Herbal Medicine

In the course of your treatment with Traditional Chinese Medicine, you may be prescribed an herbal supplement. Herbs are a variety of naturally found products that have medicinal properties that add to the healthful benefits of acupuncture and Traditional Chinese treatments.

Herbal formulas can be taken in a variety of ways. You may be prescribed raw herbs. You will take them home, and following simple instructions, steep these herbs into a tea to be drunk at home. Although we call it "tea," some patients find the taste to be a little less than "delicious." For this reason, many practitioners also offer herbal supplements in pill and capsule form. Herbal formulas tend to be created for a single patient and their specific pattern of disharmony.

How do Chinese Herbs work?

Western science has, in the case of some of the Chinese herbs, been able to track down the active ingredient that effects the health of the patient. Ephedrine, the active ingredient in the Chinese herb Ma Huang is an excellent example. However, most Chinese herbs are unexplored territory from the perspective of Western science.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the office of Alternative Medicine (OAM), and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are currently wrestling with the best way to regulate Chinese herbal remedies.

There is, however a great wealth of knowledge about herbs from the Chinese perspective. The Chinese describe what they understand about herbs as "energetics."

An example of Energetics

Let's say that you're suffering from arthritis that is aggravated by humidity or rain. From the Chinese perspective, that would be an invasion of cold and damp into the acupuncture meridians, or freeways of energy within the body. Sometimes this cold and damp will lodge in the joints and this is what we, in the Western world, call Arthritis.

There are, however, certain plants that are very comfortable living in cold and damp environments. They have a natural defense against excessive cold and damp weather. There is one in particular that is called Hai Tong Pi. This translates to Sea Vine Bark. There is, in this bark, the necessary energetics required to keep this plant that lives near the sea, free from constant invasion of cold and damp air. Ingesting the bark in the form of tea will provide those who suffer from arthritis the same relief from the pain associated with an internal invasion of cold and damp as is enjoyed by Hai Tong Pi.

No doubt there is some active ingredient involved in Hai Tong Pi, perhaps erythraline, or a combination of its known ingredients, but generally, the research on the specifics has not yet happened. Until then, it is a healthy mental exercise to look at pathology from the Chinese perspective. Walking away from any problem and coming back fresh to see it differently is the source of multitudes of creative and beneficial solutions to the problems of individuals and society. The Chinese perspective on health provides us with that new way of seeing problems of health, and creative new ways of healing. Practitioners, or practitioners in training, such as myself, must remember that it is more important to heal the patient, than be able to explain how it was done.