[Closed] Chinese Medicine

has a certain credibility in my mind that makes it very different to non-Western-scientific medicine.

[img] [/img]

multi-thousand year history

Blood letting was established practice for multiple thousands of years, shall I fetch the lancet?

Western medication is like a mechanic repairing a car.

Chinese medication is like tuning the car with computer.

Blood letting was established practice for multiple thousands of years, shall I fetch the lancet?

only if you have [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting ]hemochromatosis[/url] 😉

I've tried it a few times and ime it is foul and disgusting and I invariably came to the conclusion that I'd rather be ill than drink the vile concoctions.

Acupuncture is a much better alternative imo.

Yeah tigers and rhinos love it...

No Chinese medicine is like picking up a hammer and hitting parts of your car randomly to see whether it fixes it or not and then if whatever is going wrong does stop it must be because you hit it with a hammer, except the hammer isn't actually a hammer but a piece of useless string.

Late 20th century to early 21st century medicine has all the subtlety of getting rid of a hornets nest by dropping napalm on it, except that it actually works.

Chinese medication is like tuning the car with computer.

…that's not connected to the car and can't measure anything or make any actual changes to the engine.

It always seems to work but you always end up feeling bad again a few hours later.

only if you have hemochromatosis

Bah... close enough!

A marvellous justification for chopping the knobs off endangered animals.
Yey Chinese medicine!

[url= http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_medicine ]Wikipedia[/url] describes it as a 'pseudoscience, with no valid mechanism of action for the majority of its treatments.[10]'

ernie,

Proper Chinese medication is very bitter. You boil many different kinds of herbs then drink it. You also need the knowledge for the preparation and not simple boil it to death. Taking Chinese medication takes time and it is not a quick fix.

Acupuncture is only effective for certain ailments but not a quick cure.

🙂

kayak23 - Member

A marvellous justification for chopping the knobs off endangered animals.
Yey Chinese medicine!

You can select those that do not require chopping the knobs off animals. In fact, there are so many different kind of herbs that a good Chinese doctor can prescribe rather than the so called knobs medication.

Whats Chinese for gullible.

Whats Chinese for gullible.

Good question, I've checked and it's not in the Chinese dictionary.

lemonysam - Member

Proper Chinese medication is very bitter

That's good enough for me.

Actually extremely bitter.

😆

Why is science described as western? Science is just observing how stuff is...the Greeks, arabs and Chinese have all been doing that for thousands of years. Ask a Dr in a Chinese hospital if he'd rather have antibiotics or a powdered badgers gall bladder.

What was life expectancy like in China 1000 yrs ago.....

kayak23 - Member
A marvellous justification for chopping the knobs off endangered animals.
Yey Chinese medicine!

Bit sweary:

ernie_lynch - Member

Whats Chinese for gullible.

Good question, I've checked and it's not in the Chinese dictionary.

It is called ??? 🙄

Some Chinese medications have been reported to be contaminated with all sorts of potentially harmful stuff so I would treat it with caution.

I'm not sure why the references to 'knobs off endangered animals' and 'powdered badgers gall bladder', the only traditional Chinese medicine I've experienced other than acupuncture has been herbal infusions. And I'm fairly sure that is the only available traditional Chinese medicine in the UK.

It is perfectly feasible imo that various herbs if drank as a infusion might have a physical effect, after all drinking a cup of coffee can do.

A Chinese work colleague of mine gets Night Nurse sent over from the USA as it apparently contains more alcohol than the UK stuff.

vickypea - Member

Some Chinese medications have been reported to be contaminated with all sorts of potentially harmful stuff so I would treat it with caution.

Ya, absolutely. When certain ingredients cost so much you get cowboys trying to mass produce them using whatever ways they can. So we tend to look for the cheapest, least monetary value, ingredients we can find because those are not profitable for the cowboys.

ernie_lynch - Member

And I'm fairly sure that is the only available traditional Chinese medicine in the UK.

It is perfectly feasible imo that various herbs if drank as a infusion might have a physical effect, after all drinking a cup of coffee can do.

