“In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) cupping is a method of applying acupressure by creating a vacuum on the patient’s skin to dispel stagnation — stagnant blood and lymph, thereby improving qi flow— to treat diseases such as the common cold, pneumonia and bronchitis. Cupping also is used on back, neck, shoulder and other musculoskeletal conditions.”
Did you know that tea is a part of Chinese medicine? It’s true. Most of us are aware that tea (Camillia sinesis) comes from China, but you might not know that its original use was as medicine. Tea has been a part of the Chinese herbal pharmacopoeia for almost 2,000 years, even though the herbal system itself goes back more than 3,000 yrs. Many plants, like dandelion, rooibos, and verbena, cooked into a broth are commonly referred to as “tea,” but technically these are called “tisanes.”
1) Clinical trials prove Chinese Medicine’s efficacy. The whole point of clinical trials is to determine the degree to which a procedure demonstrates a statistically significant efficacy over and beyond a control, usually a placebo. In numerous instances, acupuncture and herbal medicine have proven they work. See here.
This is a qualitatively different post from most. It’s about the veracity of folk traditions, truths that continue to deeply impress me in my practice. I thought that I’d relay a conversation that came up with me and my Uighur buddy Azigul, in Mandarin just Guli, once while eating in Xingjiang Cun, a long-since-gone row of Uighur restaurants in Beijing’s Western District.
Ahh, picture a serene Los Angeles setting with soft lights and relaxing music.The gentle wafts of incense lilt through the air.You see yourself relaxing comfortably, in a quasi-dreamlike state with acupuncture needles stuck in your shoulder, knee, or back, the local site of pain.You’re in your acupuncturist’s office.
The Los Angeles musician’s life is one driven by a love for the muse. As such, this calling requires many lifestyle sacrifices that have deep implications for overall health. Accountants, engineers, hairdressers, and teachers all face risks unique to their professions. Musicians, however, face work-related risks that resemble those of swing-shift workers.Some of these problems are insomnia, fatigue, and hypertension.
One of the reigning themes of Chinese medicine is that every item that you take into your body has properties. These are based on temperature, directional movement, organ and channel tropism, and taste. There are five temperature tones: hot, cold, warm, cool, and bland. There are five tastes: sweet, sour, acrid, bitter, and salty. The directional movement is somewhat governed by the combination of temperature and taste. Hence, hot + acid = up and out, cold + salty = in and down. The rate of salty’s downward thrust is less than bitter’s.
Probably no herb captures the beauty of Chinese medicine as much as chrysanthemum. Let me share a quotation from an 18th-century work, The Thoroughly Revised Materia Medica, as a means of further exploring the wonders of Chinese medicine and chrysanthemum:
Thoroughly imbued with the qi of the four seasons, it sprouts in winter, produces leaves in spring, blossoms in summer, and reaches full flower in autumn. In its fullness, it embraces the frost and succumbs to the essence of metal and water [i.e, autumn and winter respectively], thus it is able to benefit two organs, lungs and kidneys. This controls heart fire and calms liver wood; with wood calmed, the wind is extinguished; when fire is directed downward, heat is eliminated.
A new patient of mine, who has come seeking assistance for “heart problems,” lamented that she had tried to drink such and such amount of tea everyday but it makes her feel pretty rotten and she feels she doesn’t respond to caffeine very well because she gets palpitations. “Then why are you drinking it?” I asked. “Well Dr. Oz says it’s really good for you and…”
Patients, when asked to stick out their tongue, often wonder what on earth their Chinese doctors are looking at. In short, we’re looking for certain signs, texture, moisture, coat quality, shape, and color, to confirm our diagnosis.