Side effects of the Traditional Chinese Medicine
Traditional Chinese Medicine also has side effects
You may heard that Traditional Chinese
Medicine has no side effects. This is not completely true. Of
course, the side effects of the Chinese herbs, the acupuncture,
the moxibustion, and the bleeding therapy, etc., is much less
than the chemical drugs used by the conventional medicine, is of
course much mild compared with the chemotherapy and radiation
therapy. But this does not mean that it has no side effects!
As we mentioned before, none thing we eat
or drink should be too much. It includes the sugar, salt, ……
even the amount of water. Then how can we say that drinking the
decoction of herbs (the water extracts of the herbs) will not
create any side effects?
However, the goodness is that the old
Chinese know this and they have had smart ways to prevent the
side effects.
First of all, they know which kinds of side
effects a herb may cause, when used single or at the same time
with other herbs.
Secondly, the herbs are usually treated by
various ways to reduce the side effects. The commonly used ways
to reduce the side effects of a herb is to, for example, drying,
frying, bake, steam or coated with honey, or ginger, or other
substances.
The side effects are also reduced by adding
some special herbs into the formula, for instance, the Gan Cao
which is well known as a side-effect reducing herbs. Some times
we may also use honey to reduce the side effect of some herbs.
The
side effects associated with the Traditional Chinese Medicine is
usually mild
The commonly occurred side effects with the
herbal therapy might be nausea, or diarrhea. With sweat therapy,
it might be the over-sweating, of dizziness, palpitation if the
patient has water-accumulating syndrome (the Chinese medicine
concept) before the treatment. Yes, with diarrhea therapy, it
might be the over-diarrhea, if the patients have frequent bowel
movement usually. The goodness is that such conditions can be
predicted before the use, if the herbalist is rich in clinic
experience, and has carefully evaluated the patient’s basic
conditions/body constitutions.
Because the Traditional Chinese Medicine is
based on clinic zhen (diagnosis-valuable symptoms), any change
in the zhen may need the change of the herb formula. Therefore,
the side effects, if any, will be corrected just when it
happens.
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