One day, a client walked in and asked if I can help for his insomnia. When he was talking,you can feel the tension. He was taking some medicine for his mental problem for more than twenty years. Then since 2004,he had trouble with sleep. Every night, he went to bed around 10 pm, then woke up around 1-2am, and couldn't fall asleep anymore. Since then ,he started to take sleeping pill,till now,he was taking five kinds of sleeping pills, still no change. He asked me if I can help him. Be honestly, I'm not sure. I said you can try ten times of acupuncture to see if it works for you.
I did a check up for him. He has a thick and yellow tongue coat. His pulse on both hand ,you can feel the tension and slippery. So his tongue and his pulse indicated he had heat and dampness as a toxic in his body. And according to his sleep pattern,which wakes up around 1-2am, meant the toxic stayed at his liver and gall bladder meridians. And he had this problem for more than six years, we said chronic problems can cause the deficiency. specially the heat can definitely effect on liver Ying. So I used acupuncture points on these two meridians. After the first time treatment,when I went home, I thought about this case again,(usually for some interesting cases,I'd like to go through again to see if anything I can do to improve the result ),then I decided to give him some Chinese herbal tablets .Even it costed a little more,(this client was quite concerned about the financial,I tried to use least money to help) ,but I thought it should help. The good news was,when the second time,he came, he felt a little improvement. Even that,I still convinced him to take the herbal medicine. Since the third time,he saw more improvement. Even he still woke up,but he can fall asleep in half hour. Four or five times later on,even he can go through the whole night. And his tongue coat is disappeared. His pulse was more even then before. And he started to joke with me. I'm so happy for him. This is the best gift for me.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Hypertension
I have a client. I saw her since 2002. She is around late 40s. When she has problem with shoulder or arms,she comes to visit me. Maybe a few times per year. Recently I saw her because of her allergy. During the treatment, she told me that she doesn't like to go to see a doctor. the latest one is because she cut her finger,then she went to an emergency. The doctor on duty took her blood pressure as a routine. He took her blood pressure for several times,then said he couldn't write down the numbers. Otherwise she would be in trouble. So I asked her about the number,she said maybe around 220/120 mmhg. The doctor thought maybe because she was in pain,so she had a high blood pressure. Then I thought even she was in such a pain,usually shouldn't have such a high blood pressure. So after acupuncture, I took her blood pressure. It was high.220/130! She has nothing to complaint except allergy symptoms. And she is not sure about her family history. So I asked her to come next day,and meantime I asked her to take her blood pressure by herself to excluding “ white cloth high blood pressure”( when people see a doctor,their blood pressure go up). She did that,and also the second time I took her blood pressure was high,too. I kept pushing her to see her family doctor. When she told her doctor about the number of blood pressure,her doctor got an appointment for her right away. Fortunately after all the examinations, except that she had several very mild heart attack( even she didn't have any symptoms), her liver,kidney function are still normal. Her family doctor gave her high dosage of blood pressure pills to control her blood pressure. A few weeks later,her blood pressure was going down ,but still abnormal. I suggest her to combine with herbs. Her diastolic pressure is very high,which means her vessels are narrowed and fragile. Drugs are only help to control the blood pressure, but it couldn't to help softening the vessels. Combining with herbs,we try to treat hypertension from the root. Definitely , this treatment would take a long way to go.
Her family doctor said thanks to me. I thanks to her because of her care about the patient. I should find her hypertension much more earlier. I'm back afraid that if that day I'm not chatting with her,if she doesn't mention what happened in the emergency,maybe I'll never find she has hypertension. That's why we said when you are a doctor for a long time,you'll be more careful. Anything can happen if you skip a clue.
