Nowadays, treatment with Traditional Chinese Medicine has become incredibly popular and it is not surprising. For the development of this medical system Chinese spent over five thousand years. Chinese medicine is the most ancient, complete and profound system of all professionally practiced alternative medical systems today.

 

It is designed to stimulate the body's inherent ability to heal itself, the every human being possesses. This essential ability is the strongest shield in the way of all the diseases and the most powerful weapon in treatment of any disorders.

 

In the core of Chinese medicine there is an important philosophical concept of vital force or “Chi”. This energy flows throughout the body and into every cell via many vessels or meridians. The main meridians are each associated with a vital organ. The flow of “Chi” depends on the balance of two opposing, yet mutually dependent principles in the body, Yin and Yang. Yang represents activity, and yin represents substance. They cannot exist without each other. Only in complete harmony of Yin and Yang the flow of the vital force is smooth and unhindered and there is health, when there is imbalance the flow of qi is stagnated which can cause the dysfunction in the body. Therefore, the purpose of diagnosis in Chinese medicine is the identification of an imbalance of vital energy and disharmony. Accordingly, the treatment should be to help the person to restore the balance of power, and as a consequence, to restore harmony and health.

 

Chinese medicine physicians use relatively simple, but highly effective methods of diagnosis: pulse and tongue diagnosis, auscultation, inspection, palpation, and survey. Most of these methods are well known, but one of them - the pulse diagnosis - is unique to Chinese medicine. Chinese pulse reading technique is famous worldwide. Ever since the ancient times, Chinese physicians believed the possibility to recognize the disease by the pulse and valued this art above all other techniques.

 

METHODS OF TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE

The main methods of treatment in Traditional Chinese Medicine are:

 

• Acupuncture (Electro-Acupuncture, Auricular/ Ear Acupuncture)

• Herbal medicine (the use of natural herbal remedies)

• Chinese Manual therapy

• Moxibustion

• Therapeutic cupping

• Nutritional Counceling

 

 

The principles of treatment in Oriental medicine:

 

1. “Treat people who don’t feel sick.”

 

Preventive medicine was and remains the central in Eastern medicine. Relying on millennia of experience, the physician may suspect a predisposition of a person to an illness or to detect the disease at an earliest stage of its development. Therefore, sometimes with the simplest treatment, like dietary and behavioral adjustments, exercise, massage, we can keep body well and in a healthy condition.

 

2. “Treat the patient, not the disease.”

 

Individual approach has always been a distinctive trait of Chinese medicine. Every person’s body is unique in their responses to the environment and therapeutic intervention in the progression of the disease.

 

3. “Treat the root cause, not the symptom.”

 

In the beginning of the treatment, a TCM physician will pay attention primarily to the main symptoms of the disease that troubled the patient, and attempt to addresses them. After the primary symptoms are relieved, the physician will always seeks and identify the root of the disease on the basis of knowledge of the physiology of the body and its reaction to the attack of the pathological factors. Thus the treatment, sometimes continues even after the patient feels healthy - it is designed to strengthen the body and prevent relapse of the diseases.

 

4. “Fundamental treatment.”

 

As we mentioned out above, all treatments had two aspects: to relieve of the symptoms of the disease and the identification and treatments of the true cause of the disease. Therefore, all further actions of the physician address the patient's predisposition to certain diseases. For example, a weak patient, feeling tired all the time, with increased sensitivity to cold suddenly gets flu. The primary task of the physician will be to eliminate the symptoms of the flu, however, since this patient has had a constitutionally weak external yang, which in turn caused a weakened defense system, then the subsequent treatments will be directed towards this syndrome.