I am not familiar with British Chinese doctors but as far as we know a good Chinese doctor is like gold dust if you can find one. My question is if they are that good there would be no need for them to set up a practice in the West. They would have enough patients at home.

IanMunro - Member

A Chinese work colleague of mine gets Night Nurse sent over from the USA as it apparently contains more alcohol than the UK stuff.

I wouldn't trust any of the Chinese Western medication i.e. those that make to look like western medication in capsule or in any other form. I am only taking proper Chinese herbs with NO animal parts.

Anyway, if you want a hard knob there are plenty of herbs available some are even use for cooking but nobody knows it is meant for man hood.

Given that traditional Chinese medicine is based largely on naturally occurring materials I reckon that anything that was proven to be effective would have been adopted, marketed and sold by one of the large western drugs companies for a tidy markup. The fact that it hasn't to any large degree suggests to me that it doesn't work beyond a placebo.

muppetWrangler - Member
The fact that it hasn't to any large degree suggests to me that it doesn't work beyond a placebo.

Proper Chinese medication is not one size fits all so even if you get the ingredients they will not work properly for all. The aspect of diagnosing is very important as the herbs prescribe will have to custom for that particular patient only. If others take it the effect will either be too strong or not effective.

🙂

I am not familiar with British Chinese doctors but as far as we know a good Chinese doctor is like gold dust if you can find one. My question is if they are that good there would be no need for them to set up a practice in the West. They would have enough patients at home.

So you came to the UK because you are crap at your job chewkw ?

ernie_lynch - Member 
I'm not sure why the references to 'knobs off endangered animals' and 'powdered badgers gall bladder'

[url= http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/sangita-iyer/traditional-chinese-medicine_b_3081813.html ]Huffington post article[/url], just one of many....

[i]There is no scientific basis of the claim that tiger penis (or testicles), seal penis, deer penis, or elephant penis have aphrodisiac capacity. Yet, the effectiveness of Viagra has been demonstrated in clinical trials and in use. The myth of tiger penis being a powerful manhood enhancer has been sustained by the TCM believers. It is only understandable that some desperate impotent males would choose to believe in anything that potentially work."[/i]

It is perfectly feasible imo that various herbs if drank as a infusion might have a physical effect, after all drinking a cup of coffee can do.

Yup, and in ancient western medicine (it's like the Chinese version, but carries less cachet at Guardian infused dinnerparties) they used willow bark as a painkiller.

In modern medicine we figured out that it contained asprin, and now just make and take that.

That's the advantage of this modern medicine, it'd got the advantage of thousands of years of development, rather than freezing it in time a few thousand years ago and ignoring any developments since then.

The aspect of diagnosing is very important

Tell me more. Is it just a case of getting the dosage right (the same as clinically trialled medicines), or can totally different medicines work for totally different symptoms on two different people?

Tom_W1987 - Member

No Chinese medicine is like picking up a hammer and hitting parts of your car randomly to see whether it fixes it or not and then if whatever is going wrong does stop it must be because you hit it with a hammer, except the hammer isn't actually a hammer but a piece of useless string.

That's exactly how I maintain my car tbh.

[url= http://www.mhra.gov.uk/Safetyinformation/Generalsafetyinformationandadvice/Herbalmedicines/Herbalsafetyupdates/Herbalskincreamswarningsandalerts/ ]corticosteroids[/url] have been found in high levels in some chinese 'herbal' remedies - think id stick to the properly tested and measure varieties of medicine rather than risk higher doses of unsafe versions of the drugs your trying to avoid

Not that it applies to all - but hey its stw and its late so forgive my sweeping generalisation 😉

ernie_lynch - Member
So you came to the UK because you are crap at your job chewkw ?

Yes, in a way.

I was crapped at being a docile employee while working in the far east with far eastern companies. Can't compete with the zombie maggots over there ...

