Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine & Nutritive Therapy
What Is Chinese Herbal Medicine?
Chinese herbal medicine is one of the pillars of the broader spectrum of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) or Traditional Asian Medicine. The other pillars are acupuncture, moxibustion (medicinal incense), meditation, qi gong (and exercise), tui na (medical massage and acupressure), and nutritive therapy (food therapy/diet, medicinal eating or food-as-medicine).
Chinese herbal medicine embraces home remedies and food medicine, and goes far beyond just that. Chinese herbal medicine remedies typically come in a variety of forms such as tablets, teas, liquid tinctures, wraps and liniments. They can be purchased in patented form, as well as adapted individually through a herbal pharmacy. This is sort of like the difference between getting a prescription from the pharmacy (patented) versus going to a compounding pharmacy (ratios and ingredients custom made for each medicine or refill).
Herbal formulas, sometimes simply referred to as herbs, are comprised of materials harvested from the earth and then tested for purity and safety.
While many cultures around the world have some type of herbal medicine, Chinese herbal medicine has been in active use for millenia, documented for nearly as long and like all medicines now, participates in active and rigorous research. Its effectiveness and safety are reflected scientific research. Particularly notable is that TCM (and its documented understanding and treatment of disease, influenzas and the like for hundreds of years) is a vital source for helping the entire planet to diagnose, treat and recover from the most impactful public health challenges that we face in the modern world.
At Hundred Grasses in Milwaukee, practitioner Krista McCain, MSOM LAc BSc Nutr will be able to recommend and provide you with herbal medicines from that verdantly rich tradition.
How Does Herbal Medicine Work?
Chinese herbal medicine can be used along with or separate from acupuncture and the other pillars of TCM. The benefit of herbal medicine, like the food you eat, is that it stays in your system and essentially becomes a part of you, guiding your healing.
Of course, TCM herbal formulas are highly specialized and specifically combined to help you recover from illness, boost weakness, soothe irritation and pain, improve circulation of the blood and fluids, invigorate tissue, correct imbalances and prevent illness.
Herbal medicine is used when the food we are eating and lifestyle we have is not helping us to meet our healthcare needs. It’s also used to treat illness, disease and to become a frontline preventative for unhealthy aging or to support our bodies in resisting genetic and autoimmune health challenges.
What Conditions Can Herbal Medicine Treat?
Chinese herbal medicine has centuries of documented treatments, formulas, and approaches that address:
Nausea, cramps, bloating
Acid reflux
IBS
Constipation and diarrhea
Aches & pains
Chronic pain
Knee pain
Injuries
Women's health
Anxiety and depression
Diabetes
Arthritis
High blood pressure
Asthma & coughing
Insomnia
High cholesterol
Migraine headaches
Support autoimmune health
Autoimmune diseases like asthma, lupus, fibromyalgia, Rheumatoid Arthritis
Preventative healthcare
And so much more
In addition, life-enhancing, longevity-producing medicinals can help patients age gracefully. Begin these starting at age 30, or any time you wish to actively pursue aging more comfortably.
How Does Nutritive Therapy Work?
Nutritive therapy is the foundation to supporting our own health. Alone — or in combination with acupuncture, herbal medicine and supplements — nutritive therapy can provide you with tools to change your life. It is possible to learn how foods may treat illness, build strength, support cardiac health, reduce pain, and so on.
Learning to translate our thinking into a food-as-medicine attitude is a specialty of Hundred Grasses practitioner Krista McCain, MSOM LAc BSc Nutr.
Krista can help you identify how to tailor food choices to support your health goals. Medicinal foods and whole food recommendations can be made to suit your particular dietary and health goals.
Hundred Grasses Acupuncture is trained in TCM nutritive therapy, and also recognizes strong traditional medicines here in the US. They represent the elegance of what can happen when you integrate respect for the natural world with human health. Contemporary Americans, who are not raised within traditional cultures, don’t tend to have the knowledge to use food medicinally. Honoring traditional medicines and their cultural contexts in this country and around the world is incredibly important, clinically, socially and environmentally. To truly heal ourselves, we must recognize that the planet must be able to sustain us all, requiring that we protect the people, the knowledge and the biodiversity of our world.
Are There Any Contraindications?
Anything that can help you can also harm you, when not used properly. Your practitioner should always take a look at the medications, herbs and supplements you are currently taking. Make sure to have a clear conversation with your herbalist about your medications, and let them know if anything changes through email or text as soon as it happens.
Can Herbal Medicine and Nutritive Therapy Be Used Together?
Patients can view nutritive therapy and herbal medicine as partners. We don’t always need both, and sometimes people are not able to take herbal medicine due to sensitivities, medications, or preference.
Most often, patients start off with acupuncture and then we add herbal remedies or nutritive therapy later on in their treatment plan.
Nutritive therapy can be used to educate patients on how to eat as medicinally as possible. With just a few tips and some basic support, nutritive therapy easily translates to selfcare. Of course, even when patients apply nutritive therapy to their lives on a regularly basis, people still get sick and injured. Such a trajectory is a typical entry point into using herbal medicine.
Of course, the most balanced approach to optimal healthcare and longevity is to use all pillars! Just like acupuncture, traditional Chinese herbal medicine and nutritive therapy are treatment modalities based on balancing all elements of body function. Krista can help you to identify ways to adopt small strategies within each pillar to optimize your health.
Contact us today to find out how Chinese herbal medicine and nutritive therapy can make a difference for you!