Mission Statement or Why Another Chinese Medicine Blog?

If I was to feel your pulse and comment on its deep, forceless quality, asked you to stick out your tongue and questioned your tooth brushing technique, enquired about how you felt in cold weather, examined your lower back, prodded your legs with my fingertips, stuck needles into your back and front for 'balance', and into your ankles and knees, filled your belly button with salt and proceeded to burn herbal cones over it, no doubt you’d be compelled to ask: ‘What’s all that got to do with chronic diarrhoea?’

Then, if by way of explanation, I was to say: ‘Well, your Kidney Yang is underactive, your Mingmen Fire is in decline and you have a long standing deficiency of Yang of the Spleen and Stomach. So I reinforced acupuncture points of the Kidney, Ren and Du Mai with the tonification method and added moxibustion to support the Kidney Yang and reinvigorate the Kidney Qi, as well as to warm the Spleen and Kidney to promote digestion. It’s called treating the root cause. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anymore questions?’ Could I really blame you for walking away from my office shaking your head?

As an acupuncturist, this is the curious situation I face every time a patient walks into my rooms. The world of Chinese medicine, which I’m so familiar with and take completely for granted, makes little if any sense to my patients or the public at large, who repeatedly demand: ‘Please explain?!’

By its very nature, Chinese Medicine is full of ‘Orientalisms’, how could it not be? But the Eastern jargon that Chinese patients learn naturally, as part of their language and culture, unsurprisingly puzzle most of us Westerners. Sure, most of us have some vague concept of what Qi is or how the polar opposites of Yin and Yang operate, but how many of us truly understand what it all means, let alone how that black and white circle applies to our everyday ailments? Quite frankly, unless you’re Chinese or were born somewhere in Asia, you’d have to be a scholar of Chinese philosophy to gain that type of understanding. Yet these peculiar ideas are fundamental to the practice of Chinese medicine, and as an acupuncturist, I work with them every day.  

This blog then, is my attempt to demystify Chinese medicine for my patients and anyone interested in learning more about this wonderful healing modality. Despite its peculiar notions and odd theories, it’s an age old health care system that works in beautifully with our modern, high tech Western medicine. It’s safe and effective, and thanks to ongoing medical research, which is proving at long last that Chinese medicine stands up to the rigour of scientific testing, it’s becoming more popular than ever. So if you’ve ever wondered why on earth I stuck a needle in your hand to rid you of that migraine, I invite you to read on …

All questions are valid, so feel free to ask away, and I’ll attempt to answer them in simple English, if I can J

Welcome to my wonderfully convoluted world of Chinese Medicine!