We have a lot to thank the ancient Chinese in terms of health treatments. Their health contributions to the modern world span in different ways and a lot have benefited from their efforts. One specific treatment to take note of is the Chinese acupuncture which many undergo even until today.
Chinese acupuncture revolves around the concept of allowing the body to naturally heal itself from all sorts of ailments which involve sickness prevention, ailment removal, and aging processes.
It is a treatment that does not heavily dependent on the use of conventional machineries that are available in modern hospitals, and does not rely on conventional medicines that are chemically manufactured to address the different kinds of sicknesses. Instead, it promotes personal qi and derives strength to heal from within.
Chinese acupuncture is a treatment in which vital acupuncture points are systematically recognized, which in turn, have corresponding organs and muscle tissues in which it is responsible to. In order for the acupuncture points to deliver signals to the different organs and nerves in the body, acupuncture needles are required and carefully punctured into the acupuncture point itself.
From this point on, signals are automatically sent to the different energy nerves and delivered to the corresponding organs and muscle tissues; thus allowing the body to heal on its own. In essence, it is similar to a cause and effect concept, only in a more natural and healthier way.
It is good to personally conduct research on different Chinese acupuncture treatments that are freely available out there.
You will never know when the day will come when you actually need to undergo these treatments. To make it easier for you, there are two basic Chinese acupuncture treatments available namely:
1. Traditional Chinese Acupuncture
As stated earlier, this treatment is done to those who feel body pains or want to perform personal maintenance on them. It follows the traditional procedure of using the acupuncture needles to stimulate the acupuncture points.
This treatment is generally painless though patients may experience slight discomforts from time to time. This is nothing to be alarmed about only that it is caused by inserting the acupuncture needles into the body.
2. Facial Acupuncture
This treatment is generally derived from the traditional Chinese acupuncture treatment. It is focused solely on the rejuvenation of the patient’s facial properties and address the need to remove wrinkles and fine lines which is caused by fatigue, stress, anxiety, and old age.
This treatment is also said to help in the facial complexion of the patient, which in turn, gives a radiant glow and better skin tone at the same time.
If you wish to apply Chinese acupuncture treatment, you have to make sure to consult the people who will perform the treatment itself. Ask all the questions you can think of, and throw it at them to fully understand what you are getting yourself into.
Remember that if you are inquiring for treatments that are severe in nature, you have to understand that Chinese acupuncture is only considered as an alternative therapy in the medical environment.
One might expect that once the treatment is administered results will follow thereafter. Expectations have to be set and good understanding of Chinese acupuncture is a must.
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Filed under Alternative Medicine, Holistic Healing, Natural Health Care by on Sep 6th, 2010. 1 Comment. 
So I got several hundred words into this evenings post when I realized that it wasn’t a blog post, it was a PAPER. Like, the kind of thing you get published in the Journal of Chinese Medicine. I’m going to blame this on time spent reading “Dragon Rises, Red Bird Flies” lately.
Anyway, I would like to make a few points here in, well, significantly less stultified tone, and I might as well borrow from the aforementioned work to do so. I’ve been asked to talk about the emotions in Chinese medicine this week, so I’ll do that.
In my opinion, you absolutely cannot get anywhere with the modern patient (at least here in America) without addressing their psychological “physique” in some way. Now unfortunately the brand of standardized professional Chinese medicine that is currently in vogue in this country really doesn’t get much further along than stress, nebulous concepts of depression, and “shen disturbance”. The truth of the matter is that modern patients are so screwed up that they don’t even realize how bad they’re screwed up. To top that off, even when their problems aren’t due to the Five Emotions being completely out of control, their relatively minor physical complaints are obstructed by the lack of communication outward from the Heart so that if you go directly at their shoulder pain, nothing happens, no matter how correct your treatment would otherwise have been.
