2016 2nd Week New Patients

Jan. 12, 2016  Tue    1 new patients / 10 total
Middle-aged Woman: Right eye movement limitation due to macroadenoma of pituitary gland

Jan. 12, 2016  Tue @Tingchou branch   0 new patients / 14 total

Jan. 14, 2016  Thu   1 new patients / 13 total

Middle-aged Man: Chillness for two weeks

Jan. 15, 2016  Fri   1 new patients / 6 total

Middle-aged Man: chest tightness for many years

*The purpose of this list is to let people know when would Taiwanese come to TCM doctors for help, since TCM might not be so popular in some countries. To protect the privacy of patients, the patients' information is altered. 

 • Elderly: >60

•Middle-aged: 40-60

•Young: 20-40

2016 1st Week New Patient

Jan. 05, 2016  Tue    2 new patients / 16 total

Elderly Woman: plantar fasciitis & Carpal tunnel syndrome

23 y/o Woman: iliotibial band syndrome

Jan. 05, 2016  Tue @Tingchou branch   4 new patients / 18 total

Middle-aged Woman: tinnitus and  insomnia

Elderly Man: left shoulder pain

Young Man: allergic rhinitis and low back pain

Elderly bed-ridden Man: dementia and Parkinsonism

Jan. 07, 2016  Thu   2 new patients / 17 total

Young Man: genital warts (condylomata acuminata)

Young Man: dizziness

Jan. 08, 2016  Fri   3 new patients / 7 total

Middle-aged Man: allergic rhinitis

Young Man: headache and ankle sprain

Young Man: tennis elbow, R't

*The purpose of this list is to let people know when would Taiwanese come to TCM doctors for help, since TCM might not be so popular in some countries. To protect the privacy of patients, the patients' information is altered. 

 • Elderly: >60

•Middle-aged: 40-60

•Young: 20-40

Belated Happy New Year 2016!

It had been a busy year in 2015. There are 2,291 person-time visits in my clinic hours in 2015, and I hope it grows over 3,000 this year.  My new year's wish is to sharpen my medical expertise and communication skills. () These two are just never enough for doctors to pursue since medical knowledge is boundless.

To be a good doctor, I'll have to talk the patient into obeying my suggestion of adjusting their way of life in order to get rid of their discomfort. Sometimes the toughest issue I encountered was not patients' physical or medical issue but mental issue. What's more, it's never an easy task to express your empathy sincerely when you have to control the time you spend on each patient accordingly. Sometime it takes time for them to say whatever they want to say. Sometimes patient burst out crying when they mention something really bother them and cause their health problem, it's crucial for them to release their anxiety by sharing them to a doctor they trust, especially for patients with psychological problem. Therefore, I hope to equipped myself with strong interperonal and communication skills.

I will have a new clinic hour starting in Wednesday afternoon since February and chances are good that there will be a Chinese medical pharmacy open this year in TSGH Tingchou branch. We're hoping that more and more patient could benefit from our medical services.

Happy New Year!

On the Front of Integrative Medicine

People around the world show great interest in integrative medicine. We're excited to promote it and see how far it goes!

This original article is from NCCAOM.org

By Bill Reddy, Dipl.Ac. (NCCAOM)®, L.Ac.,
Director, Integrative Health Policy Consortium (IHPC)

The Integrative Health Policy Consortium (IHPC), where NCCAOM is a “Partner for Health,” has been monitoring a number of federal bills that affect our profession or the public health of the nation.  Below is a summary of our recent efforts.

Things are looking up for CAM use in the US military. The Department of Defense Appropriations Bill of 2016 contained the following statement:

“Complementary and alternative (CAM) therapies are now recognized as vital among those modalities for the treatment of pain for their efficacy, broad patient acceptance, minimal adverse effects and low cost.  Yet the development of system-wide policies and practices for their integration remains unfulfilled.  The committee strongly encourages DVCIPM to accelerate the research on and integration of CAM therapies for the management of pain and directs the Assistant Secretary of Defense (health affairs) to provide a report to the congressional defense committees not later than 180 days after enactment of this act on the status of their integration.”

Furthermore, the bill has appropriated $278M for a Peer-Reviewed Medical Research Program including “Integrative Medicine” and “Non-Opioid Pain Management” among others.

IHPC, in cooperation with Samueli Institute, is monitoring this bill.

