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  • Traditional Chinese Medicines: Herbal Remedies

    "You have too much humidity inside"

    "Inside where?" I asked through my interpreter.

    "Inside your body."

    "Oh. Is that bad?"

    It was not my first visit to a Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor. I've been to them before, a few times in fact. Years ago, after I got whacked, I had seen some TCM professors and doctors, who had done quite a few things with me, some good, some I don't know. The one guy in the past who taught me acupuncture for my headaches really did me quite well. The professor who prescribed some sort of foul smelling herbs to cook in this clay tea pot he bought for me, well, I don't know what good that would have done, for I never tried it. But, I will admit, acupuncture does help me with these damn migraines. It was the TCM herbal medicine that I was curious about.

    I got my chance to experiment with it this year, when I came down with a damn resistant spastic bronchitis, which developed shortly after I overcame a particularly nasty and virulent community acquired pneumonia. The spastic bronchitis was something that I had never experienced before, quite a frightening experience, especially since at first, we really didn't know what was causing the problem. But, after I figured out that my allergies to the February March blossoming trees in the desert had increased to the point of giving me some nasty lung problems, I had decided to take a plane to Beijing, to get away from it all. And, hopefully, give my lungs a rest. Taking an eleven hour plane flight over the pacific ocean while you're in the throes of a spastic bronchitis attack doesn't do much for one's nerves. I still develop anxiety problems now, when I get on a plane, all because of that one horrendous trip.

    My first experience with a TCM doctor with respect to actually eventually using the damn stuff, was this past March, when I saw a clinic doctor at the famous TongRenTang pharmacy. He prescribed some very potent and powerful herbs that had been pressure cooked into a liquid; small packs of incredibly foul smelling liquid that you heated up, and drank. It was foul. I'm really not sure if it helped treat my spastic bronchitis, though, for the following ten days in Beijing, I did find that my lungs were improving, all had gone to hell that eleventh day, when I came down with a rapid and serious viral pneumonia. Two weeks of dealing with the resolution of that, and I found that my lungs had returned to normal. Whether it be the healing of time, or, the well reknowned effect of the TCM medications that I took for ten days, I don't know.

    But, my return to the US eventually triggered more spastic bronchitis, which triggered more visits to different US doctors. If there's one thing I don't like, it's taking medications. But, I had to, just to be able to breathe. Exercise outside was severely limited, even walking the dog was out. There had been no gong fu training for seven months. Any exercise like that was out of the question. Finally, circumstances triggered my eventual return to Beijing, where I again found myself in the hands of a TCM doctor, this time, at the famed University of Beijing Traditional Chinese Medicine College.

    All TCM exams are the same. You go into this little room, sit on this small stool, and look at this relatively old Chinese man or woman who claims to be a doctor. I always speak to these people via a translator. You tell them your story, (I basically just tell them my diagnosis; I can't imagine what would happen if I had them try to figure it out), they feel your pulse for about five minutes (with three fingers, so they can "feel all the various pressure waves", whatever they are), and they look at your tongue.

    "Stick out your tongue. Ah, yes, you have too much humidity inside."

    That kind of threw me. I was supposed to have "humidity" inside. Can't imagine how well a human body would function with a dry interior. I guess my TCM doc saw my puzzled look. She had known I was a physician.

    "Look here. Normal humidity", as she was pointing to the inside of my translator's mouth, an older Chinese gentleman with a nice healthy pink tongue, and typical rotten teeth. Yes, I thought, my mouth should look like that.

    "Now look at your tongue." How the hell I was supposed to do that was beyond me. But, if I could look at my tongue, man, would I be popular with the women. I was going to have to ask her about any tongue lengthening medications on my next visit.

    She made the diagnosis of asthma based upon my tongue, that is, after I told her I had a form of asthma. Too much humidity inside, was disturbing the qi flow from my liver to my lungs, or from something to something, I really can't remember which. In any case, I had to take some Chinese medicine to reroute the qi flow, so that the excess humidity would go away, and my lungs would heal. I told her fine.