The oft-quoted here Heiner Fruehauf has stated numerous times that in the very ancient Chinese medical writings the Heart was considered to be an Earth organ in the Five Phase model, and that it contained the Fire of the Shen,the Shen being the Thing that must not be disturbed, the Imperial Fire, the Emperor of the entire being. Daoist traditions (everything from scholarly to medical to martial) harp on the need to empty the Heart of all desires so that the Shen may reside there undisturbed. The primary role of the emperor in ancient China (apart from being seen to be on the throne and in control) was, as a sort of high priest for the entire Earth, to enter the Temple of Heaven at the prescribed times and perform the appropriate rituals and offer the correct sacrifices in order to keep Earth in harmony with the will of Heaven. Some medical intuitive traditions teach that your best source of information will not be relying upon the chakra of the third Eye but rather the Heart and Wisdom chakras in the solar plexus and stomach. In our society we uses phrases like “getting to the heart of the matter” and knowing something in your “heart of hearts” or getting a feeling “in your gut”. 
Our society in its very existence seems to go out of its way to espouse behaviors that disturb the Shen from its necessary perch in the Heart. When, really, are we ever calm, quiet, and stable? Despite being someone who supposedly knows better, as I type this I’m listening to music, clicking back and forth between web pages and applications to keep up on sports news and what my friends are doing, thinking about my patient schedule for tomorrow and who needs what, contemplating potential tactics for my strategy game of the moment, and so on. Throughout my life my state has been to be going in several directions at once, something that is far from the natural or preferred state of being. We are ALL like this and so are our patients. So many of our patients are afflicted with this need to be doing more than they did yesterday, to achieve more, to accomplish more or…what, exactly? Everyone has their own demons, I suppose. Our patients overwork to keep up with their bills then overexercise to keep up with the current standard of appearance and to offset the stagnation of the previously mentioned overwork. We overplan, overconsume,overindulge, overspend, and generally multitask ourselves into insanity. Insanity is the word here. If you were to talk to 25 people today, how many of them would seem to you to be calm, contented, healthy, of sound mind and sound body? Not many.
We need to remember that the Five Emotions (or seven, depending on your source) when excessive or deficient (meaning not exactly right) become known as the Internal Pathogens, and since not as many of us have our life-forces frittered away because of exposure to a harsh outdoor environment we can look at them (along with environmental toxicity) as the primary cause of disease in our age. Our minor emotional difficulties are forever getting in our way, causing minor illnesses in the short term and adding up to much worse things in the long term. Our major emotional difficulties (meaning traumas) set us up for extremely difficult lives emotionally and physically and make us vulnerable to all the worst sorts of diseases, from mental instabilities all the way up to autoimmune disease and cancer. We also have the difficulty of past emotional trauma blocking the Heart from receiving the Shen properly, or from expressing the mandate of the Shen so that things become almost impossible for us to treat until these traumas are dealt with. All too frequently our patients have no idea what the real trouble is. As I tell my students, any time someone comes in with shoulder pain (especially if it centers at LI-15) I immediately have them turn around so that I can find the massive knot at UB-14 or 15, the Back Shu points of the Heart and Pericardium, which is always there.
I have honestly reached the point where almost all of my acupuncture efforts are aimed at dealing with psychological and emotional issues and leaving any denser and more material issues to an accompanying herbal formula (which is not to say that I don’t use those for psychological treatment too).
Our job increasingly involves creating awareness in the patient of their particular plight and encouraging them to take an active interest in achieving proper balance in their lives. As one first century text puts it, “emotion is that which is meant to be kept quiet while nature is that which is meant to be active and to unfold.” A kingdom in which the Emperor is out of control has no chance whatsoever of peace and instead finds itself in civil war. The bulk of our job currently is getting the Emperor back on the throne. Until that happens, there’s really not a great deal of use obsessing over crop prices or tinkering with delivery of goods to outlying provinces.
Tags: emotions, Acupuncture
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Filed under Alternative Medicine, Holistic Healing, Natural Health Care by on Aug 18th, 2010. Comment.
Recently I found myself “eavesdropping” on an online conversation between two professors at NCNM, namely Roger Batchelor and Ed Neal, on the subject of the Pericardium in the Classics. What came out of it was more than a little enlightening and inspired me to talk about the Pericardium a bit this week.
