Same disease, different treatment

Same disease, different treatment

Two people with the same Western medicine diagnosis label can be treated very differently when we look at them in the Chinese medicine way.

The Chinese saying “Same disease, different treatment” can be illustrated by this example:

  • Jan is a 30-year-old woman with common cold. She has chills, a strong headache, clear runny nose and body aches. Her Chinese medicine label for this common cold is “Cold-type wind energy trapped in the outer defense layer of the body”.  Warming herbs and acupuncture treatments push this Disease Energy out of the defensive layers.
  • Sophie is also a 30-year-old woman with the common cold. She has fever, sore throat, yellow nasal mucus and thirst. Her Chinese medicine label for this common cold is “Hot-type wind energy trapped in the outer defense layer of the body”.  Cooling herbs and acupuncture treatments push this Disease Energy out of the defensive layers.

 

Jan saw her acupuncturist on Monday and came home with some herbal medicine. Sophie is her flatmate, and because they were both sick with the common cold, Jan gave Sophie some of her herbal medicine that was helping her so much. 

Oops!  Same disease – common cold – needs different treatment because one is cold-type and the other is hot-type.  Sophie didn’t feel much better (because the warming herbs made her even hotter!). Sophie called Jan’s acupuncturist, got the right herbs, and was on the road to recovery.

 

Different disease, same treatment

Two people with different Western medicine labels might end up having the exact same Chinese medicine treatment, because we look at the pattern of imbalance that happens when the Correct Energy is trying to deal with the Disease Energy.

  • Bob, 32, and his wife are having fertility treatment and he’s been identified as having problems with his sperm count. Although he feels pretty OK with his health, he has noticed that his libido is a bit off lately, but isn’t sure if it’s just all the pressure of the fertility stuff they’re doing.
  • Joanna, 58, struggles with weight gain and bloating and often feels cold.

 

Both Bob and Joanna receive treatment to boost their Yang-energy.  While the herbal formula would usually be slightly customised to each person, it is based on exactly the same classical foundation prescription. This is how a younger man and a middle-aged woman could be treated for sperm issues and weight gain, respectively, with the same treatment.

 

Flexibility and scope

Chinese medicine uses a very different “map” of the body and health, compared to Western medicine. This makes it very flexible to use alongside Western medicine, or as a stand-alone therapy, and gives us broad scope in treating a wide variety of health problems.