Conscious Choice: Traditional Chinese Medicine

May 1999

Traditional Chinese Medicine

by Darlene E. Paris

About ten years ago, my friend Teenie began making regular visits to Chinatown to see a Chinese herbalist. Her friends thought she was absolutely crazy. This herbalist whom she saw on a monthly basis didn’t speak English so she couldn’t talk to him directly about her health concerns. Instead, she relayed her medical challenges to his daughter, a Chinese pharmacist, who had been to college and was now assisting her father.

Teenie said that whenever she visited this man, he would look closely at her face as if it alone held the answers to her medical problems. He would also look into her eyes and examine the color and condition of her tongue. After observing her physical features for about five minutes, Teenie said he would suggest one of the many herbal remedies he sold at his store. The daughter would relay his recommendation to Teenie, and my friend would happily return home with a month’s worth of miraculous Chinese herbs that she had to take home and boil.

My friend was an advocate of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) even before this 3,000 year old system of healing became popular in the United States. Today Americans make nine to 12 million office visits in a year to the offices of TCM practitioners. Most of these visits are for acupuncture treatment and are arranged by people who are dissatisfied with conventional medicine. In Chicago, medical doctors, chiropractors, and dentists are now incorporating acupuncture and other aspects of TCM in their practices.

Dr. Charles Lo, M.D., has been practicing medicine for 20 years. He says that most of the patients who visit his office aren’t interested in his Western training. They primarily come because they want to try TCM. "Most of our patients are interested in trying something else, like acupuncture, herbology, and t’ai chi," he says. "They are not here for another Western opinion."

These patients are mostly concerned about the negative effects that pharmaceuticals have on their body and are looking for something more natural that will also enable them to heal. "The risk-benefit ratio of Chinese herbs is much safer than Western drugs," says Lo, who first learned about TCM from his parents and later studied Oriental medicine in China. "If a patient is on drugs that I think are having a lot of harmful side effects or complicating their health problem in some way, I try to help them decrease their dosages or switch to herbs that have a similar effect on their problem."

The Philosophy of TCM

In allopathic medicine, you go visit a doctor and describe your problem. The physician will treat whatever you say is bothering you. This is not the case with TCM. "When a patient comes in and says I want you to fix my shoulder, that means that the patient is the doctor, and the doctor is the assistant," says Joseph Lee, a seventh-generation practitioner of TCM.

"It’s not correct just to look at the part of the body the patient is complaining about," he says. "The proper way is to check the whole body to find out if there is a problem on the structural side before you consider the functional side," he says.

TCM practitioners regard symptoms as indicators regarding the flow of energy in the body. "In Chinese Medicine we believe that if the system is not balanced the body will send a signal," says Lee. "The so-called disease is a result of that symptom. It is not a problem. It is a signal that forces us to take a look."

TCM consists of a variety of practices, which include both ancient and contemporary healing modalities such as acupuncture, herbology, massage, nutritional counseling, and even exercises such as t’ai chi and qi (pronounced chee) gong. It is a nature-based philosophy of medicine which holds that the same laws that govern the universe also govern the body. Nancy Floy, who teaches at the Midwest Center for the Study of Oriental Medicine, the first school of its kind in Chicago, says that our Asian ancestors looked at nature and tried to make some sense of what was happening in the body. When Floy teaches, she often points out relationships between the body and nature.

"The body is like your garden," she explains to me. "I like to think of the body as a garden. You’ve got the elements there. You have pathways that your chi (or energy) moves along. Then you’ve got various points where you are planting things or where you’re taking things out. Those are acupuncture points," she says.

The Power of Chi

Central to TCM is an understanding of chi, the Chinese name for a person’s life energy or vital life force. "We [in the West] didn’t grow up with a concept like chi," notes Floy, "but in the East they don’t think of it as a mystical or magical thing. It’s a substance in the body just like blood. The blood flows through vessels and the chi flows through the meridians."

Floy also told me that there are many different formss of chi. "Zang chi lives down in your belly, she explains. "It’s where you carry all of your power, strength, and individuality. I also love the Da chi...that’s the chi of the air that you breathe. And Gu chi comes from the food you eat," she says. "These different forms of chi move through different pathways, or meridians, in the body. The meridians are like rivers. They kind of move the chi through the body and through the different organs," she explains.

Yin and Yang

The concept of yin/yang also is essential to TCM. According to Kevin V. Ergil, Dean of the Pacific Institute of Oriental Medicine, and William Prensky, one of the first Americans licensed to practice acupuncture in the United States, "yin/yang" refers to the idea of opposing, but complementary, phenomena that exist as a state of dynamic equilibrium.

Yin is described as the female energy of the body, and yang is described as the male energy of the body. But regardless of gender, each individual has both yin and yang qualities. "Yin is the more private part of the person. It’s the dark, quiet, contemplative side," says Floy. "Yang is an upward, outward, bright, and interactive energy."

Yin and yang are used to characterize the kind of symptoms a patient displays. For example, menopausal women who get hot flashes are primarily yin deficient. The coolant of the body, estrogen, is dropping...so yang flares. An acupuncturist or herbalist will work to build the yin.

The Five Elements

The Five Element Theory or the Principle of Five Phases is yet another aspect of TCM. The five elements to which Chinese Medicine refers include earth, metal, water, wood, and fire. These elements correspond with various organs in the body. They have certain sounds, smells, tastes, colors, seasons, and odors. They interact with each other as they act on the body. For example, a person might be depressed due to a number of conditions, including stagnation in the liver chi. "The element that corresponds to the liver is wood," notes Floy, "so I’d talk to my patients about trees. I might get out cello music, since that is related to wood. I also might use a pine or fir essential oil."

