OneClinicExpress.com Blog

A road map of self-healing

Many patients are reluctant to try acupuncture or herbs even when their doctors refuse to offer any further possible help for their sufferings. This is understandable because almost all those remedies have been wrongly regarded non-scientifically proven in the framework of modern science. 

The major philosophy of Chinese medicine is the belief that cures can be found in Nature. Human beings have self-healing capacity, which can be manipulated or adjusted by themselves or practitioners. The key to the success of health keeping is to have a right protocol. It is just like this:we have treasures scattered throughout diverse neighborhoods.  The solution to finding these treatures is the treature map.

Chinese medicine is a collection of such maps to help people achieve optimal health. For example, with a map of Large Intestine, which connects the tip of the index finger, forearm, elbow, shoulder, neck, cheek, gum, nose, lung, and large intestine (see the Figure). Any problems along this road can be resolved by manipulating several specific spots (called “acupoints”) on the map.

Disappointed by conventional therapies, many patients are actively seeking for alternative approaches, such as acupuncture, herbs, Tai-Chi, Qi-Gong, chiropractic, etc. This movement has brought a new trend of health-care services in USA, academically called integrative medicine.

Integrative medicine is a combination of conventional and alternative approaches. So far, integrative healthcare services are provided in more than 40 major highly esteemed academic medical centers, including Harvard Medical School, Johns Hopkins University, Yale University, Stanford University, Mayo Clinic, Duke University, and Vanderbilt University.

Why integrative medicine? First, a human being is a biosocial being with three interacting dimensions of mind, body, and spirit; Second, both conventional and alternative medical systems have their advantages and disadvantages; Third, the key to keeping healthy is self-healing; Forth, better results can be expected for sure; Fifth, less damage to the body and functionality can be caused; Sixth, the remedies are more cost-effective; Seventh, patients enjoy higher quality life.

In the January 31, 2011 issue of Newsweek, Sharon Begley raises this question and ends up saying “medical wisdom that has stood the test of time–and large, randomized, controlled trials–is more likely to be right than the latest news flash about a single food or drug”. You know what? Actually Sharon is wrong, partially.

The right answer to this question is the wrong assumption that everyone is identical in terms of drug response mechanism. The principle of current drug development is to identify something good for different people with the same problem. So large, randomized, controlled trials are regarded as golden standard for judging clinical success of a give drug. But the common sense is that everybody is different in terms of mental, physical, spiritual, and environmental properties. How is it possible that hundreds or thousands of different patients respond to a given drug in the same way? The time-proven truth is that current medical research and practical model is a failure.

I was very sorry to hear the news about Mr.Steve Jobs’s sick leave recently. I wonder if he has tried Chinese medicine (such as acupuncture and Chinese herbs) for his medical problems because, generally speaking, modern medicine is mainly good for life support and early cancer treatment (via surgery). Other than that, you can not count on it too much for the management of majority of health problems people are suffering now.

It is well known that a human being is not a mechanical machine which is an assembly of individual replacable parts. Instead, it is an organism with strong self-healing capacities. The secret of Chinese medicine success is to reboot the damaged self-healing machinery in natural ways. So actually the cures of human diseases are right in the body. Chinese medicine plays an extremely important role as health guard in disease control and longevity.

Bob visited my clinic yesterday for acute frontal headache, which he rated 9 on a scale of 10.  He was reluctant to take regular pain killers because he has a very weak stomach.  So he asked me whether Chinese medicine can help him out. I noticed he also had swollen gums on one side. I thought the pain was most likely associated with local inflammation (Evil Heat in Chinese medicine).

For this problem, I generally would choose some standard heat-clearing points, such as Neiting (ST44) and Hegu(LI4). But this time, I wanted to try something new since I was very impressed by the description of another point’s immediate effect on this symptom in a book about Dong’s magic points. This point is called Gongsun (SP4) in standard Chinese medicine texts (see Figure).  So I inserted only one needle in this point and twisted to make sure he felt pressure locally. You know what? The pain was totally gone within 5 minutes!

Being sick is unfortunate. But choosing a wrong doctor may ruin your health and life. Recently, I saw a patient who has visited lots of doctors, including acupuncturists, for her severe dizziness in the last five years without any improvements.  She was told by these doctors that there is little hope for improvement of her problem because all the identified medical isues she is having can’t explain this out-of-control symptom.

She is very wealthy.  Her family business is booming internationally.  She also has many lovely grandchildren to care for. However, she can’t even take care of herself now. How miserable the life has become! 

Being referred to my clinic by her friend, she didn’t expect too much with proposed acupuncture and Chinese herb medicine treatments in the beginning. But after 6 sessions, the dizziness is totally gone and she restores a happy life.

Mr.Ted is a department manager. But recently he could hardly do his duty properly because his doctor couldn’t help him well manage the severe knee and lower back pain due to spinal lumbar stenosis.  Neither pain pills nor physical therapy worked for him. Life became extremely miserable. Three weeks ago, he started to take one-month sick leave proposed by his frustrated doctor.

Being referred by his friend,  Ted contacted me for Chinese medicine help.  I realized he needs intensive treatments with every-other-day acupuncture as well as Chinese herbs, and he agreed to cooperate.  So we got started right away. After two sessions, he told me he began to feel better. The other day he came in high spirits telling me that he has already returned to work right after one-week’s treatment.

Acupuncture for carpal tunnel syndrome

Do you happen to be in a situation that you have to wear a wrist splint for relieving symptoms of tingling and numbness in your fingers or hand, which is diagnosed as carpal tunnel syndrome by your doctor?  But you might find it is neither that helpful nor convenient, so you are seeking active remedies.

Lisa  came to see me ten days ago when she has been in such a situation for three months. Turns out her syndrome is one component of a systematic rheumatism-like disease.   After one week of intensive acupuncture treatment,  all her symptoms, such as tingling, numbness, pain and weakness disappeared. She does not need wrist splint anymore.

Paul has been suffering from chronic cough together with global weakness for a couple of years since he finished his chemotherapies for lymphoma in 2006. His social life has been greatly damaged due to this embarrassing problem and fatigue. His doctor told him not to expect too much about any improvement of this issue in his lifetime. How miserable his retirement life (BTW, he is about 70 years old) has become!

In the last November, one of his friends referred him to my clinic. After only taking one week of Chinese herbs, his cough has decreased by half. But later his weak immune system brought him three episodes of flu in a row. In the last time, he was hospitalized for one week. Right before Christmas, he was discharged from hospital with intractable cough. So he came back to my clinic to resume the cough control journey with Chinese medicine. With about one month of herbal treatment, his cough has almost disappeared and is full of energy . He is now enjoying fresh new life that he dared not to dream before.

Recently I came across a most-cited scientific study on acupuncture in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The researchers enrolled 56 patients with RA and treated them by either needling a single acupoint (Liver3) or placebo. The study didn’t find any difference in oberved parameters between treatment and control groups. So they concluded that acupuncture of this type is not useful for RA patients.

Honestly, I couldn’t help laughing when I saw this. First, I wondered where the hell this acupuncture recipe came from. In practice, no acupuncturists will only choose one acupoint to treat RA patients. Even he/she might want to try one point only, the point Liver3 is not on their favorite list at all because this performance does not accord with the principles of Chinese medicine. Second, such a bad-designed study has been cited as proof of inefficacy of acupuncture in RA by so many scientists. I’ll say we have too much misleading scientific evidence of this kind out there in the literature. I wish people don’t be fooled by such scientific evidence.