Her family doctor said thanks to me. I thanks to her because of her care about the patient. I should find her hypertension much more earlier. I'm back afraid that if that day I'm not chatting with her,if she doesn't mention what happened in the emergency,maybe I'll never find she has hypertension. That's why we said when you are a doctor for a long time,you'll be more careful. Anything can happen if you skip a clue.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Follow-up in China
The day after my husband’s arrival in China, he went to a hospital to have an x-ray taken. The results showed pneumonia and the doctor suggested that he have a CT scan done. (Remember, I'm still in Canada.) The CT scan was taken right away and cost about CDN$200 which is a lot money in China. The CT scan results came out clear. The doctor then asked him to stay in hospital even though he didn’t have any symptoms. Fortunately, this time, he firmly declined. The doctor ended up prescribing at least four kinds antibiotics, including two kinds for IV for another week. I couldn’t believe it! To be honest, I think antibiotics are overused. I worked in China as a doctor for many years, so I know exactly what is going on. I would not have let this happen, but because my husband was located in a different city from where I used work, the situation was out of my hands. They definitely abuse antibiotic use nowadays. Some doctors think only about the money and don't even care about what happens with their patients. First of all, my husband didn’t need an immediate CT scan. After another two to four weeks he could have had another x-ray as a comparison. Secondly, only oral antibiotic should be taken at that stage( which is the recovery stage). The best thing to do is to just stop the antibiotics and take some herbs to nourish the body; use the body's own power to completely heal. I wish my husband would listen to me, but because we’re so far away, there’s not much I can do.
The body's healing powers are like soldiers. If the soldiers never fight, they lose their abilities.
The body's healing powers are like soldiers. If the soldiers never fight, they lose their abilities.
Fever
I have two recent and interesting cases I'd like to share.
The first case involves a 54-year-old female client of mine who had symptoms of a bloated stomach. Two days later she experienced chills, but no sweat, headache, no appetite, low energy and constipation. This lasted for about a week. When she finally came to see me, I checked her tongue, pulse and body temperature which was 39.2 Celsius. My assessment was that she had a cold blocked Tai Yang Meridian with interior heat. The Tai Yang Meridian acts like a gate and when it’s blocked with a cold (caused by pathologic factors such as viruses, bacteria, etc.) the internal heat has nowhere to escape resulting in a high fever.
Treatment was to clear the cold in the Tai Yang Meridian and accumulated internal heat. After acupuncture and cupping, my client felt immediate relief. After giving her herbs, she sweated and had a bowel movement. On the second day, her body temperature dropped to 38.3 Celsius. On the third day of treatment, her temperature was 37.0 Celsius, her headache less severe and appetite increased. On the fourth day, she was back to normal, so I gave herbs to help nourish her body. In a week, without any drugs, my client had fully recovered.
The second case involves my husband. He is 36 and has been a cigarette smoker for more than 15 years. I’ve tried to get him to quit smoking, but, unfortunately, he doesn’t listen. Two weeks ago he started having fits of coughing at night. He took some cough syrup and it got better. He then developed a slight fever which I didn't really pay much attention to because I wanted to take this opportunity to scare him into possibly quitting smoking. I wasn’t really thinking about what herbs I should be giving him and ended up giving him whatever was on hand and easy to take. Then his situation took a turn for the worse and he developed a high fever pattern. The pattern was a normal temperature reading in the morning and as the day progressed it would get higher and peak between 3pm and 5pm at 38.8 Celsius. He began taking antibiotics (he doesn't believe in herbs), but this didn’t help him get better.
From my experience, and from a Western medicine perspective, this meant 3 possible diagnoses: infection, tuberculosis or cancer. According to my husband’s research on the internet, his pattern was most reflective of cancer. Needless to say, he cut back drastically on his cigarette smoking.
There wasn’t any time to see our family doctor because it would take too long before we could get an appointment and he had a flight booked for China. I finally forced him to come to my clinic and, ignoring his bargaining (he is chicken with needles), I did acupuncture and cupping. According to his fever pattern, the heat was already deep inside in the Yang Ming Meridian (pathologic factors from surface to interior goes like this: Tai Yang - Shao Yang - Yang Ming; the deeper the problem is, the harder it is to cure) so I used strong herbs for him. They were quite bitter, but they worked; his temperature finally started to lower. With his body temperature getting better, I knew there was a lesser chance of him having tuberculosis and cancer. I advised that he have an x-ray taken just to exclude the possibility of other diseases.
