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How
Does TCM Diagnose Your Problem?
Traditional Chinese Medicine has
developed a diagnostic technique to accurately
evaluate patients' situations.
TCM Diagnosis is a comprehensive university course. TCM thinks that
people are attuned to the environment and also parts of the natural world.
The diagnosis takes the body as a whole, not just the symptoms, together with
the natural outside circumstances. The major procedure for TCM practitioners to
diagnose the patients first consists of four-step interaction procedure
between the practitioner and the patient.
(1).
Inspection: The practitioner will evaluate your mood,
countenance, posture or stature, skin, your tongue appearance, and other
elements to make the initial judgment.
(2). Sensation: It depends on the listening
to your speaking, breath, cough and eructation to appraise the problem.
(3).Inquiry: The practitioner will ask you questions about
your diet, daily life style, and everything related to the disease and gather
detailed information for the diagnosis.
(4). Taking of the pulse is the most important step
in the diagnosis. All your body's conditions are reflected in your pulse,
such as bad mood, insomnia, pregnant and so on. Experienced TCM practitioners can
make an accurate assessment of the patient's condition by taking the
patient's pulse!
The following procedure for diagnosis is called syndrome
differentiation. By analyzing the differences in your various symptoms, for
instance a sharp worsening after a meal in cold weather may be caused by
stomach cold, whereas a dull stomach pain with bloating may be stomach
Qi deficiency, the possible reason for the illness is
concluded in terms of TCM theories. The symptoms may appear similar but the
causes profoundly different. These "patterns" have certain
appropriate treatment in different categories of TCM theories.
(Continued on next page)
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How
Does TCM Diagnose Your Problem ? (2)
TCM diagnosis contains the essence
of Traditional Chinese Medicine theory. The syndrome differentiation is the
critical guidance for the diagnosis and treatment plan. Without the need for
any modern equipment and invasive examination methods, TCM follows the theory
of syndrome differentiation based on the experience of thousands years to
accurately evaluate the situation inside the body. A well-educated and
experienced TCM practitioner can make an accurate diagnosis and select the right
treatment program. TCM theory emphasizes the body as a whole system and any
TCM treatment will mainly try to rectify the imbalance of the body system and
sub-systems while eliminating your symptom. Regulating your body system and
keeping it in harmony is a dynamic process and the treatment procedure will be
changed correspondingly, as the body's condition changes gradually with the
treatment going forward. The daily dosage and recipe content of herbal
medicine and acupuncture points will be modified along with the on-going
situation in the body. During the treatment term, diagnosis will follow each
visit and treatment modified accordingly.
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About
Acupuncture
Acupuncture involves the stimulation of the specific
acupuncture points (acupoints) on the skin. Between
5 and 15 needles are used in a typical treatment, with the point combinations
varying during a course of sessions. The acupoints
are elected for each patient individually based on their specific symptoms.
(1). What should you prepare for the acupuncture treatment?
Make sure your stomach is not too empty or too full;
Don't take muscle relaxants, tranquilizers, or pain killers
Try to relax. Don't be nervous of the needle;
Rest as much as you can after treatment;
Try not to exercise right after acupuncture treatment;
Don't shower or bath right after the treatment;
TCM practitioner Sun will have more advice for individual patients.
(2). Does acupuncture hurt?
The sterile and disposable stainless needle is much thinner than an injection
needle. In the hands of a professional practitioner, it will not
be painful experience.
(3). Is acupuncture safe for pregnant women?
Yes. Acupuncture is a better choice for pregnant women if they feel sick
or any discomfort. Traditional Chinese Medicine believes that the gestation
is a normal physiological period of human life. But special points are
strictly prohibited for pregnant patients.
(4). How can you choose a qualified acupuncture practitioner?
Acupuncture is based on the accurate diagnosis of the symptom. The
practitioner should be well-educated and experienced with Traditional Chinese
Medicine.
