DAAN Chinese Herbs and Acupuncture

The film director Anthony Minghella explains how he’s come to incorporate Chinese medicine into his life and how it benefits him:

“On my first visit, struggling in the snow to the house where she works, it seemed as if half of the city was being treated by her, as she hurried from room to room. She took my pulse in several places on my wrist, looked at my eyes and tongue, and asked me if I had a problem with my thyroid. I was astonished and asked how she knew. She explained that she was using the standard four diagnoses of traditional Chinese medicine: observation, smell, questions, pulses and tongue. Did I smell of thyroid deficiency? She began to stick acupuncture needles in me. Using Eastern terminology, she diagnosed low or deficient kidney energy, a problem typically related to the thyroid.

She also checked for digestive problems, based on her knowledge that low kidney energy is often rooted in an imbalance in another organ. Dr Xiaolan makes no distinction between alternative and conventional treatments; she just uses a wider palette. Traditional Chinese medicine, alongside Western medicine, is still an integral part of China’s healthcare system. Patients seek out either depending on the nature of their illness, often using Chinese medicine for maintenance and Western medicine for surgical intervention.

Because she comes from this joint tradition, Dr Xiaolan understands the value of thyroxine, and she wanted the results of my blood tests. But she also believes that medication can’t cure every symptom associated with hypothyroidism, and she uses other treatments to support the tablets.

Acupuncture is chief among these, but she also prescribes Chinese herbs to “increase yang” in the kidney and to encourage spleen energy for the promotion of qi, believed to be the energy necessary for proper digestion. In Chinese medicine, the kidney is the organ connected with the element of water. In this interpretation, people with low kidney qi retain water and have a tendency to bloat and gain weight. Dr Xiaolan told me that low kidney energy related to water meant that it couldn’t put out fire, which is the element connected to the heart organ, the base of sleep. This meant I wasn’t sleeping correctly and contributed to my exhaustion. “

Tags: East and West //