Within three days, his body temperature dropped down to 37.3 C. For his flight to China, I gave him some herbal pills instead of the herbal tea treatment. During his flight I was worried because I knew it was going to be a long ride and I was afraid that without enough rest his fever might return. We spoke when he arrived in Shang Hai and he let me know that he had no fever. Thank God. Now it's my turn to have a rest.
The first case involves a 54-year-old female client of mine who had symptoms of a bloated stomach. Two days later she experienced chills, but no sweat, headache, no appetite, low energy and constipation. This lasted for about a week. When she finally came to see me, I checked her tongue, pulse and body temperature which was 39.2 Celsius. My assessment was that she had a cold blocked Tai Yang Meridian with interior heat. The Tai Yang Meridian acts like a gate and when it’s blocked with a cold (caused by pathologic factors such as viruses, bacteria, etc.) the internal heat has nowhere to escape resulting in a high fever.
Treatment was to clear the cold in the Tai Yang Meridian and accumulated internal heat. After acupuncture and cupping, my client felt immediate relief. After giving her herbs, she sweated and had a bowel movement. On the second day, her body temperature dropped to 38.3 Celsius. On the third day of treatment, her temperature was 37.0 Celsius, her headache less severe and appetite increased. On the fourth day, she was back to normal, so I gave herbs to help nourish her body. In a week, without any drugs, my client had fully recovered.
The second case involves my husband. He is 36 and has been a cigarette smoker for more than 15 years. I’ve tried to get him to quit smoking, but, unfortunately, he doesn’t listen. Two weeks ago he started having fits of coughing at night. He took some cough syrup and it got better. He then developed a slight fever which I didn't really pay much attention to because I wanted to take this opportunity to scare him into possibly quitting smoking. I wasn’t really thinking about what herbs I should be giving him and ended up giving him whatever was on hand and easy to take. Then his situation took a turn for the worse and he developed a high fever pattern. The pattern was a normal temperature reading in the morning and as the day progressed it would get higher and peak between 3pm and 5pm at 38.8 Celsius. He began taking antibiotics (he doesn't believe in herbs), but this didn’t help him get better.
From my experience, and from a Western medicine perspective, this meant 3 possible diagnoses: infection, tuberculosis or cancer. According to my husband’s research on the internet, his pattern was most reflective of cancer. Needless to say, he cut back drastically on his cigarette smoking.
There wasn’t any time to see our family doctor because it would take too long before we could get an appointment and he had a flight booked for China. I finally forced him to come to my clinic and, ignoring his bargaining (he is chicken with needles), I did acupuncture and cupping. According to his fever pattern, the heat was already deep inside in the Yang Ming Meridian (pathologic factors from surface to interior goes like this: Tai Yang - Shao Yang - Yang Ming; the deeper the problem is, the harder it is to cure) so I used strong herbs for him. They were quite bitter, but they worked; his temperature finally started to lower. With his body temperature getting better, I knew there was a lesser chance of him having tuberculosis and cancer. I advised that he have an x-ray taken just to exclude the possibility of other diseases.
Within three days, his body temperature dropped down to 37.3 C. For his flight to China, I gave him some herbal pills instead of the herbal tea treatment. During his flight I was worried because I knew it was going to be a long ride and I was afraid that without enough rest his fever might return. We spoke when he arrived in Shang Hai and he let me know that he had no fever. Thank God. Now it's my turn to have a rest.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Infant Massage
Infant massage is widely practiced not only in North America, but also in China. Babies are just too young to administer medicine to. The use of massage is a perfectly acceptable remedy; it’s safe and effective.
Common infant ailments that massage can relieve are: cold, fever, cough, asthma, stomach pain, diarrhea, constipation, malnutrition, night cry, enuresis, infant muscular wryneck, just to name a few. It can also be used to promote general health and well being.
