANYTHING about how their traditional medicine works. That's not to say they don't do good science, but I find the glowing results of all their TCM studies to be rather disconcerting.

 

[Furious George]

Oh, and... can someone explain what this "blocked energy" is? Like, you know, in terms that aren't total BS? I mean, hypnosis works in helping people quit smoking, sure. If you're suggestible enough, you can even have minor surgeries while hypnotized! That's all well and good, but a lot of this can be better explained as smoke and mirrors rattle-shaking to put you in an altered state that lets you deal with the psychological components of suffering. The stuff about blocked energy is just the woo woo they tell you to help you picture things while they plant a hypnotic suggestion.

Note that I do not discourage anyone from getting acupuncture treatment. The stuff works, but MAYBE, just maybe, it's got nothin' to do with meridians and energy flow.

Also, I don't trust the chinese journals. They're way too nationalistic as a country to be unbiased when it comes to proving or disproving ANYTHING about how their traditional medicine works. That's not to say they don't do good science, but I find the glowing results of all their TCM studies to be rather disconcerting.

I'll try to find the paper, but there was a study that demonstrated that patients with chronic back pain showed statistically significant improvement after a course of accupuncture. However, the interesting part was that the control group who recieved randomly distributed needling showed a similar level of improvement. So whilst it appears to be effective, the knowledge/skill of the accupuncturist does not matter, simply the act of being needled, made people feel better. So I'd go with suggestion/placebo (which are not to be underestimated as thereputic tools).

My main problem with TCM is that the treory behind it is so wooly. It's a reasonable guess at how the body might work from a time before we could actually learn about how the body really works. I'm sure that there are many efficatious treatments, but they work in a manner that is different to the theory proposed in TCM. For example, TCM will prescribe Corydalis Yan Hu So for pain relief, giving an explaination like it balances you 'qi'. Where as in Western Medicine we know for a fact that it works by binding to opioid receptors.

At the end of the day whatever works for you is great, but I do hate this wooly minded rejection of western medicine as somehow untrustworthy or ineffective and that TCM is somehow a more effective remedy.

The data speaks for itself, thanks to western medicine life expectancies are higher than they ever have been, and many diseases that plagued our ancestors have been eliminated entirely or controlled to the level that they are no longer an issue (think smallpox, polio, TB) I'd like to see a TCM cure for these issues.

 

[DarksidePharmacist]

^ well said

 

[mariacallas]

*bump*

 

[Dtergent]

The data speaks for itself, thanks to western medicine life expectancies are higher than they ever have been, and many diseases that plagued our ancestors have been eliminated entirely or controlled to the level that they are no longer an issue (think smallpox, polio, TB) I'd like to see a TCM cure for these issues.

No doubt on the points you raise, Western medicine has made more leaps and bounds.

However, not to take the worst examples of Western medicine, but there are so many people (including my recently deceased grandfather) who live longer on a "life support regimen" of pills and are literally fat, have low energy, and are miserable until they die, with doctors not knowing what the fuck is happening, just giving them pills which have not been even tested for reactions against each other.

I think Western medicine does wonderful with acute cases, but have yet to see it reach its potential in the areas of prevention.

A British doctor on a "medical mission" here told me that Eastern observations very much affected the development of the ideas of vaccination in the West. Inoculation/ingrafting for things like smallpox existed in Eastern medicine. Indian ayurveda, which influences TCM, had the practice of making incisions on all people from a town and applying smallpox infection. This was effective, but taken by most of the British in the 1700s to be witchcraft or just plain stupid.

No doubt the scale and mechanization that industry has offered has helped in pushing numbers, but please do not discount the intellectual roots that Eastern medicine rests on. There is so much protracted observation and systematic analysis involved over thousands of years, that it could benefit you from trying to understand different frameworks/terminology, and even "overlay" them with your understanding of disease, health, and anatomy.