Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)
For thousands of years the Chinese and other Eastern people have
been using Acupuncture, Herbal Medicine and Massage, to restore maintain
and promote good health. These therapies can help in resolving pain
and illness, without unpleasant side effects.
Chinese Acupuncture & Massage is supported by Herbal Medicine,
which is often used to compliment it. Such medicines are traditionally
derived from vegetable, mineral and sometimes animal sources. Herbal
prescriptions may be in “Raw” form that require cooking,
otherwise ground into powder or formed into pills and consumed directly.
Self Healing Body
Traditional Chinese Medicine sees the body as a self rectifying
dynamic whole, a network of interrelating and interacting energies.
Their even distribution and flow maintain health; however any interruption,
stagnation or depletion of these energies can lead to disease.
Traditional Chinese Medicine is a system of medicine which seeks
to aid these natural processes, helping the body to correct itself
by realignment and redirection of these energies, (which the Chinese
call QI (Pronounced chee) In order to restore a person’s health,
balance and harmony on all levels - Physical, Mental, Emotional,
and Spiritual; by stimulating the body’s natural healing powers.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine theory, disease (disharmony) can
occur in a number of ways which generally fall into two categories:
1) INTERNALLY GENERATED CAUSES
Emotional stress. Irregular lifestyle (overwork, late nights, etc).
2) EXTERNALLY GENERATED CAUSES
Poor dietary habits.
Climate conditions.
Injury/ accidents.
It is when the natural function of the body is unable to respond
appropriately, or when it is subjected to any excess of these factors,
that it becomes stressed and disharmony can result.
Qi Energy 
Qi is often translated as Breath, Life force, Vitality, Energy or
simply that which makes us alive. If there is no Qi, there is no
life.
Traditional Chinese Medicine recognises a subtle energy system by
which Qi is circulated through the body in a network of channels
called “Meridians”. The aim of Traditional Chinese Medicine
is to restore the proper flow of Qi. This can be controlled at various
points along the meridian system which networks the body.
Diagnosis
A practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine will take time to
obtain a detailed case history at the first consultation, without
being intrusive. The practitioner may ask many questions that seem
irrelevant, but are essential to the diagnosis.
Taking the pulse has been one of the fundamental diagnostic methods
of Traditional Chinese Medicine for the last two thousand years and
is far more intricate than pulse taking in the west. It allows the
practitioner to asses the balance of energy in the patient from three
positions at the wrist. Depth, speed, general quality and overall
balance or strength of the pulses give an insight to the patients
internal state. Additionally information is gathered from observation
of the tongue and eyes.
The gathering of all of this information and its interpretation
provides the practitioner with an overall picture or pattern of disharmony,
which then can be rectified accordingly. Remembering that restoring
harmony to the body will bring about the body’s ability to
heal itself.
Herbal & Dietary Therapies
In China, Acupuncture and Herbalism go hand in hand. Hospitals of
Traditional Chinese Medicine provide not only Acupuncture, but prescriptions
of Chinese herbs, general and specific dietary advice, and massage.
Foods, like herbs are used for their energetic and natural qualities
and are critical in enhancing treatment outcomes.
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