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Traditional
Chinese Medicine:
I'm a very no-nonsense guy and
this system is actually very practical in it's structure and end
results! I have simplified (whew!) the whole system for you just
below along with This Chart.
and also with the most important "Three
Treasures!" You will find these "Three Treasures"
at Understanding Chinese Tonic Herbal
Medicine.
Read all of this below
carefully, it's really pretty easy to understand. You'll be glad you
did!
The Traditional Chinese 5 Element Diagnostic System is used as a
tool to determine disorders and prescribe a combination of all natural
herbs for healing. It is without a doubt the most valuable “medical”
wisdom we have on this planet. Of course The FDA and most Medical Doctors
in this country will fervently disagree!
This healthy form of
healing, balancing, and correcting energy which is supplied from over
8,000 natural plants is the true way we as "citizens of this planet" have
been created to be healed when any illness comes our way.
So how
does this diagnostic system work? What scientific basis does it have and
why is the Traditional Herbal Doctor in China usually paid a much better
salary then the typical MD in that country? This system is actually very
practical in its structure and end result. This article will attempt to
simplify the whole system for you.
To begin with, there are always
opposite matters in our world (and our bodies) such as hot and cold, wet
and dry, dark and bright etc. The Chinese call this factor Yin and Yang:
Yang is hot as yin is cold, yang is dry as yin is wet, yang is big
as yin is small, It is easy to understand by just comparing energies.
There are also five different elements; these are water, wood, fire, earth
and metal. Each of these basic elements like everything under the sun are
subject to yin and yang (they can be hot or cold, dry or wet etc.) Each of
these five elements in TCM represents different organ systems within our
bodies. Here's how it breaks down:
Water:
represents the kidneys, bladder, Reproductive system, and all fluids other
than blood in the body
Wood: represents the liver
and gall bladder
Fire: represents the heart,
pericardium, blood and the “triple burner” (the three areas of heated
distribution of water)
Earth: represents the
stomach and spleen (digestion and metabolism)
Metal: represents the lungs and
colon.
Please see this Five Element
Theory Chart for more details
As with everything in existence, all herbs are subject to Yin and
Yang and have hot or cold, wet or dry (etc.-etc.) energies. A good
herbalist can taste and determine these energies on his tongue or feel a
hot or cold energy in his body after eating some of the plant. This is how
over the last 3,000 years eight thousand plants were grouped into their
categories of yin and yang and also how the organ systems that the plants
affected were determined. (Yes, sadly a few of these early herbalists died
from ingesting poisonous plants in the process.)
So now an
important question arises; should we just throw away this valuable data
for all time in exchange for our “scientifically proven” knowledge of
synthetic drugs as medicine for our health? The contrast of just how evil
our current pharma-medical system is becomes staggering.
So then
all plants have cooling, drying, strengthening, weakening, heating,
moistening (the list goes on and on) energy factors and they have specific
organ systems the plants most effect. The same is true of our organs
themselves. They should ideally always be in a perfect balance of yin and
yang. Also an imbalance of one organ system can affect many other organ
systems as shown in this diagram.
However, as we all know, things get out of balance from time to
time. The perfect example of an excess yang disorder would be a hot fever.
A deficient yang disorder would be cold hands and feet from lack of
circulation.
These major organ systems are subject to a number of
symptomatic complaints so by questioning the patient the doctor can began
to see a Yin or Yang condition in each of the systems. TCM doctors use a
check list of questions that will give all the clues they need for getting
the right diagnoses. It is quite simple.
Besides questioning about
symptomatic complaints, The TCM doctor looks at the condition of the
tongue (its colors, cracks, texture, moisture, etc) and spends a lot of
time feeling the pulses in 9 different positions and pressures on each
wrist. This will either give the doctor confirmation of what has been
gathered from questioning or tell him to look deeper into the problems.
The results are always amazingly accurate.
So in this way the TCM
doctor can chart the patient’s yin or yang disorders and can then apply
the plants with the exact opposite energy to bring balance to the patient.
For example if a person is always cold, has little sex drive, and
wakes up many times in the night needing to urinate (a kidney yang
deficient condition) the TCM doctor would give them (as a part of their
formula) a Kidney-Yang tonic herb such as Yin Yang Huo ( Epimedium
Sagittatum) to counter balance this condition. However this is just one
element and one herb. There may be many body elements involved and 3 or 4
herbs applied to each element. Or in some cases a single herb such as Dan
Shen for example, can correct many imbalances involving the heart. (Note:
An article on the herb, Dan Shen, will soon be released by the author; Dan
Shen can correct many heart problems such as arrhythmias and angina
quickly and save many lives without dangerous drugs or heart surgery.)
All five
elements (organ systems of the body) affect each other by generating
health and by overcoming it as this diagram shows. See
this chart for greater details. (eg: Earth overcomes Water as Water overcomes Fire but
Fire generates Earth as Earth generates Metal etc.) After the balance
information is gathered from the patient, it is checked and re-checked
then applied to the final diagnoses and formula. It works absolutely
beautifully.
Remember, the correction of disease with medicinal
plants is by far the most powerful energy source of the Traditional
Chinese Medicine system. Acupuncture was only used as a way to help open
up the meridians that the herbs were working through. Many acupuncturists
have somehow reversed this thinking into "herbal treatment is just
something to be added sometimes.” This is an unfortunate misconception.
The TCM Doctor is always first and foremost an herbalist. As an example, I
am a TCM Herbalist and I am trained in both Traditional Chinese full body
acupuncture and Korean hand acupuncture yet I only occasionally use
acupuncture as a back up treatment.
Of course acupuncture can, by
itself, benefit the body in many ways sometimes but the reality is, the
plants of the earth when used correctly are the strongest healing source
there is. The reason for this is the plants are “in tune” with our
molecular structure as we (The plants and us) are both created living
entities of the same earth. However acupuncture needles are great tools to
help open up meridians and they work quite well.
Also please
remember that over 8,000 medicinal herbs in 16 different classifications
are used for most healing of disease which includes the amazing group of
herbs in the Tonic Herb Classification. These herbs are not considered
“medicinal” in the usual sense of the word and they are the herbs most
anyone can take to achieve optimum health of the most important
“Three Treasures” which are Jing (Essense), Chi (Energy), and Shen
(Spirit). Please see my article at Natural News on The Classification of
Tonic Herbs
here.
I may have over-simplified the TCM 5 Element
Diagnostic System a bit (I have a book on TCM that is almost 7 inches
thick!) but hopefully it has given you an insight to this amazingly
accurate system. This diagnostic system is over 1,500 years old as
practiced today (Over 4,000 years in its beginning) and is still much more
preferred in China then the western system. It is taken more seriously by
the patient and the Traditional Chinese doctor is usually paid more in
China.
We need this system to be available at every hospital in
America so the patients can see for themselves that Big Pharma is not at
all a benefit to our health and is in fact a disaster to our health. Big
Pharma does not just operate legally but also with the approval of what
some consider being a tyrannical form of government; The FDA.
I don’t know about you but Nature’s
Healthcare Plan sounds much better to
me.