The essential point of the discussion was as follows: what we call Pericardium in the modern Chinese medicine disciplines is referred to as (quoting Ed’s translation here) “Mai vessel of the heart encircling luo vessel (network), following the hand (upper) Jue Yin six confirmation terrain, relating to the function whose (domain of responsibility) is the heart.” Usually this is shortened to Xin Bao, or Heart Wrapper or Heart Encirclement. Usually this is assumed to equal the Western anatomical structure of the pericardium, the membrane that protects the heart. However, what Roger and Ed pointed out is that in it’s discussion of the function of the Xin Bao, which is always the important thing to the Classical Chinese mind, it has almost nothing to do with the pericardium whatsoever and instead equates much more closely to the coronary artery network. This, to my mind, answers a boatload of questions about what the Hand Jueyin (and the not-particularly-easy-to-understand Jueyin as a whole) actually does.
First, for our TCM readers, let me clarify a misconception that seems to be prevalent: contrary to what we learn in school, Jueyin does not refer to a seldom seen and horrifying state where the patient is vomiting roundworms (something that the average Westerner can’t fathom) and occurring just before spectacular death. Rather, Jueyin, which deals with-amongst other things-the Heart and Pericardium organs, is the “closure” of Yin, the function that causes Yin to shrink and decrease so that it may change properly into Yang. The Liver stores the Blood and supplies said Blood throughout the body. The Heart moves the Blood, but how does the Blood get there? Via the Jueyin network. The Liver feeds blood to the Heart via the Pericardium/Xin Bao. How much more sense does this process make if the Xin Bao is really the coronary artery network?
Also notice that the representative true Jueyin formula, Dang Gui Si Ni Tang, is a Blood-oriented formula. If Dang Gui is the Emperor herb, you can bet the house that Blood is the primary issue at stake, especially given the construction of the rest of the formula: Gui Zhi to invigorate the Blood, Tong Cao to decrease vascular rigidity, Xi Xin to warm the Blood as it reaches the Lungs, Sheng Jiang to bolster Taiyin function in the construction of Blood and Da Zao and Zhi Gan Cao to supply material to the Blood and Yang to the Heart when used with Gui Zhi and Sheng Jiang. Blood, Blood, and more Blood. If the Xin Bao was just the wrapper of the Heart (something that always mystified me) this wouldn’t make a great deal of sense. However, if it instead is equated with a) the coronary artery system that is responsible for feeding Blood directly to the heart and b) a more formless and function-oriented idea of the system of channels, Luo networks, etc. that encircle the Heart and supply it with Yin and material fuel, suddenly both Xin Bao and Jueyin make a lot more sense. Also if you consider that the Kidneys have to provide the ultimate Yin Water that nourish and protect everything in the upper Jiao from the overwhelming Imperial Fire of the Heart, it makes complete sense that this Yin would travel up through its child Wood (meaning the Yin Wood network of the Liver, but which the Chong Mai adds its influence to) and onto Wood’s child Fire (being the Xin Bao and Heart).
Let’s also look at the Xin Bao/Pericardium from psychological perspectives. The Pericardium is normally seen as the Heart protector, a point of view I agree with fully. However, I think in the context of viewing Xin Bao as a network instead of reducing it to just one physical entity (as is our modern wont) the protective membrane of the pericardium is only a small part of the story. In the primary lineage I have been trained in (Leon Hammer’s Contemporary Oriental Medicine which, despite the name, is actually very classically informed) as the Heart pulse begins to tighten there is both a restriction of circulation into the Heart proper as well as a decrease in communication with the outside world. The patient is often quite far into nervous exhaustion and is beginning to close off and isolate himself emotionally from society, loved ones, possibly also even himself, especially if a Slippery quality is also found. The tighter the pulse gets the more the constriction develops on every plane, introducing emotional rigidity (frequently accompanied by the “character armor” of muscular rigidity) and impeded circulation in the chest, frequently with sharp pains over the heart. It’s much easier to see this constriction mirrored by a constriction of the arteries that feed the Heart rather than what amounts to a lubricated bag somehow constricting.