    I was willing to try anything.

    Between the damn debilitating headaches that I get, and the near-constant difficulty breathing, I was miserable. I was willing to try anything; western medicine would help, but it "was treating the symptoms, not the disease", as my TCM doctor mentioned. And that seems to be the major difference between TCM and western medicine. Western medicine alleviates symptoms, and usually does it quickly. It rarely cures the disease, it only treats it. TCM does just the opposite; it doesn't treat the symptoms quickly, but, over time, it alleviates the reason for the disease, so that the disease goes away. People in this country swear by it. Everyone here says that I have to take Chinese medicine. Even Shi Xing Hong, in Hungary, told me. "It's good for you", says my good friend Yong.

    It tastes like shit.

    Though, this new stuff isn't that bad. The stuff I took in March was ****ing putrid. Just putrid. This stuff, comes in a foil bag, in powder form. You mix it with hot water, and drink it.

    I'm not sure if it works. But, I'm starting to feel better.

    Time cures everything, in one way or another. As for TCM, I'm keeping my interpretations open.
    Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

    "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

    (more comments in my User Profile)
    russbo.com



  • #2
    My other experience with TCM involved a good friend of mine, whose name was Jim. I talked about him somewhere else in the site. Jim came from the older days of Las Vegas, when smoking and drinking was a major part of one's life, well, just like it is now in Las Vegas. But, six or seven years ago, it all caught up with him. He had visited his general practitioner, who ordered a routine chest x ray, and had discovered a lung nodule. A visit to a local pulmonologist brought the recommendation that he return in six months to see if the nodule increased in size; if it did increase, the thinking went, that would signify lung cancer.

    To me, pretty absurd logic. You don't take a fifty plus year old heavy ex-smoker with a lung nodule on his chest x ray, and wait six months to see if it grows. I had Jim in a CAT scan the next day, and on the operating room table three days later, for removal of a small solitary lung cancer mass. He had small cell, which, was not a good thing. Usually people with this aggressive form of lung cancer live about a year, maybe two.

    But, Jim did well. He tolerated the surgery well, and was relatively cancer free for the next three years or so. Some small recurrence two years ago required a repeat surgery, followed by some radiation, followed by some chemotherapy. He was deteriorating, to some degree.

    That was the time that I suggested we try some Traditional Chinese Medicine. During a trip to Beijing about a year and a half ago, I met with some TCM lung specialist, who said he created some herbal concoction for his lung cancer patients. From his reports, those with mild to moderate cancer had upwards of an eighty percent cure rate; those with more severe lung cancer, of course, did worse, though, he did claim that he could cure some of them. He had patients from all over the world. Now, I certainly didn't believe any of his claims, though, I did believe that getting Jim some of these herbal remedies might give him hope, which would give him the drive to live, an important factor when treating cancer patients. So, we spent the money, which was about six hundred dollars, and I bought him about three months worth of medicines. After getting them through US customs, I gave them to Jim, and he started taking them faithfully.

    Jim started to feel better, which, was impressive to me, as he had also been taking some chemotherapy at the time. Which made him better was beyond me; I certainly was not going to try to do some half ass study using Jim's life, by telling him not to take the US chemotherapy. I told him to take both. And, he did. And, he improved. Remarkably, in fact. Who's to say which helped him more. I'm certainly not going to postulate on that one.

    But after a year, Jim started to show increased evidence of the disease. And while I was struggling with my own lung illness this past March in Beijing, I made a point of going to the lung cancer TCM specialist that I had met to get another concoction of Chinese medicines that they used for smalll cell lung cancer. I bought about six months supply of the stuff, brought it to Thailand, and mailed it to Jim from there. When he got it, he started taking it religiously.

    An interesting thing occurred, after a month of using the TCM stuff. He appeared better. What made this even more interesting, is the fact that Jim was no longer eligible for radiation or US chemotherapy treatment. His disease was progressing, and his emphysema was to the point where further radiation therapy could prove fatal. No, the only thing he could take was the TCM stuff I got into the country for him.