The method in which infants are diagnosed is different from adults. With adults, we look at the tongue and feel the pulse. For infants, we look at the colour of their forefinger print to find out the body’s condition; if it's hot, cold, sufficient or deficient. Then, according to the diagnosis, we use acupoints and different massage techniques to alleviate the problem. Again, acupoints used on infants are different than those used on adults.
Infant massage is considered to be a “green" friendly treatment and an excellent way for parents to bond with their children.
Common infant ailments that massage can relieve are: cold, fever, cough, asthma, stomach pain, diarrhea, constipation, malnutrition, night cry, enuresis, infant muscular wryneck, just to name a few. It can also be used to promote general health and well being.
The method in which infants are diagnosed is different from adults. With adults, we look at the tongue and feel the pulse. For infants, we look at the colour of their forefinger print to find out the body’s condition; if it's hot, cold, sufficient or deficient. Then, according to the diagnosis, we use acupoints and different massage techniques to alleviate the problem. Again, acupoints used on infants are different than those used on adults.
Infant massage is considered to be a “green" friendly treatment and an excellent way for parents to bond with their children.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Chinese Herbs
A client came in today asking, “Do you offer Chinese herbs? Do you guarantee that there are no side effects?” Unfortunately, there are no guarantees when it comes to side effects. Chinese herbs are just a different method of curing an ailment compared to Western medicine. It's like climbing a mountain; there are different ways of getting to the peak. There is a short but risky way and there is a longer but safe way. Drugs are like taking the short way - they are quick and effective, but with more side effects. Chinese herbs are like taking the longer way - it takes some time and is safer, but this doesn’t mean there are no side effects.
There are more than 500 Chinese herbs used which include roots, grass, woods, furs, animals and stones. We classify them into three categories:
· The first category called "superior" includes herbs effective for multiple diseases and are mostly responsible for maintaining and restoring the body’s balance. They have almost no unfavorable side-effects. Examples are black date, Chinese yam, sesame seed, and ginger. Some are consumed the same way regular food is.
· The second category is comprised of tonics, boosters and detoxifiers for which their consumption must not be prolonged.
· The third category are toxic, usually taken in small doses and used only for the treatment of specific ailments.
In China, herbal medicine is considered the primary therapeutic mode of internal medicine. Of the approximately 500 Chinese herbs that are in use today, 250 or so are very commonly used. Rather than being prescribed individually, single herbs are combined into formulas that are designed to adapt to the specific needs of individual patients. A herbal formula can contain anywhere from 3 to 25 herbs. As with diet therapy, each herb has one or more of the five flavors/functions and one of five "temperatures" ("Qi") (hot, warm, neutral, cool, cold). After we determine the energetic temperature and functional state of the patient's body, we prescribe a mixture of herbs tailored to balance disharmony. And also because of the combination, each herb can just be used in small doses with less side effects.
There are more than 500 Chinese herbs used which include roots, grass, woods, furs, animals and stones. We classify them into three categories:
· The first category called "superior" includes herbs effective for multiple diseases and are mostly responsible for maintaining and restoring the body’s balance. They have almost no unfavorable side-effects. Examples are black date, Chinese yam, sesame seed, and ginger. Some are consumed the same way regular food is.
· The second category is comprised of tonics, boosters and detoxifiers for which their consumption must not be prolonged.
· The third category are toxic, usually taken in small doses and used only for the treatment of specific ailments.
