How to best support your own healing
Observe your body and mind
If you have never been to a TCM doctor, you may wonder to what extent it is different from being visited by a doctor in Western medicine.
I don’t know how it is where you live, but here in Germany when you go to a Western doctor, the visit will be as short as possible, and often they only send you to a specialist. There is no space and time to discuss in details your complaints, which can be very frustrating und unsettling.
On the other hand, a first visit to a TCM practitioner could well last one hour or more.
Your walk, your voice, your appearance, your smell will already give the doctor many clues about your health and this first information will help the doctor to structure the “inquiry”.
The inquiry consists in a set of questions, some of which can be pretty personal: this allows the doctor to form an idea about the possible syndrome.
Syndrome in TCM: it is a pattern of imbalance used to guide treatment.
However, what I have found during my training is that many people are not aware of what is happening in their bodies or even what they are feeling.
Are you all eyes and ears? Wonderful! Let’s see together which kind of things a TCM doctor would like to know.
One of the first questions is usually about the feeling of cold or warm, and eventually about the sweating: cold feet or hands, cold on the lower back, cold on the belly or heat feeling in the palms of the hands or feet sole, heat and sweat during the night, they are all signs of different types of syndrome and they help define first large category in the diagnostic toolbox: Yin or Yang (to know more about Yin and Yang, I wrote a post some time ago).
Pain is another key question and in particular the type of pain and the time of the day the pain is felt. Is the pain like a sharp knife cutting through the flesh, is it a constant, dull pain or is it a colic type of pain? And is it sudden or chronic?
Chronic or recurrent pain relate to Yin while a sudden surge of pain is usually Yang in nature.
Another thing you want to pay attention to before going to see a TCM doctor is your bowel movements. Yes, we are talking about whatever you set in your WC bowl, liquid or not. Any kind of information you have is extremely helpful, starting from the quantity, the frequency, the smell, the colour, the form….I know that the topic is not very classy, but bowel movements do belong to our nature, after all. If we know how the usual should look like, it is easier to recognize when something is wrong.
Your sex life might also be a discussion topic. Depending on the kind of health issue you have (and it is not necessarily related to the reproductive organs), when you started to have sex, how often you have sex, and your libido level might all be relevant to establish a diagnosis.
The diet plays a big role too and if there is a top ten of things which affect our health, I am sure that unsuitable diet will be in the top ten, or even the top three! Quantity of food and drinks, the types of food you eat, whether it is raw or cooked, spicy or salty, or even cravings. Especially if you are going to a TCM doctor for a consultation in nutrition, I can recommend keeping a food journal for at least a week, writing down everything you consume, including snacks and drinks. Showing up with such a list on your first visit will get you a five-stars review as a patient
Have you fallen asleep? I hope it is just the meal you had and not this post! Sleeping patterns also offer a lot of information, and so do dreams. No, the TCM won’t be able to interpret your dreams and give you a winning number for the lottery, but the doctor would love to hear if you have nightmares or if you dream a lot. Sleeping late? Suffering from insomnia? Wake up often during the night? Here is a wealth of information hidden in your sleep (or lack thereof).
Ladies, for once you have an advantage comparing to men. Information about your menstrual period and any pregnancy/birth/abortion provide the TCM doctor with an additional set of precious data to establish a diagnosis. TCM is an interesting option when suffering from nausea or other pathologies during pregnancy, as drugs cannot be taken to avoid damage to the fetus.
But coming back to the interview, here is the list of questions (in no particular order):
· Feeling of cold, of heat and fever
· Sweating
· Pain
· Food and taste
· Thirst and drink
· Stools and urine
· Sleep
· Chest and abdomen (besides pain and heat, things like cough, fullness of the chest, distention or bloating of the belly…)
· Head, face and body (besides pain and heat, anything which relates to these parts of the body, for example dizziness, a running nose, bleeding, mouth ulcers…)
· Limbs (eg weakness, trembling, numbness…)
· Ears and eyes
· Sexual symptoms
· Women’s symptoms
· Children’s symptoms
Giovanni Maciocia was an Italian TCM doctor, and he authored many manuals, which are part of the curricula in TCM or acupuncture schools. He added questions about the energy level and the emotions, which were not part of the traditional interview.
Given its holistic approach, TCM is a valid alternative to drugs in those cases where the mood and the energy level are affected.
My first acupuncture treatment ever was due to a mild depression following the departure of my father. I actually went to have some herbs, but ended to have needles all over. The pain was none, despite the fear of needles, and the results were so excellent that TMC is my first choice when I have a health issue.
Well, now you have the tools to become a great TCM patient! Paying attention to the above and being able to give as much information as possible to your doctor, will make it easier to establish a diagnosis and a treatment course which best suits your condition.
But please, let the doctor ask the questions! Some questions might not be so relevant, while the doctor may choose to dive deeper in some area and ask more questions. It is like a hunting dog, looking for clues to accept of discard a hypothesis formed in the doctor’s mind.
If you want to know more about a specific question, just ask in the comment below 👇.
Disclaimer: everything I write about TCM is to share some knowledge and to raise awareness but please be aware that it is an oversimplification for the sake of communication, and it is not meant as a cure. If you have any health issue you want to solve with TCM, please consult a TCM practitioner. While most qigong exercises are harmless no matter the health issue, some food recipes or treatment I will mention, might have the opposite effect if you do not have the syndrome I write about. Thus, please take my TCM posts with a grain of salt and do not rush to do things without consulting a TCM doctor.
I agree with your assessment (on the foundations of TCM). The issue for me has always been finding a good TCM doctor …