New Book on Chinese Medicine

[Guest guest]

I mentioned in an earlier post about picking up a new book that

looked pretty interesting. Here is some more detail about it.

Before I get to it, however, I need to preface it with more

background on how Chinese medicine works and how it is done.

One of the biggest differences between Western and Eastern medicine

is the fundamental approach of Western medicine being symptom driven

and Eastern medicine viewing the person as a whole. In addition,

Eastern medicine considers all disease to basically trace back to an

energetic imbalance that manifests itself into the physical. I am

not going to get into a long discussion of Traditional Chinese

Medicine in this post.

Let's use high blood pressure as an example. In Western Medicine,

high blood pressure is considered " the disease " and is treated

accordingly. Basically, everyone presenting that condition is going

to get treated the same way. The meds prescribed might vary

depending on which drug company rep bought the involved doc his last

steak dinner, but the approach is virtually the same.

That is not at all true with Traditional Chinese Medicine. Five

different people, all presenting the same symptoms, might be

diagnosed with five different imbalances and end up with five

completely different treatment plans. In other words, the high

blood pressure is the symptom - it is NOT the disease. And it

doesn't matter if the treatment plans involved include acupuncture,

acupressure or herbs and supplements. In one case, the diagnosis

might involve an excess in one meridian while a dificiency is

involved for someone else. In other words, it is not simply a case

of high blood pressure - give them a prescription for drug XYZ.

Because of this, you can't simply take a text book and do a cookie

cutter treatment plan. This is one of the reasons why Eastern

medicine works where in many cases Western medicine fails. But that

inability to get consistent, reproducible results with the same

treatment plans is why there is such a big hang-up with western

trained minds.

I am NOT suggesting that anyone drop their primary care provider and

do anything different than what they are currently doing, even if

what they are currently doing is not doing anything to make them

better. (That's my required, legal, cover my tush, disclaimer).

Having said that, what I am suggesting is that there just MIGHT be

an alternative or two out there that MIGHT get results if nothing

else is working so far.

And having said that, here are the conditions covered in the book,

for information.

1. Acne Vulgaris

2. Allergic Rhinitis

3. Alzheimer's Disease

4. Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)

5. Aplastic Anemia (AA)

6. Behcet's Syndrome

7. Benign Prostatic Hypertrophy (BPH)

8. Bronchial Asthma

9. Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS)

10. Celia Disease

11. Cerebral Vascular Accident (CVA)

12. Cervical Spondylosis

13. Cholecystitis/Choleithiasis

14. Chronic Active Hepatitis (CAH)

15. Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome (CFIDS)

16. Chronic Glomerulonephritis

17. Chronic Pancreitis

18. Chronic Prostatis

19. Chronic Renal Failure (CRF)

20. Chronic Sinusitis

21. Coronary Artery Disease (CAD)

22. Crohn's Disease

23. Cushing's Syndrome

24. Diabetes Mellitus (DM)

25. Diverticulitis

26. Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS)

27. Gout

28. Hashimoto's Thyroiditis

29. Hemorrhoids

30. Herpes Genitalia

31. Herpes Zoster

32. Hyperlipoproteinemia

33. Hypertension

34. Hyperthyroidism

35. Hypoglycemia

36. Hypotension

37. Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura (ITP)

38. Interstitial Cystitis (IC)

39. Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

40. Lateral Epicondylitis

41. Lumbar Disk Herniation

42. Lyme Disease

43. Macular Degeneration

44. Meniere's Disease

45. Migraine Headaches

46. Multiple Sclerosis (MS)

47. Myasthenia Gravis

48. Oral Leukoplakia

49. Osteoarthritis (OA)

50. Osteoporosis

51. Parkinson's Disease (PD)

52. Peptic Ulcers

53. Periarthritis of the Shoulder

54. Periodontal Disease

55. Periperal Neuropathy (PN)

56. Piriformis Syndrome

57. Pneumonia

58. Polymyositit/Dermatomyositis

59. Postconcussion Syndrome

60. Pulmonary Tuberculosis

61. Raynaud's Phenomenon and Disease

62. Reflux Esophagitis

63. Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA)

64. Scleroderma

65. Sjogren's Syndrome (SS)

66. Stress Incontinence

67. Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

68. Systemic Lupus Erythmatosus (SLE)

69. Temporomandibular Joint Syndrome (TMJ)

70. Trigeminal Neuralgia

71. Ulcerative Colitis (UC)

72. Urolithiasis

13.