traditional chinese medicine (tcm)

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Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is a holistic, natural approach to the maintenance and improvement of health and the prevention and treatment of diseases. It includes herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage, diet and exercise.

TCM has benefited Chinese people for more than 2,000 years and has proven very effective and successful. Faced with the dangers of toxicity and the side effects of chemical drugs and surgical operation, more and more patients and doctors have turned to natural methods of treatment.

Traditional Chinese Medicine utilises a unique perspective on the physiology and energetic systems within the body and natural forces which govern them.

Oriental Medical theory holds the view that the body is an organism evolved to maintain the balance and equilibrium within the internal and external environment. The body is an integral part of the external world and we learn to function harmoniously within it. Therefore disease is a state wherein the relationship between the body’s own resources and the external forces upon it is in disharmony. Where the integrity of the organism is maintained, health is preserved. Ill health, or imbalance, can occur as a result of internal dysfunction as well as external pathogens or trauma, which only occurs after all, when that integrity is breached. Maintaining or achieving health requires both the internal and external causes to be addressed.

The TCM practitioner considers each person individually. Complex and unique methods of diagnosis including inspection of the tongue, pulse feeling and palpitation, observation of the patients complexion and a discussion of their medical history, are used. Some Western diagnostic methods are also adopted. Then the program of treatment is designed to use one or more modes including herbal medicine, acupuncture, massage and dietary therapies.