In Traditional Chainese Medisine practitioner first looks for patterns in the details of his clinical observations of that patient. This allows the practitioner to discover the disharmony in the system of that individual. Familiar with symptoms that are standard to each disease, the doctor also considers what symptoms or behaviors would be especially telling to the individual patient. For example, some people are very active and constantly moving, even red in the face, yet these appearances may not indicate any malady. On the other hand, it is perfectly normal for others to exhibit slowness and inactivity. It is against this individual landscape that the TCM practitioner attempts to correctly assess the pattern of disharmony when an individual becomes ill.

  Often the doctor must develop a strategy by carefully balancing many details. Stomach ulcers, for example, may originate in very different patterns of disharmony, although the resulting ulcers may appear identical. Because the roots of the disease are diametrically opposed, each type of ulcer may also require a very different type of treatment than the other, and the wrong treatment could make things even worse. Dr. Ni says that yet in Western medicine, ulcers are generally treated with whatever anti-ulcer medication there may be, without differentiating. But Chinese medicine deciphers the response of the patient. How is the patient's body reacting to the illness, to the cause of the illness? TCM practitioner seeks these patterns to determine and then treat accordingly. Alternatively, people with different symptoms, but the same pattern of disharmony, can often be treated by the same medicines or therapies.

 

  A first-time patient, accustomed to Western medicine, may be surprised that TCM diagnosis does not require procedures such as blood tests, x-rays, endoscopy (the inspection of the inside of a body cavity by an endoscope), or exploratory surgery. Instead, the TCM practitioner performs the five following, noninvasive methods of investigation:

• Inspection of the complexion, general demeanor, body language, and tongue
• Questioning the patient about symptoms, medical history, diet, lifestyle, history of the present complaint, and any previous or concurrent therapies received
• Listening to the tone and strength of the voice
• Smelling any body excretions, the breath, or the body odor
• Palpation (or feeling with the fingers) of the pulse at the radial arteries of both wrists (pulse diagnosis), the abdomen, and the meridians and/or acupuncture points

 

  Through pulse diagnosis, a skilled practitioner can examine the strength or weakness of the qi and "blood," which includes lymph and other bodily fluids, and assess how these affect each of the organs, tissues, and layers of the body. The practitioner will also look at the impact of a wide range of personal and environmental factors. Mood influences, activity, sex, food, drugs, weather, and seasons of the year can each affect health and the healing process. 

  Similarly, one diagnostic method will not always be able to adequately determine a pattern. The TCM practitioner will use all these various diagnostic tools to cross-check and amplify the other methods until the practitioner is certain that the pattern of disharmony he has found is correct.

  Dr. Ni explains that TCM practitioners tries to look at illness in the body from the point of view of function. Too much function or too little function-illness can really be simplified in this way. Either the body is not having enough of a substance or having too much of it in an illness. Or it's functioning too quickly and too fast, or it's functioning too slowly. If you categorized the body in those simplistic terms, that's what illness is all about. For example, how do people get colds? In Chinese medicine, practitioner recognizes that one gets colds because the body cannot adjust quickly enough to changes in the environment such as cold weather. This allows the bacteria or virus, whatever it may be, to invade.

  TCM treatment, unlike most Western medical practices, will not only treat the inevitable symptoms of the disease, in this case the actual cold, but will also treat the underlying cause, the body's inability to adapt to change quickly enough to resist the invading microbes.

 

  Today, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is a synthesis of the best of China's scholastic and professional medicine, empirically proven and time-tested folk remedies, and modern technology. Since the early part of the twentieth century, Chinese doctors began to incorporate elements of modern Western medicine, including modern physiology, pharmaceutical medicines, and treatment and modern research protocols. In 1949 a special effort to update TCM began when the post-war communist Chinese government began to revise and unify its standards of practice in an effort to improve public health. National committees of the finest TCM doctors of every medical specialty compared the knowledge gained from their own experience. Seeking new ideas, researchers fanned out into the vast Chinese countryside to interview peasant healers. As a result, many new remedies were added to the repertoire of formally approved TCM treatments.

 

  Traditional Chinese Medicine today unites a wide range of methods of treatment, including herbal medicine, acupuncture, dietary therapy, and massage.

  Herbal Medicine: Herbs are still a primary part of a TCM treatment. A prescription consists of generous piles of ingredients, distributed in paper packets containing a day or two's dose. The visually intriguing ingredients - perhaps bark, roots, or oyster shell - come from the vegetable, animal, and mineral kingdoms. The formulas may contain from six to nineteen different substances and are assembled with great care. These are prescribed to treat the root of the disease and its manifestation, and the formula must also be balanced within itself.

  Although the herbs are taken internally as decoctions (herbs boiled in water), TCM doctors also prescribe pills, powders, syrups, tinctures, inhalants, suppositories, enemas, douches, soaks, plasters, poultices, and salves. Specific foods may also be part of the protocol. Dr. Ni  says, TCM practitioners learn about the healing properties of each food. For example, ginger. Ginger is warming, and it's pungent. It has a healing property of warming the stomach to dispel cold, arresting diarrhea, and settling the stomach from nausea. When you're armed with knowledge like this, then you can begin to apply a whole system, in a very systematic way, for recommending a particular diet to your patients that would assist in their recovery.

  Dr. Ni recalls a patient who came to see him after suffering from three weeks of excruciating hemorrhoid pain that his medical doctor felt could only be relieved through surgery. He couldn't sit, he couldn't sleep, he couldn't walk, every position hurt him so badly. Dr. Ni explains, in Chinese medicine, this condition is diagnosed as having spleen qi deficiency. In other words, his spleen energy was weak and so the rectum was prolapsing, causing hemorrhoids.

  With acupuncture, they have to treat continuously every day or every other day for a week or two, but, he lived far away and couldn't come in. So Dr. Ni said him go home and eat four yams a day. Within a one week his hemorrhoids completely disappeared, and the pain, of course, went away too.

  When the man went back to his proctologist, he was told that hemorrhoids don't just go away, as severe as he had them, and that they wouldn't go away from yams. But Dr. Ni knew that yams have a curing property for strengthening the spleen qi and, therefore, pulling the hemorrhoids back up because that was the cause of his hemorrhoids. Dr. Ni adds that he wouldn't recommend yams for every hemorrhoid condition, though, because, again, in Chinese medicine, hemorrhoids may have many different causes.

  Acupuncture: Acupuncture is also extensively used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Using the meridian system and its thousands of corresponding surface points, acupuncture uses special needles placed strategically into these "acupoints" to help correct and rebalance the flow of energy within the specific meridian, consequently relieving pain and/or restoring health. Moxibustion is also sometimes used, which is the burning of special "moxa" herbs on or above a specific acupoint.

  Massage: Massage and manipulation are also integral parts of the modern practice of TCM, including professional remedial massage therapies such as osteopathic and chiropractic adjustments. Dr. Ni says there are many different massages in Chinese medicine. They have one massage called Tui Na, which is a combination of acupressure, massage, and manipulation.

  The purpose of massage is not dissimilar to acupuncture, in that the whole goal is to promote the flow of qi and to remove blockages, thereby alleviating any imbalances. Dr. Ni adds that massage is most often used in conjunction with other treatment therapies, such as acupuncture. They are often used together for musculoskeletal problems such as a sprain.

  Qigong and other therapeutic exercises are another aspect of TCM, particularly as a means of stress reduction and preventative therapy. Meditative relaxation, calisthenics, internal energy exercises, and the laying on of hands are all incorporated into the overall Chinese medicine approach, as well as an emphasis on spiritual meditation.