Adapt Far Eastern medicine to European needs

Chinese medicine - everything in the flow?
When everything is in flux, everything is fine. The colloquial expression, however, attaches much more importance to Chinese medicine. For them, everything is in flux, especially when the life energy Qi flows unimpeded through the branched energy tracks, the so-called meridians, through the body. If this flow disturbed, it comes to blockages, which cause health impairments. Far Eastern medicine has existed for many thousands of years and in Germany is at best not applied in its original form, but adapted to the constitution of European patients.

Many equate Chinese medicine with acupuncture. However, this does not do justice to the complex disease doctrine. Chinese drug therapy is the most important treatment method. "About 80 percent make the most herbal remedies for a sound treatment of success," clarifies Dr. med. Christian Schmincke, chief physician of the clinic on the Steigerwald. For ten years he has been treating patients inpatients according to the principles of Chinese medicine. Other pillars are the meditative movements of Qi Gong and the Tuina massages, which are comparable to other body therapies from East and West. In addition, foods are considered to be mild therapeutics, which are selected in the nutritional science disease-specific. Common to all methods is that patients in the West need a little less of everything than in China. Thus, in this country usually lower drug dosages are used.

The same applies to acupuncture. "The Chinese patient calls for needle stimuli, in which a European patient escapes," Dr. Schmincke. TCM experts therefore need to precisely modify the Chinese recommendations. At the same time, this is a valuable tip for patients looking for a good doctor: "It is not the doctor who is the best person who sets the most needles, but the one who looks at the patient individually and takes his time." The view of Chinese medicine is the key to therapy in the causes of the disease and not in the symptoms. Therefore, TCM experts take a lot of time to diagnose the causes. For example, they detect the finest body signals based on pulse or tongue examinations. In the detailed conversation, they also enter into emotional states. Equally important is the correct assessment of vegetative signs that, taken alone, have no pathological value. These include, for example, cold feet, sweating, restlessness and digestive disorders. The subsequent therapy then aims to solve causal blockages and to bring the energy flow permanently into balance again.

Patients suffering from pain and chronic inflammatory diseases such as Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, asthma, allergies and joint inflammation benefit most from this concept. Also, immunological diseases such as fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia syndrome, neurological diseases such as polyneuropathy and psychosomatic disorders treated the Chinese medicine very successfully. For example, studies show that more than one in two patients clearly benefit from inpatient treatment with Chinese medicine - even though many patients were treated as conventional medical treatment at the start of therapy. "Traditional Chinese medicine, when performed under professional conditions, is a serious alternative therapy, especially when conventional medicine no longer knows any solutions," concludes Dr. Schmincke. (Pm)