Besides, I was paid peanuts by those zombie maggots over there ... I mean if I were to work for zombie maggots why not work for another zombie maggot that could pay me better like those in the West? So I decided to pack my bag and got myself a low ranking bureaucratic job in the UK.

I did not swim across the channel nor did I arrive at the back of a van.

kayak23 - Member

Huffington post article, just one of many....

There is no scientific basis of the claim that tiger penis (or testicles), seal penis, deer penis, or elephant penis have aphrodisiac capacity.

Absolutely. A proper ethical Chinese doctor will Not go anyway near animal parts. In fact there is no need to as there are so many herbs available that can be aphrodisiac.

muppetWrangler - Member

Tell me more. Is it just a case of getting the dosage right (the same as clinically trialled medicines), or can totally different medicines work for totally different symptoms on two different people?

Yes, getting the dosage right is a bit like clinical trials but Chinese do this via thousands years of hand down experience and No one Chinese doctor master them all. Some are family secret that can only hand down from one generation to another. Also, the good doctor will track your "chi" for suitable dosage.

As far as I know the dosage is customised to one person only if you get an experience doctor, otherwise they would apply the ancient herbs formula that they consider suitable for the ailments. Then adjust the dosage accordingly after sometimes.

Wikipedia describes it as a 'pseudoscience, with no valid mechanism of action for the majority of its treatments.[10]'

There is a valid mechanism - a lot of the herbal remedies sold in the uk have been mixed with butt-loads of steroids 🙂

If you had copied and pasted my whole quote kayak23, instead of an edited version, you would see the point I was making.

Here is the full quote with the bit you left out in bold :

[i]I'm not sure why the references to 'knobs off endangered animals' and 'powdered badgers gall bladder', [b]the only traditional Chinese medicine I've experienced other than acupuncture has been herbal infusions. And I'm fairly sure that is the only available traditional Chinese medicine in the UK.[/b][/i]

Your link does not refer to anything happening in the UK.

Wifes on it all the time, personally, I don't think it does anything at all.
[img] [/img]
This is to help you poop, you boil it up and drink the soup, the resulting soup looks, and smells, worse than what gets left in the pan.

Wifes on it all the time, personally, I don't think it does anything at all.

Was that a birds nest?

By the way you're going to be in the doghouse for sharing your wives constipation woes with the internet. 🙂

By the way you're going to be in the doghouse for sharing your wives constipation woes with the internet.

Trust me, in this society its perfectly normal to talk about ailments, they don't have our reserves....and if you eat rice everyday you would get clogged up too.

I looked into Chinese medicine for migraine some years ago in a couple of local Chinese medicine "shops" and the medicines were in the form of little round pills sold in boxes with no information whatsoever in English. Potential contamination aside, there is no way of knowing what the heck is in them, whether they contain powdered essence of stoat's bladder or whatever. Even if they were pure herbs, we all know that some herbs are dangerous.... Don't we?

stewartc - Member

Wifes on it all the time, personally, I don't think it does anything at all.

How does she boil the herbs? Looks a lot to me but I am not a Chinese doctor so not sure what I am seeing.

Anyway, as far as I know you boil/infuse them with slow fire (slow cooker is the best) for several hours by reducing 3 bowl of water to one or the right amount of water as prescribed. Let it cool down then drink.

vickypea - Member

... the medicines were in the form of little round pills sold in boxes with no information whatsoever in English. Potential contamination aside, ...

Avoid at all cost. We only consume Chinese medication that we trust and is prescribed by trusted Chinese doctor.

Like I said, I would Not consume Chinese medication that is made to look "western". I only take Chinese medication that is in herb form. i.e. via boiling/infusion.

Bingo Chewkw, thats how she does it, over several hours and then you get a thick black sludge which she will take a bowl of 3 times a day.

stewartc - Member

Bingo Chewkw, thats how she does it, over several hours and then you get a thick black sludge which she will take a bowl of 3 times a day.

Constipation is usually due to high body "heat/positive energy" i.e. the yang chi being too strong. The medication is to restore her weak ying/negative energy. My guess btw as that's how my grandma explained to us ...

