Three features of Oriental Medicine which makes your health big change; Wholeness, Personalized Treatment, and Prevention
Dr. Keita Sekine, OMD (NV)
Introduction
These days, Oriental Medicine is drawing more attention not only in the United States, but also in the rest of the world. Even The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends acupuncture for various kinds of ailments from external injury to internal diseases.
I believe the reason why Oriental Medicine is gaining popularity around the world and has been practiced for a long time is because Oriental Medicine has been cultivating 3 great features essential to our health for over 4,000 years: wholeness, personalized medicine and prevention.
I would like to share these 3 important features to show why Oriental Medicine has helped patients through its long history.
Feature 1. Wholeness
As the human body is said to be a microcosm, our body is full of complexity. Nothing works individually inside the body and our body is organically connected and working as one to maintain our life. Oriental Medicine has discovered the complicated relationship inside the body and can understand the wholeness of the body.
When we think about health and disease, we have to take into consideration the relationships among the internal organs and any other tissues because they influence each other and cooperate together. In other words, dysfunction of one organ could have a bad influence on another organ.
Oriental Medicine applies this truth to medical treatment. Oriental medical doctors try to see the patient’s whole body and to understand whether the body is balanced or not by observing facial complexion, listening to the patient’s voice, asking questions from head to toe, and checking the patient’s tongue and pulse.
This is a very important process to restore our health because we can not understand the root cause of health issues unless we see the body in a holistic way. We tend to focus on the problem itself but the root cause of problem is often somewhere else.
Digestive issues is a good example. According to Oriental Medicine, various internal organs are involved with digestive problems and oriental medical doctors try to figure out the imbalance among the organs. Even if patients complain of stomach pain, OM doctors will check the conditions of other organs such as the Spleen, the Liver and so on.
Even if the symptoms are the same, the causes are different. If we don’t take a bird’s eye view of our body, sometimes we misunderstand the true cause of diseases. That’s why the oriental medical doctors in True Family Clinic take their time to listen to patients’ complaints in detail and check their pulse and tongue. Then, the doctors can fully understand patients’ whole body and offer effective treatment.
Feature 2. Personalized medicine
Personalized medicine is essential to cure diseases because there can be different causes for one symptom. Only after doctors understand the true cause, they can choose the right treatment according to the cause. Treatment of Oriental Medicine is always personalized.
For example, a stomach pain is due to from the Stomach itself, the treatment is quite straight forward. Oriental Medicine doctors will either stimulate acupuncture points for reducing stomach pain or prescribe a Chinese herbal medicine for stomach pain.
However, if a stomach pain is caused from the Liver, the doctors need to choose a different treatment. They will either use acupuncture points for soothing the Liver Qi (energy) or choose a Chinese herbal medicine for unbalanced Qi (energy) of the Liver.
Oriental medicine has variety of treatments such as acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, moxibustion, cupping, guasha, acupressure, and so on. Each treatment has different effects, so Oriental Medical doctors use different treatments for each patients according to the root cause.
Also, many kinds of body imbalance which results in bad conditions or diseases are rooted in lifestyle, so Oriental Medical doctors try to understand patients’ whole way of life. For example, there are many factors in our life that can aggravate our digestive system such as consuming certain kinds of greasy or spicy foods, lower the function of the stomach or the pancreas, increase bad gut flora, or lead to stress. If we don’t see the body from various perspectives, doctors can’t give accurate advise to heal patients’ body.
In order to cure diseases with treatment and optimize the body condition by changing lifestyle, personalized medicine is very important. The oriental medical doctors in our clinic want to help patients from the bottom of their heart, and they offer the best treatment for each patients by understanding the true cause of diseases or illness.
Feature 3. Prevention
“The superior doctor prevents sickness; The mediocre doctor attends to impeding sickness; The inferior doctor treats actual sickness.”
This is a famous proverb in Chinese medicine more than 2,000 years ago, and you can see that Oriental Medicine has been putting emphasis on the importance of prevention. Oriental medical doctors consider the patient's’ future health as well as patients’ current health.
I believe the best doctor does not only cure diseases but also prevents future disease. Paying attention to problems in front of you is easy but paying attention to problems in the future is difficult. We tend to take actions once we feel unconformable or recognize emergency situation, but taking measures against problems that come later is cost-effective. This truly applies to our health as well.
In Oriental Medicine, there is a state between health and disease; pre-symptomatic state (Japanese call this state as Mibyo). People may think “one day I suddenly get sick”, but this is wrong. Before disease occurs, we feel uncomfortable or bad condition or have light symptoms. If we overseen these conditions, our body balance gradually gets unbalanced, then disease will occur one day.
This pre-symptomatic state sometimes can not be detected with western medical examinations because the change of the body in this state is very subtle and does not appears as a number of blood test or tangible thing of imaging test. Oriental medical doctors can detect this subtle change by asking questions, checking pulse and tongue, and toughing the acupuncture points because these informations contains a lot of valuable contents telling us the sublet change of the body which the medical examinations can not find out.
Oriental medical doctors understand the imbalance of the whole body and infer what kind of illness or disease this unbalance will cause in the future, and they balance the body while addressing patients’ main complaint and disease. We sincerely take consider our patients’ health and their future and try best to support their happiness and wellness!
Conclusion
Wholeness, personalized medicine, and prevention are the most important core values of Oriental Medicine and these features have been contributing to patients’ true health throughout its long history. Oriental medical doctors try to understand the whole body and detect what the true cause is, then they can offer accurate and effective treatment for patients. Also, they value the importance of prevention, and do best to support their health throughout their long life. I believe Oriental Medicine make big a difference in your health and happiness!