Diagnostic Methods

The doctor who practices TCM and the practitioner trained in acupuncture and herbology uses four basic diagnostic methods: asking, observing, listening and smelling, and touching. Like many alternative practitioners, TCM practitioners will ask about your health history, lifestyle, exercise routine, work, and hobbies. They’ll also check out your physical appearance and posture and even look at your eyes and tongue. They’ll listen to your breathing pattern and the quality of your voice. Finally, they’ll read your pulses (they can discern several) or palpate your body to determine the flow of your chi.

Once the practitioner has determined your particular health problem, he or she will design a treatment strategy involving one or more techniques. Often, these include acupuncture.

Acupuncture

Pain relief is the most common problem that acupuncturists are asked to treat. However, Dan Plovanich, an acupuncturist and the director of the Chicago Acupuncture Clinic, says that acupuncture can be used to treat other conditions. "We treat pain, but we also treat digestive problems, infertility, stress management, and smoking withdrawal," he says.

Some people even use acupuncture during surgery instead of anesthesia. When Cook County nurse and anesthetist Michelle Rodriguez, 34, was expecting twins, she was told that she couldn’t use anesthesia for a home birth.

"As a nurse, I know that labor is not the easiest thing in the world," she says. She chose acupuncture to help her with the delivery. "Acupuncture kept things at an even pace," she says. "I didn’t feel like I was having peaks and valleys of pain." One of the people who witnessed the delivery said that they were surprised how even-tempered Rodriguez was, even though she was in labor for 29 hours.

One of the most common questions asked by first time patients is whether or not acupuncture needles hurt. "Most people are very familiar with hypodermic needles," says Plovanich. "But acupuncture needles are completely and totally different in structure as well as in texture from hypodermic needles," he says.

Acupuncture needles are extremely thin and rather bendable like wire. "They are tapped in the skin carefully in a pipette tube which guides the needle," Plovanich explains. Some patients, he says, experience no sensation at all, but others might experience a mild sting or pinching as the needle goes in. Once the acupuncture needles are placed at the appropriate points, the needle stays in for 15 minutes to a half hour. "It’s actually a very relaxing procedure," Plovanich says. "Some of my patients even fall asleep."

Plovanich also uses additional techniques, including moxibustion, a kind of heat therapy, and cupping, which brings blood and energy to the skin’s surface.

Chinese Herbs

Herbs are another common element of treatment used in TCM. Lo explains that Chinese herbs come in three different forms. "You can boil them in a soup or tea or you can encapsulate them and make them into a tablet. You can also boil hot water and add herbal extract to it. I like extracts because there are no additives, and they’re not processed. There’s no food coloring, capsule, or shell."

Oriental Massage

Acupressure and massage are also used in Chinese Medicine, to bring increased vitality to the body and ameliorate debilitating physical conditions. Deirdre Hill has been practicing various forms of TCM for ten years. She blends traditional stimulation of acupuncture points with other techniques, including Swedish massage. Although Deirdre mixes massage methods, she always follows the procedures she uses when she performs Oriental massage. "I check the pulses at the beginning of the session and I check the pulses in the middle and end to see if there are any changes," she says.

Finding A TCM Practitioner

One of the best ways to find a conventional medical doctor is to ask neighbors and friends. The same holds true for TCM. You should know, however, that although the practice of acupuncture by non-physicians is now legal in Illinois, the law stipulates that patients be given a prescription by a medical doctor, chiropractor, or doctor of osteopathy for acupuncture treatments. You may need a referral to be reimbursed by your insurance carrier.

Currently, acupuncturists are not licensed in Illinois. So you can’t ask about licensing. But you may want to ask a potential provider about his or her training. You might want to look for a practitioner certified by the NCCAOM (the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine), which offers the highest credentials for the practice of acupuncture and Oriental Medicine in the United States. But remember, some practitioners who are not certified by the NCCAOM are authentic Oriental medical doctors. Many practitioners in Chicago were trained in China and are now practicing acupuncture, herbology, and other forms of TCM in the states.

Practitioners of TCM are, of course, dedicated to their approach to healing. But perhaps the best testimony comes from clients. Ed Tomasiewicz, a priest and professor of religion at DePaul University, is a case in point. A diabetic who thought he’d always have to use insulin, Tomasiewicz, 50, is no longer on the needle. "I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this way before in my life," he says. I’m off insulin, and I’ve lost 150 pounds. I’ve never felt so connected before...so whole...in my life. I attribute it all to Traditional Chinese Medicine."

Darlene E. Paris is the author of Healthy and Natural Living in Chicago: The Best Alternative Resources in the City and Suburbs. Her book lists professionals who practice various forms of Traditional Chinese Medicine. It is available at book stores or by calling 800-888-4741.

Resources

Deirdre Hill, Acupuncture, Oriental Massage; 773-488-5977

Nancy Floy and Julie Segall, Floy and Associates Acupuncture and Oriental Massage, 708 Church St., Suite 215, Evanston, IL 60201; 847-491-1122

Joseph Lee, Herbalist, 702 W. 31st St., Chicago, IL 60616; 312-791-9898; 655 Pasquinelli Drive, Unit 201, Westmont, IL 60559; 630-325-9888

Charles Lo, M.D., and Associates, 55 E. Washington, Suite 1809, Chicago, IL 60602; 312-782-0487; 1140 Lake Street, Suite 402, Oak Park, IL 60301; 708-848-0330; 600 Central Avenue, Suite 144, Highland Park, IL 60035; 847-433-6988

Dan Plovanich, Acupuncturist, Chicago Acupuncture Clinic, 3723 N. Southport, Chicago, IL 60613; 773-871-0342

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