In China, herbal medicine is considered the primary therapeutic mode of internal medicine. Of the approximately 500 Chinese herbs that are in use today, 250 or so are very commonly used. Rather than being prescribed individually, single herbs are combined into formulas that are designed to adapt to the specific needs of individual patients. A herbal formula can contain anywhere from 3 to 25 herbs. As with diet therapy, each herb has one or more of the five flavors/functions and one of five "temperatures" ("Qi") (hot, warm, neutral, cool, cold). After we determine the energetic temperature and functional state of the patient's body, we prescribe a mixture of herbs tailored to balance disharmony. And also because of the combination, each herb can just be used in small doses with less side effects.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Depression
I’ve recently seen a few clients with varying degrees of depression. The first two I’m going to mention are in their 60’s who have been suffering from depression for more than twenty years and have been taking anti-depressants for just as long. Both of them wanted to try some alternative treatments to help them feel better. My purpose was to not only help them feel better, but to also try and wean them off their medication. With TCM, we believe that any medicine is toxic for the body. I knew that this would be a long term treatment and it would take some time before they would feel a difference. I spent quite a bit of time with each of these clients during their first treatment session, explaining how TCM treats the problem, how acupuncture and herbs work for it, what to expect and so on. Unfortunately, both cancelled their appointments before even seeing me for a second treatment. The interesting thing is that they both called me between 10-11pm to cancel. (Keep in mind that these people don’t know each other at all!) I didn't persuade them to continue treatment because I knew that for this kind of problem (these two cases in particular) and because they have already suffered with depression for so long, it would take an extended period of time for them to feel any difference. What they need is family support and belief in TCM. I couldn’t help but think about why they both called so late at night to cancel. My guess is that when night falls and it becomes dark, a feeling of hopelessness starts to set in and so they began to believe that no alternative treatment could help them. So, they decided to give up and cancel.
I had another client in her 30’s who, shortly after giving birth, felt depressed, sad, insomnia and not herself. I treated her with acupuncture and after just one session she felt a difference. This reminds me of another client; same age group and situation, but with a more serious case of depression. She was feeling sad, hopeless and felt as if she had nothing to live for. After less than ten treatments, she was back to her normal self.
All three cases make me wonder why some people can see a difference more quickly than others. Age is definitely one factor. Acupuncture uses the body’s own healing power to help cure the problem. When you are younger, the body's ability to recovery is stronger; thus a quicker recovery rate. In the case of the two young women, they only suffered from depression for one to three months and didn't take any medication. There are also other factors. We know that from Western medicine, depression is caused by low levels of monoamines. Anti-depressants are used to increase monoamines level and relieve the symptoms. However, this medication also suppresses the body to produce monoamines. With my two older clients, after being on anti-depressants for so many years, their bodies were so used to relying on the medication to produce monoamines. It's as if their body’s natural ability to produce monoamines went into hibernation. This is why it would take some time before their bodies would be able to produce monoamines naturally.
If you are experiencing any symptoms of depression, you may want to consider alternative methods of treatment in order to avoid possibly taking anti-depressants on a long term basis. I hope I can help bring the sunshine back into your life.
I had another client in her 30’s who, shortly after giving birth, felt depressed, sad, insomnia and not herself. I treated her with acupuncture and after just one session she felt a difference. This reminds me of another client; same age group and situation, but with a more serious case of depression. She was feeling sad, hopeless and felt as if she had nothing to live for. After less than ten treatments, she was back to her normal self.
All three cases make me wonder why some people can see a difference more quickly than others. Age is definitely one factor. Acupuncture uses the body’s own healing power to help cure the problem. When you are younger, the body's ability to recovery is stronger; thus a quicker recovery rate. In the case of the two young women, they only suffered from depression for one to three months and didn't take any medication. There are also other factors. We know that from Western medicine, depression is caused by low levels of monoamines. Anti-depressants are used to increase monoamines level and relieve the symptoms. However, this medication also suppresses the body to produce monoamines. With my two older clients, after being on anti-depressants for so many years, their bodies were so used to relying on the medication to produce monoamines. It's as if their body’s natural ability to produce monoamines went into hibernation. This is why it would take some time before their bodies would be able to produce monoamines naturally.
If you are experiencing any symptoms of depression, you may want to consider alternative methods of treatment in order to avoid possibly taking anti-depressants on a long term basis. I hope I can help bring the sunshine back into your life.
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