She should avoid all fried food or food with too much yang energy.

How about prunes, all-bran and plenty of water for constipation?

vickypea - Member

How about prunes, all-bran and plenty of water for constipation?

If that works then I don't see any harm in using them.

But sometimes it is to re-balance/restore the chi back for long term health benefit.

Also try to sleep early and get plenty of rest.

Proper Chinese medication is not one size fits all so even if you get the ingredients they will not work properly for all. The aspect of diagnosing is very important as the herbs prescribe will have to custom for that particular patient only. If others take it the effect will either be too strong or not effective.

You realise you've just basically described homeopathy?

Constipation is usually due to high body "heat/positive energy" i.e. the yang chi being too strong. The medication is to restore her weak ying/negative energy.

Pretty much sums up traditional Chinese medicine.

There's no such thing as "alternative medicine." There's "medicine" and there's "not medicine." It's quite simple.

Cougar - Moderator

You realise you've just basically described homeopathy?

Well, whatever work best for you.

Chinese medication works for me that's all I know.

Pretty much sums up traditional Chinese medicine.

There's no such thing as "alternative medicine." There's "medicine" and there's "not medicine." It's quite simple.

That simple eh? 🙄

Oh well just look after your health and stay healthy.

Whatever works, works.

Whatever works [i]beyond placebo,[/i] works.

Cougar - Moderator

Whatever works beyond placebo, works.

If it works it works. Simple.

😆

Your link does not refer to anything happening in the UK.

No, you're quite right, it doesn't, nothing bad happens in the UK.

[url= http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/04april/Pages/chinese-medicines-contain-endangered-animal-DNA.aspx ]..of course there was this one from the NHS though...[/url]

[url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/active/mens-health/9200397/Chinese-medicines-contain-traces-of-endangered-animals.html ]...or this from the telegraph?[/url]

[url= http://www.operationcharm.org/traditional-chinese-medicine/ ]Operation Charm[/url]

I'm sure your interest in it does not involve endangered species ( and funnily enough I was actually considering the practise slightly beyond just your experience when I quoted)but don't think that it doesn't happen just because we're in the wonderful UK.

Just to clarify, I'm not for a minute suggesting you personally support illegal trade in endangered species, just that it is unfortunately a problem in traditional Chinese medicine whichever country you live in.

Tim knows.

[img] [/img]

From the 9 minute beat poem, "Storm".

Show me a medical double blind study that tells me what is being sold will cure the common cold/stinky feet/toothache (or more concerning; HIV, Cancer etc) and I'll happily concede.

What concerns me is using the word medicine to sell potions to people when they haven't been proved to work may well stop people going to an actual doctor and getting something that actually works.

Many herbs, plants and other things have properties that will help with certain ailments - see the bark/asprin example however would you rather chew on a stick and try and get the dose right or take a handy little pill?

But sometimes it is to re-balance/restore the chi back for long term health benefit.

While in HK I visited a local medic for help with a very painful cricked neck, that bad I could not move my head more than a couple of inches

30 min latter of what I could call a beating, plus some extremely strong menthol ointment and a swig of something that I never want to taste again, I was completely cured.

Still have a bottle of the ointment and have used since for muscle pain, let's call it deep heat on steroids 😉

Tree-magnet thanks for the minchin heroics, I've not heard him do 'Storm' before. The man is a dude.

Doctors know that 95% of cases will actually resolve themselves in a few days.

Voltaire said that medicine is about amusing the patient while Nature cures him.

30 min latter of what I could call a beating, plus some extremely strong menthol ointment and a swig of something that I never want to taste again, I was completely cured.

30 min latter of what I could call a beating, plus some extremely strong menthol ointment and a swig of something that I never want to taste again, I was completely cured.

Sure, which is why we have remedial massage, physiotherapy...

Because don't get me wrong, the name isn't important. If alternative practitioners are giving out the same / similar treatment to trained medical professionals, of course it'll work.

