Conditions treated
How does Chinese Medicine treat illness?
Chinese Medicine looks at each individual as a part of nature. If there are symptoms, it means there is a problem of communication within the body, or between the body and the environment.
Your body makes billions of changes every single second – and it all works because there is precise electrical and chemical information getting to exactly the right place at exactly the right time, all of the time, whether you’re aware of it or not. Incredible, isn’t it?
Sometimes, something happens to disturb this flow of information – whether it’s from food, the environment, emotional upset or other body processes. Most of the time the body contains enough correct information to bring the whole system quickly into balance after the disturbance – this is the state of health.
If too many mistakes happen in the flow of information – and the body can’t get back to correct flow – then there are symptoms of illness.
The ancient Chinese called this mass of correct information “Correct Energy” (Zheng Qi) and the mistakes were called “Disease Energy” (Xie Qi).
The health practices that have been handed down through the generations are designed to regulate, strengthen and cultivate “Correct Energy”. This is the practice of “life-cultivation” and is integral to preventative health as well as approaching treatment of symptoms.
Life-cultivation methods include:
- Physical movements such as Tai Chi
- Meditation
- Qi-gong practice
- Self-massage
- Tailoring food to the seasons and to a person’s constitution, as well as
- Medicinal therapies like acupuncture and herbal medicine.
When you come to the clinic, we will discuss your health issue and then decide on goals that you would like to achieve. I will then provide you with a treatment plan that is tailored precisely to your goals and your individual circumstances. Your treatment plan may include any of the “life-cultivation” methods above. I will also often reach to contemporary methods where it suits you – whether that is certain supplements or a book that will be useful to you… You will have a comprehensive set of tools, therapies and strategies to progress you towards your health goals, and we will review this as you go, so that your goals are always reflecting where you would like to be.
University-qualified acupuncturists are trained in theories of the Western medicine approach, so we understand what is meant by labels such as “diabetes,” “hypertension” and so on.
However, in Chinese medicine we always take a step back from the label, and we ask
“What’s going on here?”
“Where is there a build-up and where is there weakness?”
“Where is the flow of information not happening properly?”
“When the body is showing these symptoms, what is it really asking for?”…
This is why Chinese medicine has such a broad application to modern health conditions. It is a different way of seeing the body, health and life itself.
For more information
Request your free consultation to find out more about how Chinese medicine can help you.
Visit the Ocean Acupuncture site for more information about health conditions.