I would also add in a comment from Arnaud Versluys on this subject in a lecture where he stated that the Heart’s job is to primarily serve as a container for the Shen and that in fact the Pericardium-which is also represented by the entirety of the vascular network-does the actual beating, “squeezing the heart” as it were. Again, the coronary artery network theory really works well.
So what does this mean practically? To begin with, this really clarifies the (manifold) uses for the Pericardium channel in acupuncture. Given the usage of Pc-4 for treating acute myocardial infarction, we can see its power over the physical structure of the Heart and its Vessels. However, we can also see the benefits of providing nourishment to the Heart via the combination of K-22, Pc-1, and Pc-2 using the Exit and Entry points of the Kidney and Pericardium channels to bring the Yin influence of Water to the Fire networks, essentially mimicking the natural activity of the Jueyin. This combination is very useful for patients whose Imperial Fire is beginning to run amok causing insomnia, flight of thought, anxiety, and other symptoms.
This does however raise interesting questions about the true function of Pericardium-oriented herbs such as Zhi Mu, which is frequently used to cool down and protect the Heart and Pericardium, relieving cases of delerium as well as less serious psychological difficulties along the same spectrum.
I would love to hear from our more experienced practitioners on this subject in the comments section.
Tags: pericardium, Chinese medicine, AcupunctureRelated articles
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Holistic Healing, Natural Health Care by on Aug 11th, 2010. Comment.
I’d like to announce a new project here at Deepest Health. We like projects. This one is called the Year of Diligent Action, or, YODA.
Project motivations
It’s not enough to believe that something is true. It’s not enough to read an oath every morning. It’s not enough to know what you must to do be what you want to be. You must act. Honestly, though, when one is pursuing excellence – even simple action is not enough. One must develop a regular habit of action in line with principle. It was Aristotle who said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” This project is all about finding the truth in that statement.
So what excellence? What principles? Since beginning school at NCNM, I have sought to become the best medical practitioner I can become. As I’ve progressed through school, graduated, and begun my own practice I have learned everything I can about how to live an excellent life. I’ve not always managed to apply what I’ve learned, but I feel ready to do so now. I’m sure I’m not alone in any of this.
In essence, then, we are pursuing excellence within the realm of our development as medical practitioners. We are seeking, with some amount of hubris, to become Great Physicians in the style of Sun Simiao, Zhang Zhongjing and others. We may not reach such heights – but to aim in that direction seems a noble enough pursuit.
We’ve done other projects here on Deepest Health, most notably the Year of Sagely Living. This project will be different than that one, but undertaken with the same spirit – to delve deeply, to soar to great heights, and to learn something about ourselves.
There are man ways one might undertake a project like this. Models for excellence abound. Here, we seek to emulate the spirit and focus of two main models.
First, the Oath taken by Chinese medicine graduates at NCNM:
- I promise to follow the way of the great physician.
- I will strive to live in harmony with nature and teach my patients to do the same.
- I will stay calm and completely committed when treating disease.
- I will not give way to personal desires and wishes, but instead hold and nurture a deep feeling of compassion.
- I will be devoted to the task of saving the sacred spark of life in every creature that still carries it.
- I will strive to hold myself to the highest standards.
- It will be my duty to diagnose sufferings and treat their causes.
- I will not be boastful about my skills and not be driven by greed for material things.
- Above all, I will keep an open heart.
- As I move on the right path, I will receive great happiness as a rewards without asking for anything in return.
Second, an important chapter in the Neijing Suwen – chapter 25. Here is a relevant excerpt as translated by Maoshing Ni.
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There are five requisites for an effective practitioner. Most physicians ignore these five edicts…
- First, one must have unity of mind and spirit, with undistracted focus.
- Second, one must understand and practice the Dao of self-preservation and cultivation.
- Third, one must be familiar with the true properties and actions of each herb.
- Fourth, one must be proficient in the art of acupuncture.
- Fifth, one must know the art of diagnosis.
- When one follows these five edicts, one will be effective. With acupuncture one can tonify the deficient and sedate the excess. But if one can observe the yin and yang laws of the universe and truly apply their essence to treatment, the results will be even better.