The aspirin / tree root thing is a good example. The corollary to "I went to a Chinese doctor and he boiled up some bark to make me a nasty tasting tea, and all the pain went away" is "of course it did, it was a massive dose of salicylic acid." The only difference between that and "Western" medicine is that you'd then be getting a metered, measured dosage in a convenient pill format, the rest is just misdirection.

I detecting a lot of negative of energy there Cougar, have you tried pulling your Yang to release some tension?

i like to think of it as prevention is better than cure .. where the medicine is more like an additive to redress the cause and a bit of the issue. After all It must be good if it tastes this bad 🙂

Everyone is different so what ever works for you. Oh and I'm of the more heaty side and everyone could do with bowls of soup every now and then.

Chinese medicine? Gets the same response as any medicine that isn't proven by controlled trials.

[img] [/img]

Other than for the reason of wanting an argument I don't know why you are deliberately misrepresenting the both the point I made and the OP's question kayak23.

It seemed clear to me at least, that the OP was referring to Chinese traditional medicine as available at any high street in most towns in the UK, not 'knobs off endangered animals' and 'powdered badgers gall bladder', the very different and totally unacceptable illegal stuff.

And as if to make the point your own link, the third one, clearly states, quote, [i][b]"The campaign is supported by The Federation of Traditional Chinese Medicine and The London Chinatown Chinese Association"[/i][/b]with reference to the Metropolitan Police Wildlife Crime Unit operation.

It also states, quote, [b][i]Operation Charm is not against the Traditional Chinese Medicine trade [/i][/b]

Did you read your own links ?

Dangerous and illegal activities concerning western medicine is widespread, and yet that doesn't justify condemning western medicine as disreputable.

Just to clarify, I'm not for a minute suggesting you personally support illegal trade in endangered species

Is that because I said, and then later repeated, quote :

[b][i]"the only traditional Chinese medicine I've experienced other than acupuncture has been herbal infusions"[/i][/b]

❓

Everyone is different so what ever works for you

The marvellous thing about "doing science" is that we can figure out what treatments work for a given condition for everyone, and then keep them.

"Everyone different" - oddly enough, that can get factored in to the trails of a treatment or technique and if someone's particular physical makeup shows a treatment to be contraindicated, then it's not done, and an alternative (although presumably less effective) treatment is done instead.

"doing science" gets you stuff that works. Guesswork, shamanism, etc doesn't.

I detecting a lot of negative of energy there Cougar, have you tried pulling your Yang to release some tension?

My wife's Chinese and on a visit to China her family took us to a Chinese medicine institute sort of place in SE China. Wife's family said she should have an examination, I just went outside as thought it a waste of time and bound to end up costing money (he he) turned out I was right as wife yelled out the window for me to bring my credit card, I ignored her. So her Mum bought some medicine which was supposed to make her less lethargic or something - cost equiv to £250 or so which is a huge chunk of cash to Chinese people but wife's family are wealthy. When we got home I asked her if she was going to take it, eventually she just binned it.

So she's still lethargic.

Who knows what's in their products?

This happened locally to me:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8520171.stm

Guilty plea in Chinese herbal 'cancer' case

A practitioner of Chinese medicine has pleaded guilty to selling a banned substance to a woman who went on to develop kidney failure and cancer.

Ying "Susan" Wu, 48, of Holland-on-Sea in Essex, has been on trial at the Old Bailey for selling pills containing aristolochic acid to a civil servant.

The judge said he accepted Ms Wu had not meant to harm, and that the case highlighted the need for regulation.

Ms Wu has now been given a conditional discharge.

Patricia Booth, 58, took the pills, bought at Chelmsford's Chinese Herbal Medical Centre, for over five years. She was in her mid-40s when she first sought help from the centre in 1997 for stubborn patches of spots on her face.

I've used it a few times. I can't remember what the acupuncture was for, it was ages ago but it really helped and it was like the undoing of a knot in my head, like an elevated meditation. I will always remember that feeling.

Second time was for ligament damage in my shoulder, unsurprisingly this did not help, nor did a GP or a phsyio - none of whom figured out the problem. That took me and the internet.

