Traditional Chinese Medicine

Western and Chinese medicine differ in the way an illness or disease is viewed. While Western medicine tends to treat the effects of the illness or disease, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) emphazizes on uncovering and treating the root or roots of each problem.

TCM treatment is more holistic. It is about balancing the body's system (Ying/Yang) and increasing it's immunity to fight against diseases.

Main aspects of TCM

Unlike Western medicine which relies on a host of equipments and machineries to help the doctir in diagnosis and treatment, TCM relies simply mostly on the pratitioners' skills, experience and power of observation to detect and treat health problems.

Observation

The first aspect of TCM is observation. By looking at a patient's complexion, posture, appearance and movement, the TCM practioner is able to guage from first impression if a person is healthy or make initial diagnosis of his problem.

Smell and hearing

A TCM practitioner can diagnose also from the smell of a sick person's breath or by listening to the sound of his cough. Internal problems are often manifested through external symptoms.

Question and Answer

The TCM physician will also ask the patient a series of questions including their area of discomfort, diet, sleep and physical conditions.

Through a series of questions and answers, he will be able to further narrow down the patients problem.

Physical examination

Lastly, the patient's pulse is read, his tougue, throat and eyes are examined to arrive at a full diagnosis.

Treatment

Once a diagnosis has been arrived at, the patient is treated with one or more of treatments including accupuncture, TuiNa (Massage) or herbal prescriptions.These are the more common treatment methods and they are natural, holistic and non invasive.

In Chinese medicine, many discomfort are believed to be due to energy channels or meridian points in the body being blocked or misaligned. Accupuncture will unblock or re-direct these clogged or misaligned channel by stimulating energy flow within the appropriate meridians of the body.

Herbal remedies are more suited for internal problems such as kidney, diabetes or liver problems. In olden days, herbal prescriptions are brewed for many hours to get a liquid herbal drink. Today, similar effects is achieved through pills or syrup.

About the Author:

Ken Cheong lived, worked and travelled in China for the last 7 years. You may republish this article provided you give credit to the author and a link back to the websites at http://www.quick-pain-relief.com and http://www.chinese-culture.net.