About Chinese Medicine

Chinese Medicine is a comprehensive Medicine and offers treatment modalities for musculoskeletal problems as well as internal medicine. Here are examples of some of the most commonly treated conditions we treat:

TCM Explained

China has a long history of medical culture. As opposed to Western medicine, the Chinese method takes a far different approach. With a history of 5,000 years, it has formed a deep and immense knowledge of medical science, theory, diagnostic methods, prescriptions and cures. This medical culture was possible because of written literature on Chinese medicine stretches back over 2,500 years. Medical science was established by recording observations on ancient oracle bones and turtle shells which could be handed down from generation to generation.

The basic principles are rather distinctive:

Relative Properties - Yin and Yang

The Physiology of Chinese medicine holds that the human body's life is the result of the balance of yin and yang. Yin is the inner and negative principles, and yang, outer and positive. The key reason why there is sickness is because the two aspects lose their harmony. Seen from the recovery mechanism of organs, yang functions to protect from outer harm, and yin is the inner base to store and provide energy for its counterpart.

Basic Substance - Qi

All of our organs and body tissues are constantly transforming energy. Qi travels along many branching and interconnecting pathways in the body called “channels” or “meridians”. Doctors of traditional Chinese medicine believe that vital energy - moving and energetic particles, state of blood, and body fluid are the essential substances that compose together to form the human body, and the basis for internal organs to process. The JIng Luo are channeled along a network within the body (a combination of blood and lymph vessels and interstitial tissue) to distribute vital energy and assist the immune system. Serving to promote and warm belongs to the properties of yang, and blood and body fluid to moisten possesses the properties of yin.

Four Methods of Diagnosis

TCM offers a multitude of diagnostic methods. Here are the four main categories. It is not a wonder that TCM doctors can cure countless patients without any assistant apparatus but only a physical examination because these methods deliver a comprehensive picture of the patient as a whole. Rather than focussing on the diseased organ or body part as Western Medicine does, TCM diagnosis allows the doctor to go deeper to the root of the problem and make connections. The four methods of diagnosis consist of observation, auscultation and olfaction, interrogation, pulse taking and palpation.

Observation indicates that doctors directly watch the outward appearance to know a patient's condition. As the exterior and interior corresponds immediately, when the inner organs run wrongly, it will be reflected through skin pallor, tongue, the facial sensory organs and some excrement.

Auscultation and olfaction is a way for doctors to collect messages through hearing the sound and smelling the odor. This is another reference for diagnosis.

Interrogation suggests that doctors question the patient and his relatives, so as to know the symptoms, evolution of the disease and previous treatments.

The taking of the pulse and palpation refer that doctors noting the pulse condition of patients on the radial artery, and then to know the inner change of symptom. Doctors believe that when the organic function is normal, the pulse, frequency, and intension of pulse will be relatively stable, and when not, variant.

When treating a disease, doctors of TCM usually find the patient's condition through these four diagnostic methods: observation, auscultation and olfaction, interrogation, pulse, and palpation. Combining the collected facts and according to their internal relations, doctors will utilize the dialectics to analyze the source and virtue of the disease. Acupuncture and Herbal prescriptions are based on the individual diagnosis. In traditional Chinese medical science doctors have discovered the medicinal effects of hundreds of Acupuncture points and of thousand of herbs over thousands of years and documented which species and which part of the plant is most effective. There are even distinctive methods of preparation for each herb that apply to each diagnosis.

Such a complicated medical science had come down to us thanks to records like The Yellow Emperor's Canon of Interior Medicine, Shen Nong's Canon of Herbs, and the Compendium of Materia Medica, which are all comprehensive and profound works. There are also wide-spread stories praising the experienced and notable doctors in ancient China like Hua Tuo (140-208) and Zhang Zhong Jing (150-219).

Five Elements

Much of the Chinese Medical Organ Diagnosis is based on the system of "5 Elements", Fire, Earth, Metal, Water and Wood. These elements are associated with the respective organs Heart, Spleen, Lung, Kidney and Liver.

The diagnostic system of the Five Elements provides theory that is essential to the practice of TCM. It provides an integrate framework in which to understand, diagnose, and treat all health issues—body, mind, emotions, and spirit. The Five Elements include the internal organs, and the interconnected and interacting relationships between them often fall out of balance, creating health issues. TCM practitioners seek to rebalance these organ relationships with their treatment plans.

The Five Elements system forms a network of TCM’s body-mind-spirit understanding of human health. TCM’s ancient Five Element theory is an incredibly detailed and one can link the entire Universe to this master blueprint. The diagrams show how nature interacts with the body and how the different dimensions of our being impact each other. The Five Element System helps to explain how each action, thought, and emotion impacts in some way our being and health as well as the balance of nature.