My wife had the herbs for asthma and with taking them she was able to stop taking daily inhalers for the first time in many years. The medicine was also coupled with recommended dietary changes so I think several things worked together but I think this is crux, it works with your body and uses / enhances some of its own healing powers rather than coming with a load of chemicals and blasting it's way through. It may have slower more subtle effects but potentially these are longer lasting and cause less side-effects.

I liked the herbs too but the doc would only let me take them now and again. She said I had too much Chi already.

They did look like mud and tree bark mind.

[b]Vickeypea [/b]- leave us stoats alone! 😉

There can be [url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC27755/ ]serious problems[/url] with Chinise herbal remedies. Sometimes they work because they ain't herbal.

It is interesting how suddenly a few years ago there were so many Chnese herbal medicine shops which suddenly sprang up in even small towns. The programme that must have been organised to make sure that each of the owners was properly trained and supplying bona fide stuff, with proper governance, must have been huge.

Or maybe they didn't bother... God made sheep to be shorn.

I would definitely have "modern" accupuncture for some things though.

I'm not totally against herbal medicine but as Chewkw said earlier, there's a big difference between taking goodness-knows-what from any old Chinese medicine shop on the high street and having a trusted practitioner in the family.
I've also tried acupuncture myself with mixed results.

Is that recommended 🙂 What did you use? Got an image of you rummaging around to see what pins and needles you can find lying about....

[url]

Elephant (sans tusks and penis) in the room, people!

Chewkw is a DIPLOMAT?!?!?!?!?!

Edit no he isnt he's a beauraucrat. Ends in at. Quite a relief, really.

We had a friend who went the chinese medicine route, she ended up with lead poisoning. On the plus side, it gave her something to take her mind off her original minor ailment and associated gullibility.

Mud shark - sorry wasn't clear! I didn't do the acupuncture to myself, I had it done to me 🙂

Oh shame!

It's a marketing truism that if something is sold cheap, most customers will think it's no good and if it's expensive most will think it is superior.

In quack medicine if something smells or tastes disgusting, it is considered good. The placebo effect is powerful and is well understood by doctors and exploited; for example drugs manufacturers have discovered that pills are much more effective if they are the right colour - red, orange or yellow for "pick up" and purple, blue or mauve for "calm down". It's also a fact that (as I wrote above) 95% of complaints will clear themselves up within a few days, which leads consumers of quack remedies to attribute their improvement to the remedy.

My wife does western medical acupuncture - it's a different 'theory' to chinese acupuncture, but uses most of the same points.

There is evidence for acupuncture for plenty of conditions - I suppose you could call [b]that [/b]'traditional medicine' in that sense.
It's interesting the points are the same, but the 'theory' is different...the equivalent to me giving someone an opiod and explaining "it works on the pain receptors to reduce the pain impulse to the brain", as opposed to a 'traditionalist' giving an opiod and saying "magic vodoo from mars comes and takes your pain away".

I think i just digressed didn't I...

DrP

Other than for the reason of wanting an argument I don't know why you are deliberately misrepresenting the both the point I made and the OP's question kayak23.

No, I really don't want an argument and I'm really not trying to misrepresent anyone. I was merely trying to say that (and I think what Vickypea said above confirms it in her case at least) that it is very difficult to always know exactly what you are buying when you buy TCM, whether it comes from 'dodgy' sources or not or that the ingredients are 100% accounted for, and that there ARE cases where illegal 'ingredients' have been found to be present.
Anyway.... you clearly are convinced by your experience of it, so that's great.

I used to have acupuncture actually(for anxiety) and found it helped me relax really well during and for a while after the session, but I guess that could have been down to having someone calming chat to you and fiddle about with you..... 🙂

but uses most of the same points.

😀

I think that colour of pills is a bit of an urban myth started by Ben Goldacre. I wrote to him about that giving him
numerous examples of where he was wrong, but he never replied!
For a start, Viagra is blue but you definitely want it to pick you up rather than calm you down. 😉