This project will begin now, August 9, 2010, and will extend for as long as it is deemed a useful practice. The key components of the practice with regards to its impact on Deepest Health are as follows (this list may be updated as time goes on and new elements are added):
- Eric will undertake a specific program to help lead him towards living by the principles above. He will talk about the details of his work on his personal blog – Ericgrey.com.
- Eric will post weekly about his progress, summarizing any ups, downs, insights or revelations. He will focus particularly on how his efforts seem to be impacting his clinical practice and his ability to learn Chinese medicine more deeply. This will replace the promised Western philosphy + Chinese medicine column (sorry) which has been shelved for a variety of personal reasons.
- A new subforum will be created on the Deepest Health forum where others can post their comments, express their interest in the project, and maybe even link to progress blogs of their own.
Simple for now, complexity added as needed.
Year of Diligent Action : A study in Chinese medicine excellence
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Filed under Alternative Medicine, Holistic Healing, Natural Health Care by on Aug 9th, 2010. 1 Comment.
I’m going to do something a little different this week and write something a bit more personal this week, something a bit more, well, extemporaneous. I’ve been working on being sick for the last couple of weeks and of course the day it comes to a head is the day I have an article that needs writing. So, I’m going to aim for a little less polish and a little more from the hip this time, and my apologies if it’s not the most pristine bit of prose you’ve ever read because, well, I’m a bit under the weather. It’s likely to be more questions than answers today, but for some reason I felt that rather than pontificating I needed to show the other side a bit. Here we go.
A collection of thoughts about being in practice.
1. It’s hard being a natural medicine practitioner when you’re relatively sickly. I’m a fairly good sized guy.When I was
born my mom’s OB/GYN declared I was going to play for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers when I grew up. (This was not a curse, I’m from Tampa.) You don’t really think “poor health, very deficient” when you look at me. However, I’m kinda sickly and I’ve kind of been that way my whole life, for reasons multifarious. I feel like I’ve come a long way in the last few years, but I still tend to be on the weak side, not able to do all that much in the way of physical activity, coming down with things a lot, etc. (When I moved in January, afterward I was sick until sometime mid March). The point here is that I frequently find myself (like today, for instance) in the middle of a diagnosis with a patient thinking “How exactly is this person supposed to believe in my ability to improve their health when, despite my best efforts, my own personal health is so poor?”
2. Treating chronic disease is an exercise in patience and frustration management. Chronic disease is what I look for, my preferred type of case. The really difficult, chronic, life-crippling stuff. This is because these are the patients I most want to help, whose lives would be the most changed by a positive result. Despite having the tools at my disposal to do just that and making observable progress, it’s still a very frustrating process. Sometimes these things really do take four or five years to pull off, and that with hitting a home run every week. Patients get frustrated and drop out, really committed patients have other disasters befall them or are being crippled by their Western treatment regimens, patients that are doing absolutely everything right still continue to suffer greatly in the process of improvement. Some days it’s hair-pulling. Some days it’s heart breaking. This is part of the acupuncturists life that they seemed to have missed in school.
3. Doing things in the right order takes a lot of faith and self-confidence. I have multiple patients who have some sort of chronic pain who, to my mind, are great examples of the Neijing maxim that “all pain, sores, and itching come from the Heart.” They have chronic pain that
is being directly or indirectly caused by upper jiao blockage due to emotional distress followed by a walling off of the psycho-emotional energies of the Heart and Lungs. In both cases a powerful resistance to dealing with the loss of loved ones is crippling circulation and leading to a variety of additional symptoms, like dysmenorrhea. However, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to be charging a pretty good sized sum of money to someone who has come to you for elbow pain which isn’t really getting better and having to tell them “look, we gotta keep focusing on that emotional blockage first in order to get to your pain, otherwise we’re just knocking our heads against the wall.” Is it the truth? Absolutely. Do I still kinda worry that it’s going to make me and every other acupuncturist alive look bad and one day she’ll stop coming in and tell her friends about what a waste it was and…you bet. After all, you can’t have a good neurosis without a lot of work.
