Pins & Plants

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), which includes acupuncture and herbal medicine, originated almost 5,000 years ago. It is considered a “complementary” or “alternative” medical system in most of the world.

TCM is based on the concept that the human body is a small universe with a set of sophisticated interconnected systems that usually work in balance to maintain health. When something disrupts that balance, sickness or disease results. So far, so good. The difference between TCM and Western medicine seems to be that TCM attempts to reestablish the underlying balance, whereas Western medicine focuses directly on the manifestation of the imbalance. At least, that’s the way it appears to me. (For instance, neither after my first tumor was removed in 1993, nor after the second one was taken out in 2001, was there even five seconds of discussion about what I might do or change to avoid recurrences. I would be most interested in such guidance.) But this oversimplification certainly ignores many critical distinctions between the two practices, so my humble apologies to any offended parties.

Cooperation between TCM practitioners and Western medicine is the norm in China. Western medicine is interested in many of the compounds used in TCM and in how practitioners determine which compounds to prescribe. One result of this collaboration has been the evaluation of TCM in peer-reviewed scientific journals and its inclusion in medical databases.

If there is at least one other tumor lurking about in my body undetected, then I would certainly be interested in pursuing a systemic treatment approach at this time. And although there is a lot about TCM that doesn’t make sense to me, I can make the same statement about Western medicine. So I am not prepared to dismiss TCM outright as a complementary system without giving it a whirl, particularly if it has relatively benign side effects.

I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon with a highly credentialed TCM practitioner in Los Angeles as I continue to move forward with Western medicine. We shall learn what we shall learn . . .