Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)
raditional Chinese Medicine is an ancient healing system that can be traced back to about 2500 B.C. TCM is a complete theoretical and therapeutic system that includes a variety of techniques and approaches to healing which include acupuncture, massage, herbal medicine, nutrition, exercise, meditation, and one'
s social and physical environment.
While you may have some experience with therapies used in TCM, this medical system is best introduced by contrasting it to allopathic Western medicine. The differences between the Chinese and the orthodox American/Western approach to understanding and treatment of the human body are radical. TCM emphasizes the wholeness of body, mind, and spirit and the relationship to surroundings (feng shui). The Chinese system focuses on patterns of disharmony and imbalance that may lead to or be contributing to dis-ease. The approach of American/Western medicine (this is not as adamantly true of European health systems which routinely include herbalism, homeopathy, and other approaches to healing) is to focus on the disease symptoms of individual organ systems; Western allopathic medicine then treats the disease rather than the whole person. With TCM care individuals with similar symptoms may very well not use the same medicines because they have different underlying causes of the symptoms.
History of the Healing Form
The origins of Chinese herbalism are shrouded in myth. The founding father of Chinese medical theory, the Yellow Emperor, is reputed to have lived about 2500 B.C. Early knowledge of medicine was passed to the generations verbally, as the classic text that bears his name, Yellow Emperor' s Canon of Internal Medicine, is dated at about 1000 B.C. Medicine in its beginnings in all cultures was inseparable from philosophy and religion, and this medical directory is an important Taoist text, rich in spiritual wisdom.
The Chinese medical system developed out of a mix of medical philosophies and techniques, treatments of village herbalists, and the Taoist philosopher-doctors who produced the classic medical texts. By the 19th century Western mission hospitals became an alternative. Traditional Chinese medicine prevailed but became a national, standardized medical system only in the 1960s when Mao Tse-tung founded five colleges of traditional Chinese medicine. Today, the older regional healing styles persist among traditional Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese practitioners and many Chinese medical families, many of whom have emigrated from China.
Principles of the Healing Form
Keys to the principles of Chinese medicine are the theory of elements that are used to explain every interaction between people and their environment. Early Greek philosophy employed four elements, but Chinese tradition has added a fifth: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water are all interrelated. Wood permits fire, fire returns to earth, earth yields up metal, metal producing water, and water allowing the growth of wood. Each element has a number of associations, ranging from emotions and parts of the body to the seasons, colors and tastes. For good health to be maintained, the elements must remain in harmony; if one element becomes dominant illness may result.
The theory of opposites — yin and yang —complements the basic model of the five elements. According to this theory everything in the universe contains both and is balanced by its own polar opposite. In traditional Chinese medicine yin and yang must be in balance to maintain health, and many ills can be attributed to a deficiency or excess of either. Parts of the body are described as predominantly yin or yang; body fluids and blood are mainly yin, while qi (pronounced chee), the body' s vital energy, tends to be yang. Qi is the vital energy that animates all living beings. According to Chinese medicine qi travels on energy pathways or meridians through the internal organs and along the surface of the body. A balanced harmonious flow of qi creates a state of health; illness results when qi is blocked or unbalanced.
Worldwide herbal medicine is the most popular TCM treatment. TCM herbals are very potent and working with a certified TCM practitioner is highly recommended. About 85 percent of Chinese herbs are derived from plants, about 12 percent are from animals, and three percent from minerals. TCM herbal materials are processed under directives of the government of China and of Taiwan; Taiwanese companies also manufacture herbs in the U.S.
Herbs are not selected on the basis of their chemistry, as they would be in Western medical practices, but for their influences on the body in order to balance and harmonize the patient' s vital energy. The flow of energy, qi, is the major determinant of health. The herbal preparations combine herbs with complementary qualities with each individual herb having a particular role in bringing harmony and balance to the body' s organs and vital qi.
What to Expect
Plan to spend a full hour in conference and examination with the TCM physician. On a first visit you' ll complete the usual medical history forms, and the doctor will want to hear all the issues (whether job, financial, relationships) going on in your life and all the ailments you' re experiencing however unrelated they may seem to you. (Who would ever suspect that a painful surface on the mid leg reflected inflammation in the lungs? ) Routine tests including blood pressure, temperature, and weight may be done. The examination that is uniquely Chinese and is most important is reading the pulses and the tongue.
The TCM physician takes the pulses at six locations, at three depths on each wrist; the pulses help determine the condition of qi. The tongue is another key indicator of one' s health; the TCM physician notes the color, coating, texture, thickness, and indentations. Being the only internal organ we can see directly, the tongue' s color, shape, and mobility indicate blood production and vital energy, which affects your ability to digest food, breathe, eliminate toxins, and fight illness. Your metabolism, Letha Hadady writes in her book to be treasured, points the way to your future health—as well as how you' re doing today!
Another diagnostic tool that may be used is an instrument designed by German and Japanese scientists that reads the qi and on a software program prints out a bar chart of the excess or deficient qi on 12 meridians: lung, pericardium, heart, small intestine, sanjiao, large intestine, spleen, liver, kidney, bladder, gall bladder, and stomach. This technological development in electrodermal screening (EDS) was tested with TCM physicians in Taiwan for three years before being brought to market in the late 1990s.
With a diagnosis of the body' s energy, the following treatments may be applied or advised:
- Herbal medicine, which initially may be dried botanicals for maximum potency but then shifted to powdered form or patented pill form
- Massage or meridian therapy, which is pressure applied to acupuncture points on the qi meridians
- Diet and nutrition—vitamins, minerals, and herbals are individualized to balance the body' s qi
- Acupuncture, which may be either "cold" or "warm"; moxibustion is the burning of herbs on the needles to heat them and speed healing
- Cupping, in which a small, hallow cup is placed on the skin to increase circulation
- Qi Gong, an exercise system that integrates movement, breath, and meditation to improve the flow of qi
Your frequency of visits will depend upon the condition being treated.
Experiences
On a holiday in the Olympic National Park, John, 58, was doing more walking than usual. After a few days his right knee grew painful and within a 24-hour period became too inflamed to walk normally, and pain hindered sleep. Chinatown in Vancouver was on the tour route. He stopped in a herbal pharmacy and asked for a consultation with the TCM physician on call in the shop. The doctor took a brief medical history, examined his tongue and pulses. The pain in his right knee, the doctor explained, was caused by a weakness in his kidneys. He prescribed a number of herbs to brew into a tea for treating the kidneys and gave him a herbal ointment for topical pain relief on his knee. The ointment and tea (brewed in the hotel room' s coffeepot) ended the knee pain within a day. John continued the tea for a week, and in that period the wakeups to urinate 2 to 3 times each night also ended. He had never considered the frequent nighttime urination anything to complain about to any physician. A urine test three weeks later revealed normal kidney functions. JJS, Virginia