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About
Herbal Medicine
TCM has 600 commonly-used
herbs in the form of raw herbs, condensed herb extraction and formulated
pills. Two types of herbal medicines; herbal teas (specially
formulated for each specific case) and bottled pills (formulated for general
cases) are commonly used. All herbal medicines usually come from the internationally
certified GMP factories in China; both
of herbal teas and bottled pills.
(detailed info.) The traditional way of taking
Chinese herbs is to boil the raw herbs together in a ceramic pot for about 2
hours and then take the soup. Now, each single herb is boiled in a factory
and the extracted essence concentrated into granules and packed in small bag.
Each formula usually includes about 10 small bags of herbal granules. Patients mix the
teas in a cup, dissolve them with
boiling water and take.
How does the herbal
medicine work?
Applications of herbal
medicine are guided by TCM theories and principles. In accordance with the diagnosis
and according to the
problem diagnosed,
special herbal recipes
for each patient
will be used.
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Glossary
* Acupressure refers to the stimulation
(pressing and rubbing) of points manually with
pressure.
* Acupuncture refers to insertion of dry needles, at specially chosen
points for the treatment or prevention of symptoms and conditions.
* Cupping is a technique by which a vacuum force is applied to
acupuncture sites.
* Medical acupuncture is a medical discipline that integrates
traditional and modern acupuncture techniques into contemporary biomedical
practice.
* Moxibustion refers to heat
stimulation and the use of the herb Artemisia vulgaris
(mugwort) which is burned over the acupuncture site
for purposes of warming.
* Zhen-Jiu is the Chinese term and refers to
both acupuncture and moxibustion.
* Qi and Meridian: In TCM there are patterns of
energy flow through the body that are essential for health. A vital force of
energy called Qi which circulates between the
organs along channels called meridians. About 360 commonly-used acupuncture
points distribute along the meridians.
* Yang and Yin: They are opposite aspects of body system or sub-system
defined in Traditional Chinese Medicine theory, like heaven and earth, sun
and moon, positive and negative... Any imbalance of the two aspects results
in some kind of illness.
* Stasis: A term used to describe Blood that is not circulating
properly. Blood stasis is analogous to silt.
* Stagnation: It is used to describe the energies not circulating properly
throughout the body.
* Heat: Most often used term in TCM to describe the imbalance of body
or organs that the Yang is relatively higher than Yin or lack of fluid.
* Deficiency: Used to describe lack of a particular energy or
fluid in organs or body. Deficiency causes imbalance. Imbalance results
in asthenia. Then the body immune system is weakened and illness results.
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Keeping
Healthy
Keeping healthy is always
a top issue in daily life. Traditional Chinese medicine always emphasizes the
prevention of illness by keeping daily-life healthy.
There are guidelines in TCM to keep the body in a state of harmony and
balance itself as well as with the surrounding environment and daily diet. On
the earth, the weather condition varies in different patterns result in the
different patterns of diet and cooking. Taking
Chinese food as example, there are eight majors cooking styles geographically
distributed from north to south in China and all these styles have
tight relations with local climate. Like Sichuan dishes, they are hot and spicy but
delicious. The reason for their diet style is that Sichuan locates in a basin with very humid
climate, cloudy and foggy. To fight against the dampness harmful to the human
body that causing arthritis, the local people have been eating a lots of
spicy food to keep themselves healthy for thousands years and their dishes
became world famous today. But if you live in a area
with dry weather condition, eating lots of spicy food will cause problems in
your body because of imbalance.
Some people like to get up early to work and some people like to stay late at
night. For people stay late at night, problems arise from the spleen causing
indigestion related illness, because TCM thinks that the spleen is weak from
10pm-12pm and it needs rest during that time.
Human body needs food for nutrition to sustain, protein, fat and
carbohydrates. TCM thinks that the meat of goat can generate more heat in the
body than other meat and should be used in winter. TCM classifies the food as
having functions of heating versus cooling, such as meat (protein and fat)
versus veggies or fruits (fibers or vitamins). That is why the Chinese
cooking always take both meat and vegetable together to neutralize them and
keep balance in the body. Keeping healthy is as easy as enjoying the life.
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