    This was April His improvement was marked enough for those of us around him to notice. Even he noticed that he was breathing better. His energy improved, as did his nutrition and his color. And, for the next two months, Jim really didn't look that bad, considering what stage his cancer was in. I certainly didn't think that this stuff was going to cure him, though, deep down, I seriously wondered if it might be helping him.

    In June, Jim left to be with his daughter in California. He felt that he was able to breathe the ocean air a little easier. He was walking, and exercising, and, occasionally, from what I was told, trying to go to the gym. I left for Thailand in July, thinking that the ocean air would be good for my distressed lungs also.

    I found out last week, that Jim had died the third week of July.
    Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

    "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

    (more comments in my User Profile)
    russbo.com


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    • #3
      Years ago, after I got whacked
      You survived a mob hit? No wonder you moved from NY to LV....

      Sorry about your friend Jim. Lung Cancer is a nasty thing. My experiences with TCM is very limited.. Yin Chiao is about the extent of it right now. You have to look though, many of our chemical medical breakthroughs was a result of looking at botanical masses in a new way (just look at asprin).
      practice wu de

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      • #4
        Considering the fact that most common modern western medicines find their roots in, well, roots, and other plant parts, the efficacy, or alleged efficacy, of TCM herbal medicines does not surprise me. But, now, modern day pharmaceutical plants rely more upon biochemical analysis and genetic manipulation than they do ripping apart plant life. I firmly believe that there are many more good medications just waiting to be discovered somewhere in our plant kingdom, but, the evolution of that process takes a lot of time.

        AS for the "whacked" story, I'll save that for the book. Just too much to get into. Much too much.
        Experienced Community organizer. Yeah, let's choose him to run the free world. It will be historic. What could possibly go wrong...

        "You're just a jaded cynical mother****er...." Jeffpeg

        (more comments in my User Profile)
        russbo.com


        Comment


        • #5
          "I basically just tell them my diagnosis; I can't imagine what would happen if I had them try to figure it out."
          TCM doctors in Chinese hospitals are trained in Western Medicine as well. (Not that there aren't tons of "folk" doctors without Certification outside of hospitals and clinics.) What I witnessed in Beijing was a patient would come in, the doc would ask them questions, then there would be physical exam including auscultation, blood pressure, ortho-neuro exams, looking at the throat etc. Then pulse and tongue. When it was warranted, the doc would send the patient down the hall to a lab to get blood work, xrays, ekg, etc, to get the right diagnosis. Then the doc would either precribe herbs alone, western meds alone, or herbs and meds together. At PCOM in NY, we were trained in western physical exam and to know when to refer patients to an MD. Many schools in the U.S. have the same training. Recently, the National Accredidation commision for TCM added a western sciences section to their acupuncture certification exam. The field in the U.S is slowly getting more standardized and will hopefully earn more respect from the medical community.

          For cancer, TCM's best bet I believe (from the one year of Internship experience I've had), is to strengthen the person to get through surgery, chemo, and radiation, and to help side effects of those therapies during and after. In the oncology department of Dong Fang hospital in Beijing, patients would often get IV drips of herbal decoctions to boost blood cell counts and improve energy. Those patients were all terminal. They'd stay at the hospital for treatment and then go home to be with their families till the end. It was sad. In China it is not customary to tell the patients that they are terminal. The doc will tell the family and the family will decide whether to tell the patient. I know there is some research with chinese herbs eliminating early stage tumors, that's not something we can do in the U.S.. Nor would I reccomend any patient against chemo or radiation.

          One teacher at my school specializes in Cancer patients. He also works at St.Vincent's hospital in NYC. Though just the patients's acupuncturist and herbalist, he always reccomends his patients to follow the standard western treatment. In one case, a patient was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1994, he was told he would die within a year. He didn't want to do any chemo or radiation and investigated alternative therapies. Through diet, herbs, acupuncture, and a ****ing miracle, this guy is doing fine today. He is very thin because his pancreas is producing too much glucogon which essentially digests muscle, but he is happy. I wish other cancer patients could be so lucky.

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