24 y/o Female Suffered from Postprandial Vomiting

There will be a case conference held by 台灣中醫病理學醫學會 (Taiwan society of TCM pathology) in my alma mater in Taichung tomorrow, Dec 13,2015.

I will present an easy case. She is a 24 y/o Taiwanese student who suffered from abdominal distension, acid regurgitation with postprandial vomiting for years. The result of panendoscopy (PES) acquired in our hospital showed GERD, LA grade A in 2010. Another PES result showed GERD with superficial gastritis in 2013.

She received drug treatment and the result is not good enough for her and she stopped her medication. She came to my clinic five months ago because her father ,who suffered from constipation and insomnia, is also my patient. I used some herbs to treat her “Liver Qi Stagnation” 肝氣鬱滯 and “Upward Perversion of Stomach Qi” 胃氣上逆.

The frequency of her vomiting reduced from three times a day to less than one time a day after two weeks herbal medicine treatment. We now try to maintain the effect and try to make her sleep better. Sometimes it’s hard for patient to cure since lots of diseases/symptoms are caused by daily life habits. Therefore, it is always very important for us to educate patients how to adjust their way of life so that they could lead a better life with or even without the help of acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine.

The effect of Chinese herbal medicine on GERD is pretty good!

Don't Sell Anything You Wouldn't Buy Yourself.

My youngest son is now 1Y3M, he suffered from intermittent cough with the sound of sputum in his lung for a couple of days. Therefore, I prescribed some herbal medicine for him. Although I choose those herbs in the flavor of "sweet." it's by no means an easy task for us to feed a toddler herbal medicine powder. We blended the powder in his food or mix with his formula. We were also surprised that sometimes he can take two or three sips form a straw. Attaboy!

I had been prescribing and doing acupuncture for my family members since I became a licensed TCM doctor. I'm glad I use Chinese herbal medicine to cure my mom's epigastric pain due to gastric ulcer. I also relieved her shoulder and upper limb pain by acupuncture. My father suffer from OA knee and insomnia, Chinese herbal medicine do relieve his symptom, although it took longer time for him. Not to mention the common cold or GI symptom that we usually encountered. I also do massage and manipulation on my wife very often when she complain about soreness in her neck, shoulder and back. When I get sick once in a while with URI or GI symptom, I prescribe TCM powders for myself.

I remember this quote from the book "Poor Charlie's Almanack" : 

Don't sell anything you wouldn't buy yourself.

I'm glad my family trust me and I can help them with their problem.
I love my career!

Bian Que: A Legendary Doctor

29 Oct 2015, 22:18

I would like to share with you a famous ancient medical case report.
It was recorded in the ancient history book "Records of the Grand Historian" (史記 Shǐjì) written by Sima Qian (145 or 135 – 86 BC)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Records_of_the_Grand_Historian

The doctor's name is "Bian Que" (扁鵲; ca. 500 B.C)

The article below came from here: http://english.eastday.com/e/zx/userobj ... 59567.html

Bian Que's real name was Qi Yueren (秦越人). He was reputed to be an excellent diagnostician, excelling in pulse taking and acupuncture therapy. He is ascribed the authorship of Bian Que Neijing (Internal Classic of Bian Que). Han Dynasty physicians claimed to have studied his works, which have since been lost. Credited with incredible healing knowledge, stories of his life and treatments are used in teaching and known to all Chinese medicine practitioners today.

In Sima Qian's book Shi Ji, in Bian Que Chronicles, An Ancient Miracle Doctor: Bian Que (I), Sima Qian described that Bian Que obtained his medical skills from personal teachings by Chang Sangjun. Sima Qian also recorded three specific medical cases that Bian Que handled. In the first case, he diagnosed Zhao Jianzi's illness by feeling his pulses. In the second case, he kept track of the state of the illness of the Crown Prince Guo through consulting, examining and feeling the pulse and finally brought Crown Prince Guo back from death. In the third case, Bian was able to describe the developing illness of Marquis Qi Huan by simply looking at him.

Once Bian Que, along with an apprentice, went to the Kingdom of Guo (what is now part of Henan province) as a traveling physician. There they saw that the people of the city were busily running around and discovered that a funeral was being prepared for the king's son. Bian Que went up to the door of the palace, asked someone what had happened. He learned that the king's son passed away from a sudden illness and had already been dead for a half day. Bian Que asked in detail about the circumstances of the prince's illness and death and came to believe that it was not certain that the prince was dead.