4. Some days you feel like you did everything wrong, and yet everything right happens. I’ll never understand this one. You needled these two points and…just didn’t “feel it.” Like there was no real connection. You had to more or less guess on the formula and just kinda threw it out there, not really knowing what would happen. You were too beat to take a proper pulse and so had to work out what to do from other angles, and even then things didn’t seem right. You were sure that what you did was going to fail utterly. However, the next time you talk to the patient, they’re thrilled with the results. Go figure.
5. Some days you feel like you did everything right and the case barely budges. See #2
6. You really do have to get used to the idea that patients are frequently so closed off, out of touch with themselves/reality, and self-unaware that they have no idea what’s really wrong with them. Frequently they can’t even tell you if things are better or worse because they literally have no idea. See #3
7. The practices of other practitioners is going to make you really mad some days. You’re going to hear about people who are essentially running a health food store/supplement supply under the guise of a medical license for all the hawking of goods they do. They will practice lousy medicine, though their patients probably don’t realize it. They will have evolved into the Monte Hall model by force of necessity, because their actual CM acumen is so poor. So in order to survive, they will pull in every modality, every product, everything in existence into their practice and sell it all. Their practice will be bigger than yours, they will be making more money than you, their car/address will be nicer, they will be in the local magazines. They will still not know what they are doing, they will not be reaching the level of results our ancestors expect from us, however they will be feeding the consumer culture of our society, and that is why they will be doing well. You will know this, but it will still make you mad.
8. Your practice is going to make you really mad some days. You will find yourself saying “if this stuff is so great, if I’m practicing such a superior modality, if my herbs are such high quality, if I have it on absolute fact that I am doing what my patient needs when they need it, then why in the hell aren’t any of them completely cured? If my way is better, then why is it such a small operation? If I’m so great then why do I ride the bus instead of my Mercedes/Porsche/whatever? Why aren’t I better at treating emergency/acute/chronic/mystery/women’s/men’s/children’s/animals illnesses? Why do I have so few answers?” Again, neurosis takes work.
9. All of these things will come and go along with this thought: man, this stuff is really great and I feel good. Yin transforms into Yang and Yang transforms into Yin. Good days, bad days, they’re all part of it it seems. I personally think that people who only have good days (residents of Portland notwithstanding) need psychological evaluation and a lie detector test. Just try to remember that when things are bad that soon it will turn around and that when things are good that you don’t have all the answers just yet.
Tags: Acupuncture, Chinese medicineRelated articles
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Holistic Healing, Natural Health Care by on Jul 28th, 2010. Comment.
Acupuncture treatment is one of the world’s oldest methods to treat people. It is a traditional procedure which has originated from the Chinese medical practices.
Basically, the method of the acupuncture treatment involves the insertion of tiny needles to specific areas of the body to relieve it from energy imbalances and blockages. 
These areas which are scattered around the body correspond to the various organs or groups of organs.
When the needles are being inserted in these areas, it can then restore the original health and well being of the body.
Overview on acupuncture treatment
The acupuncture treatment is comprised of different procedures which revolve around the goal of stimulating the different areas in the body through a set of techniques.
Although these techniques may vary from one another, they are deemed very efficient and reliable at restoring the body’s wellness.
Although the acupuncture treatment is considered as an ancient practice, researchers have already studied its effectiveness and credibility. These studies have concluded that acupuncture treatment is a viable way of treating the physical body.
Generally, people undergo the process of acupuncture treatment in order to treat common ailments such as nausea, back pains and even dental problems.
Top 3 benefits from the treatment
Qi Energy
It has been discovered that during acupuncture treatment, the neural activity in the brain is being induced with patterns which in turn stabilize its condition.
In addition, the flow of vital energy is also being released which is commonly known as ‘qi’ (or pronounced as ‘chee’). This kind of energy is what makes a person feel very light within and with a newly found positivism.
Relaxation
People can feel relaxed through acupuncture treatment not only during the whole process but even afterwards. Although the body may be punctured with tiny needles, there is minimal pain to be felt. A lot of people who undergo this kind of process are even energized.
