Conditions We Treat

The TCM Approach

Traditional Chinese medicine works in various of ways to improve our health

A Holistic Approach

For more than 2900 years, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has evolved into an ancient set of practices from East Asia to diagnose and cure illness. The TCM approach to healthcare is holistic, looking for the underlying causes and imbalances behind disease, which differs fundamentally from a conventional Western medicine approach. TCM practitioners will look at the whole individual (gestalt) , instead of just focusing on the disease and it’s related symptoms.

In TCM, the evaluation of a patterns include the confrontation between a pathogenic factors (things that cause disease) and our body’s inherent resistance. Practitioners recommend specific therapies based on a differential diagnosis, honing in on the specific cause of a disease and the disharmony it creates in one’s interior body. Treatment is not only focused on alleviating symptoms, but on the rectifying the source that led to the exposure. Therefore, patients with an identical set of symptoms may in fact be treated in different ways and, on the other hand, different diseases may result in the same syndrome and may be treated in similar ways. Thus, pattern discrimination is the most important aspect of TCM diagnostics and is difficult to master.

Diagnostics: Ausiculation, Olfaction, Pulse and Palpation

In order to differentiate between patterns, TCM practitioners rely on several diagnostic methods, including:

• Palpation of the wrist pulses. This is very different from taking the pulse rate. There are many qualities in a pulse that can indicate disease, more than 26.

• Palpation of the abdomen

• Palpation of the muscles, tendons

• Inspection of the face

• Mapping out the Tongue and it’s different qualities

• Listening for particular sounds, such as coughing, wheezing, pitch and tone of the voice.

• Smell of body odor

• Inquiry about individual functions with the patient, like bowel habits and urination

Pulse taking is the most important diagnostic skill. Through diligent papation, an experienced Doctor can accurately diagnose almost any medical problem. Eastern trained physicians feel for six pulses in each wrist: three superficial and three deep at specific points along the artery. The pulse is examined for several characteristics including rhythm, rate, quality, strength and volume. The quality of each pulse reveals underlying imbalances in specific internal organs and in turn, the body as a whole.

Therapies

As a holistic health care system, TCM emphasized the practice of proper diet and nutrition, exercise and spirituality along with more specialized techniques. TCM practitioners use a wide range of therapies, including Chinese herbal medicine, Acupuncture, moxibustion , gua sha , cupping & Tui Na (Sports massage).

It is important to remember, TCM should not be used to compete with efficacious treatment modalities that are already available in conventional Western medicine. Exploration of its clinical applications should focus on conditions for which conventional medicine can find no satisfactory remedy or conventional treatment has been unable to manage stubborn symptoms.