Notes on Seeking a TCM Consultation
Do you know what Chinese medicine is? Can you choose the health care that suits you? In a time when "famous doctors" are plenty and people, in panic at illness, often fall into the seek any doctor in trouble error — one wrong step may lead to lifelong regret. Knowing some common sense of doctor-selection will let health come to you earlier.
Chinese medicine is a wholly different medical science from Western medicine. It was summed up from millennia and billions of clinical encounters. By TCM theory, animals and corpses lack the essential features of the living person; nor does the sum of organ-systems equal the whole. The human is, in every moment, an integrated organism in motion-and-change with self-regulating capacity — under the influence and constraint of cosmic and natural change (the six excesses: wind, cold, summer-heat, damp, dryness, fire) and of human social change (the seven emotions: joy, anger, worry, thought, grief, fear, fright). Concretely: with yin-yang and five-phase as foundational theory, with inspection, listening, asking, palpation as diagnostic means, from the integral pattern-discernment of yin-yang, cold-hot, surface-inner, empty-full — using the inherent leanings of natural animals, plants, and minerals (or acupuncture, tuina, qigong) to correct the person's leaning, bringing the person into harmony with nature and society, opening the meridians, harmonizing the bowels-and-storehouses, so the life-process realizes and develops itself. TCM's strength lies in seeking the root in treatment — not headache treats the head, foot-pain treats the foot.
When the right qi is held within, evil cannot encroach; the superior physician treats what has not yet become illness. TCM is a science that values prevention, combining regulation, diagnosis, treatment, rescue in one. It rests on long, large clinical experience; its fuzzy theory is the theoretical basis of cutting-edge modern science and is actually closer to the essential law of life-motion. A high-level TCM doctor needs a solid theoretical foundation, long (sometimes generation-spanning) clinical experience, the insight to deduce theory and discern-and-treat, and a selfless, noble medical virtue. To be a good Chinese doctor is truly hard — without painstaking effort, mastery of medical reasoning is out of reach; without insight, the essence cannot be grasped.
TCM's treatment principle is discern the pattern, seek the cause; weigh the cause, decide treatment. For the same pattern but different causes — different formulas; for different patterns but the same cause — the same method. This is TCM's scientific character. TCM medicinal use is scientific and exacting: the modifications of ancient or proven formulas are the crystallized careful thought of specialists; the prescription must be filled exactly. If an herb is missing, substitute it before decocting. Use the best yinpian you can.
Decocting Chinese herbs requires care and seriousness. First check whether the pharmacy missed any herb or ginger or jujube; then know the medicinal nature of the chief herbs (tonifying or surface-releasing). Tonifying decoctions should run no less than 30 minutes; surface-releasing decoctions no more than 15 minutes. Special note: scorched medicine has changed its nature — do not drink it.
Qigong regulation is the science of qigong researchers relieving disease with true qi. Its efficacy is independent of the patient's psychology. Qigong treatment is the crystallization of generations-transmitted or years-accumulated experience — remarkable in effect, fast in recovery, free of pain. After treatment, follow the practitioner's contraindications strictly.
Qigong science and Chinese medicine belong to the same system — clinical-practice science. Through long, large practice, the essential law will gradually be uncovered. This is a life-science topic awaiting our exploration. We have only taken a first small step on the life-science road — how many treasure-rich mysteries still wait.
Bone-setting and tuina practitioners come most often from family transmission or apprenticeship; their treatment is often markedly effective. Before treatment, give a full honest history — cause, course-length, main sensations, and other heart, liver, kidney, or spleen-stomach conditions. During treatment, cooperate with the practitioner. The flow-with method is not dangerous; pain is mild. After treatment, follow instructions: avoid violent exercise, cold exposure, and excessive sexual activity for one to two weeks; apply a hot-water bottle or a heated salt-bag to the area for half an hour daily to reduce mild swelling and skin-surface pain. Custom-made plasters work even better. Special note: do not use infrared or spectrum-instrument therapies, lest deeper injury occur.
When choosing a therapy and a doctor, do not forget our counsel: the scientific attitude is the responsibility for one's own life. We also wish you to know: though Chinese medicine is the only traditional medicine in the world with a complete theory and rich practice — though it has worked uncountable good for the Chinese nation's health and flourishing — it has, over the past hundred-plus years, walked a hard road and suffered great damage. When the Western powers opened China with gunboats and our patriotic figures, in the Western-learning-comes-East of strengthening the country, Chinese medicine, along with other traditional culture, was discarded as backward, superstitious, conservative; the Cultural Revolution again wounded it deeply as feudal dross.
Today, the wind of truth-seeking lifts TCM from the brink; the tide of reform and opening pushes it to the world. But the senior TCM practitioners are few; new specialists are phoenix feathers and unicorn horns; TCM has not shaken off the crisis of lack of practitioners and lack of craft. Imbalances in education, scarcity in inheritance, drift in research, careless practice, lack of policy support, financial weakness — these are heartbreaking. We hope you will join us in spreading TCM. To inherit and develop Chinese medicine is the duty not only of Yan-Huang's children but of the world's people. The inheritance and unfolding of TCM's treasures will bless China and bless all humankind.