Endorphin Release
With the process of acupuncture treatment, it can also decrease pain in the body by stimulating the circulation of endorphins. When such chemicals are being released all throughout the body, the person can immediately feel fullness in his muscles. When endorphins are then present within the body, it can block the message of pain from going up to the brain.
Further Studies on the Treatment
Although acupuncture treatment is considered as a reliable process of relieving the body from pain, improper placement of the needles can definitely cause the body to feel sore and pain.
It is important that the acupuncture treatment is only done by qualified practitioners so that patients will receive the full treatment that they signed up for.
Likewise, scientists should still continue their researches on acupuncture so that the public will know if indeed it has scientific basis or it is simply a product of the placebo effect.
More so, people should be careful in undergoing such a procedure to know for themselves if the acupuncture practitioner is qualified enough to heal them.
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Holistic Healing, Natural Health Care by on Jul 28th, 2010. Comment.
After posting an earlier post discussing the first of my five maxims, a request came up to present the rest of them. Never one to shy from a good request, today I’d like to present Reynolds’ Second Maxim, which is “Don’t hear horses and think zebras” which could also be phrased “Thou shalt not overcomplicate!”
“This will be the seventh time we have destroyed Zion…”
I remember going to the movies to see “The Matrix Reloaded” during the course of which a neat and tidy story which everyone was familiar with was exploded into about a million little subplots and alternate storylines with a new cast of characters that became hard to keep track of and events and motivations that didn’t make a great deal of sense. That and some sort of rave/orgy. Upon leaving the theater, my girlfriend at the time turned to me and said “Uhh…that was needlessly complicated.” This I feel is an excellent example of the typical state we frequently find ourselves in, especially once herbs enter the picture.
I feel that this concept is heavily tied in to my first maxim (“What are the symptoms?”) in that you don’t want to make the mistake that many physicians have made throughout history, East and West, which is deciding what a great idea a particular path of treatment would be and implementing it without bothering to first find out if it’s a good idea.
Not women, THIS woman
This very much applies to the TCM habit of protocol-making, where, in the example of one very popular protocol, a treatment method including both points and formulas is decided upon depending on what week of her menstrual cycle a woman is currently in. If it’s week one, she gets Formula A and Point Protocol A. Week two is Formula B and Point Protocol B and so on. Now at first glance this seems like it could be a great idea, as it appears to take into account the fact that a woman is likely to be in a slightly different physiological state depending on what week of her cycle is in. However, it fails to take into account the only thing that matters, which is the condition of the patient before you. It’s very easy to get caught up in thinking of things in broad strokes, the nature of women, the resonance between this or that herb and female physiology, lab results, and a million other things when in fact the only question of importance is still “what are the symptoms?” All information regarding symbology, tendencies, studies, typical clinical solutions, etc. is only of value insofar as it can be translated into a specific and accurate treatment for the individual. What works on “women” is of little use as we are interested in what works for this woman, whose specific menstrual complaints may have very little to do with Spleen Qi Deficiency, Blood Deficiency, etc. and may instead come from sources as varied as emotional trauma, overexercise, or acute stress.
Now this is not to say that I don’t use protocols, which would be the furthest thing from the truth. Technically, as long as we are borrowing from someone else to match a situation, that’s a protocol. I just do my best to a) use the most powerful and effective protocols and b) only use protocols that are very strongly indicated for the case in question. The truth of the matter is that I tend to avoid overcomplication by using the most simple, direct, elegant, profound, and well…broad protocols we’ve ever had the privilege of being handed, which lie in the work of Zhang Zhong Jing.
Now those of you who attended NCNM have likely not experienced what those of us who are classic-minded but came through TCM schools have, so please try to put yourself in our shoes a bit. My particular experience frequently involved the presenting of a case to a supervisor who, especially the Chinese ones, would roll their eyes at my Shang Han Lun-based approach and instead begin rattling off piles of points, truckloads of herbs with dosages set to numbers gained via some inexplicable method that had more to do with cooking than herbology in my opinion, and sent off to make the patient better instead of doing whatever craziness I had been working on, despite the fact that 10 times out of 10 I could point to textual support in the Shang Han Lun or Jin Gui Yao Lue for what it was I was trying to accomplish. This to me is the ultimate overcomplication and unfortunately this “whatchagot” method of making formulas out of single herbs (or dui yao pairs amongst the more enlightened) is the hallmark of TCM herbology’s gross ineffectiveness.
