Traditional Chinese Medicine
Western and Chinese medicine differ in the way an illness or disease is viewed. While Western medicine tends to treat the effects of the illness or disease, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) emphazizes on uncovering and treating the root or roots of each problem.

TCM treatment is more holistic. It is about balancing the body's system (Ying/Yang) and increasing it's immunity to fight against diseases.

Main aspects of TCM

Unlike Western medicine which relies on a host of equipments and machineries to help the doctor in diagnosis and treatment, TCM relies simply mostly on the practitioners' skills, experience and power of observation to detect and treat health problems.

Observation

The first aspect of TCM is observation. By looking at a patient's complexion, posture, appearance and movement, the TCM practioner is able to guage from first impression if a person is healthy or make initial diagnosis of his problem.

Smell and hearing

A TCM practitioner can diagnose also from the smell of a sick person's breath or by listening to the sound of his breathing or his cough. Internal problems are often manifested through external symptoms.

Question and Answer

The TCM physician will also ask the patient a series of questions including their area of discomfort, diet, sleep and physical conditions.

Through a series of questions and answers, he will be able to further narrow down the patients problem.

Physical examination

Lastly, the patient's pulse is read, his tougue, throat and eyes are examined to arrive at a full diagnosis. In TCM, the doctor is able to diagnose a number of problems just by feeling the pulse, a skill commonly known as 'ba mai' in Chinese.

By checking the tongue or eye, he/she reinforces his intial diagnosis base on the pulse alone.

Treatment

Once a diagnosis has been arrived at, the patient is treated with one or more of treatments including accupuncture, TuiNa (Massage) or herbal prescriptions.These are the more common treatment methods and they are natural, holistic and non invasive.

In Chinese medicine, many discomfort are believed to be due to energy channels or meridian points in the body being blocked or misaligned. Accupuncture will unblock or re-direct these clogged or misaligned channel by stimulating energy flow within the appropriate meridians of the body.

For other illnesses such as kidney, diabetes or liver problems, Herbal Remedies may be recommended. Herbal remedies in TCM is derived from teaching and books that went back to hundreds and thousands of years.

In olden days, herbal prescriptions are brewed with different kind of herbs for many hours to get a liquid herbal drink. It is not uncommon to find such herbs being packed, weighed and distributed in traditional Chinese Medicinal shops.

Today, many similar herbal remedy effects is achieved through pills or syrup produced in pharmaceutical factories.