I feel like the weeks just fly by the more days I am in clinic.
Patient visits are starting to pick up with the help of my
wonderful husband referring his patients to me. Referral networks
are great and definitely needed in practice. In clinic, we often
see other students, but many of the students have issues that you
will see in practice such as muscle injuries, stress, menstrual
irregularities, and allergies. Acupuncture and herbs gets good
results with the conditions listed.
The key to Chinese medicine is to find the right pattern and
treat it appropriately. That is probably the hardest part. There
are so many patterns or diagnoses that have to be ruled out. Often
times, there are many layers to the patient's condition. Those
layers play a part in the diagnoses. Diagnoses have two parts in
Oriental Medicine, the root and the branch. For instance, the
branch problem may be allergies, but once you ask all the 10
questions and take tongue and pulse, there may be other reasons or
"roots" the allergies or "branch" is taking place.
If you are new to oriental medicine, we feel the pulse in three
positions along the radial artery. This helps us decipher the Qi of
the person, and depending on the position of the pulse, in what
organ the Qi is having problems. The tongue is also examined and it
gives us a picture of what is happening in the "organs" on a blood
level. We look at the shape, color, coating, and the sublingual
veins underneath the tongue. The pulse is quicker to change than
the tongue so the pulse can more accurately tell us about the
"branch" problem and the tongue can have a more accurate look into
the "root" problem.
Doctor Visits
For instance, my husband's eye periodically gets red
ever since he accidentally flicked something into his eye while he
was in anatomy lab. In oriental medicine, a red eye that is painful
can be diagnosed as Liver Fire, Liver Yang rising, Heart Fire,
Kidney and Liver Yin deficiency with deficient heat, Lung heat or
Phlegm heat, invasion of Wind heat, or damp heat in the Bladder.
Unfortunately, other things can influence the diagnosis such as his
lifestyle, the foods he eats, his constitution, and any other
pathologies he might have. It is not an easy feat to diagnose.
However, this past week it has gotten very red and painful so we
spent most of our Saturday at the doctor. He has seen five
different ophthalmologists and numerous acupuncturists. The
acupuncture does help with the pain but it can take many treatments
to help the redness and inflammation. We are using acupuncture and
herbs to treat him. This is better than the alternative of steroid
injections into the eye. We are also going to get an inclusive
allergy test done to check for any allergies that may be
contributing to the problem.