He requested to be let into the palace to examine the prince. After he entered the palace, Bian Que palpated the thick part of the prince's thighs, and discovered that they were warm. He also detected a very slight sound in the prince's ears, and diagnosed the prince as "body collapsed" (quite similar to shock), not dead. He then instructed his apprentice to set a single acupuncture needle, in the Baihui point (Du 20) on the head, and the prince regained consciousness. They then boiled some herbal medicine and used it for compresses applied to the prince's armpits, after which he was able to slowly sit up. The prince was then prescribed boiled herbal compounds to be taken for twenty days, and fully recovered his health. Word of this spread, everyone was saying that Bian Que could bring the dead back to life. Bian Que said "No, I can't bring the dead back to life, the prince wasn't dead. I only treated his illness, and that's what brought him around."

Since the English translation do not include the detailed thinking process of Bian Que, I found the original record written in classical Chinese. 

For those who might be interested in this case: 

其後扁鵲過虢。虢太子死，扁鵲至虢宮門下，問中庶子喜方者曰：「太子何病，國中治穰過於眾事？」中庶子曰：「太子病血氣不時，交錯而不得泄，暴發於外，則為中害。精神不能止邪氣，邪氣畜積而不得泄，是以陽緩而陰急，故暴蹶而死。」扁鵲曰：「其死何如時？」曰：「雞鳴至今。」曰：「收乎？」曰：「未也，其死未能半日也。」「言臣齊勃海秦越人也，家在於鄭，未嘗得望精光侍謁於前也。聞太子不幸而死，臣能生之。」中庶子曰：「先生得無誕之乎？何以言太子可生也！臣聞上古之時，醫有俞跗，治病不以湯液醴灑，鑱石撟引，案扤毒熨，一撥見病之應，因五藏之輸，乃割皮解肌，訣脈結筋，搦髓腦，揲荒爪幕，湔浣腸胃，漱滌五藏，練精易形。先生之方能若是，則太子可生也；不能若是而欲生之，曾不可以告咳嬰之兒。」終日，扁鵲仰天歎曰：「夫子之為方也，若以管窺天，以郤視文。越人之為方也，不待切脈望色聽聲寫形，言病之所在。聞病之陽，論得其陰；聞病之陰，論得其陽。病應見於大表，不出千里，決者至眾，不可曲止也。子以吾言為不誠，試入診太子，當聞其耳鳴而鼻張，循其兩股以至於陰，當尚溫也。」

　　中庶子聞扁鵲言，目眩然而不瞚，舌撟然而不下，乃以扁鵲言入報虢君。虢君聞之大驚，出見扁鵲於中闕，曰：「竊聞高義之日久矣，然未嘗得拜謁於前也。先生過小國，幸而舉之，偏國寡臣幸甚。有先生則活，無先生則棄捐填溝壑，長終而不得反。」言末卒，因噓唏服臆，魂精泄橫，流涕長潸，忽忽承鑞，悲不能自止，容貌變更。扁鵲曰：「若太子病，所謂『屍蹶』者也。夫以陽入陰中，動胃繵緣，中經維絡，別下於三焦、膀胱，是以陽脈下遂，陰脈上爭，會氣閉而不通，陰上而陽內行，下內鼓而不起，上外絕而不為使，上有絕陽之絡，下有破陰之紐，破陰絕陽，色廢脈亂，故形靜如死狀。太子未死也。夫以陽入陰支蘭藏者生，以陰入陽支蘭藏者死。凡此數事，皆五藏蹙中之時暴作也。良工取之，拙者疑殆。」

　　扁鵲乃使弟子子陽厲針砥石，以取外三陽五會。有間，太子蘇。乃使子豹為五分之熨，以八減之齊和煮之，以更熨兩脅下。太子起坐。更適陰陽，但服湯二旬而複故。故天下盡以扁鵲為能生死人。扁鵲曰：「越人非能生死人也，此自當生者，越人能使之起耳。」

Here's the same record in brief written in modern Chinese:  http://goo.gl/eEAmsd

This medical record makes us realize how good the doctors are in ancient China and we should not only take a detailed history but also exam our patient comprehensively. The most important thing is get to know the mechanism of how people get sick and treat accordingly.