An Example
I’ll give the following example which is, admittedly, a straw man, but one that will hopefully illustrate what I’m going on about to the non-TCM trained set. I can assure you that I have seen this very approach many times by TCM herbalists, even very experienced ones. Suppose a patient presents with the following: sore throat, somewhat mild all-over pain that is especially strong in head and back, fever, chills, yellow phlegm in chest and sinuses, headache in occipital, parietal, and frontal regions, coughing, sneezing, nasal drip, nausea, irritability. Tongue has thick white coat. Standout pulse qualities are floating and moderate at left cun position and slightly deep and tight at left guan position. I will present three different ways of dealing with this case:
Method #1: The completely wrong way: Diagnosis: Wind-Heat Treatment: Yin Qiao San, or failing that Chuan Xin Lian Pian + Bi Yan Pian. Rationale: , YQS is primary formula for early stage Wind-Heat. CXLP is extremely antiviral and antibacterial, BYP is good for runny nose and sneezing.
Method #2: The needlessly complicated way: Diagnosis: Wind-Cold invasion turning into Heat. Treatment: Make the following symptom-based custom formula (with rationale):
Lian Qiao + Jin Yin Hua: Good for Wind-Heat, clears Heat, reduce fever, soothes sore throat
Yan Hu Suo: #1 herb for pain
Du Huo+Ji Sheng: #1 combination for back pain
Gao Ben: relieves head pain, back pain, also good vs wind
Ban Lan Gen: clears Lung Heat, antiviral/antibacterial
Lu Gen: clears Heat Phlegm from Lungs
Jing Jie + Fang Feng=expel Wind
Niu Bang Zi: relieves cough, clears toxicity
Bo He: releases exterior, clears Heat, relieves irritability
Sha Ren: nausea
Gan Cao: clears Heat, harmonizes formula
Method #3: The right way : Diagnosis: Combined Taiyang-Shaoyang syndrome Treatment: Xiao Chai Hu Tang modifed as follows (as listed in the original SHL text):
Chai Hu
Huang Qin
Ban Xia
Gan Jiang
Zhi Gan Cao
Wu Wei Zi
Gui Zhi
Gua Lou Shi
Rationale: These are the modifications given by Zhang Zhong Jing to match this very situation. Even if you didn’t know these, by having a working knowledge of the SHL/JGYL you would know enough of the approach to work this out for yourself. There’s no fishing around for herbs to match up vs symptoms and having to guess which option is better than another, its all there already. The problem is primarily blockage in the Shaoyang network with some accompanying Taiyang symptoms. Xiao Chai Hu Tang is the primary formula for resolving this type of blockage with a couple modifications made to assist. Note that the point of this formula is to unblock Shaoyang, unblock Taiyang, unbind the chest, drain damp, strengthen Taiyin and that all curative actions are based out of that without having to make the World’s Biggest Formula in an attempt to solve a relatively simple problem that was solved (and written down) a couple thousand years ago. As Arnaud Versluys says, “there’s really no reason to re-invent hot water every time you need to cook something.”
Even in the case of chronic disease, the approach remains the same: choose the correct root that most accurately fits the situation and modify to match specifics. It also helps to have reliable information to draw from, which is of course why I insist that Zhang Zhong Jing’s work must be the toolbox that all Chinese herbology reaches into when it needs a tool. Before you start thinking “Ok, I’m going to take this formula and mix it with that formula and then add these herbs and then refer them to that doctor for this therapy and…” first see if there is a simple solution to the problem, as is so often the case. Don’t be afraid ti mix and match with formulas, herbs, modalities, etc. but make sure it’s necessary first.
I’m sure I will expound upon this at a later date but for now I hope this gets you thinking in the right direction.
Tags: tcm, Chinese medicine, Acupuncture
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