More than 2,000 years ago, the Chinese created special remedies to cure diseases and pain in the body. These practices became known as Eastern or Oriental medicine.
“To put it simply, Western medicine is mechanistic while Oriental medicine is energetic,” Alan Uretz, 51, said. “Western medicine views the body as a machine; you fix and replace broken parts. Oriental medicine does not replace or fix parts, it restores balance and readjusts the flow of energy in the body.”
Uretz is dean at the Midwest College of Oriental Medicine in the Lakeview neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side. He has taught every class at the school and now is an instructor of Chinese Medical Theory. Uretz said Oriental medicine is based in nature more than anything else.
“The Chinese compared the body to nature very often,” Uretz said. “These theories were created 2,000 plus years ago and nature was, and still is, very important to the Chinese.”
But the practice of Oriental medicine is not accepted among many Western doctors and insurance companies.
According to the website altmedicine.about.com, a recent survey of 18 major HMOs and insurance providers, including Aetna, Medicare, Prudential and Kaiser Permanente, found that 14 of them covered only 11 of 34 alternative therapies.
The website said most insurers allow only a very limited number of sessions with a practitioner of alternative medicine. Most patients have to pay for their alternative treatments out of pocket, the site said.
But there is a growing acceptance of alternative treatments among Americans.
The federal National Institutes of Health has an office that oversees alternative medicine — the National Center for Alternative and Complementary Medicine. According to a 2007 survey conducted by the center, 3.1 million U.S. adults and 150,000 children used acupuncture, a popular form of Eastern medicine, in the previous year. Between 2002 and 2007, acupuncture use among adults increased by approximately 1 million people, the survey found.
One of the most important theories in Oriental medicine is Wu Xing or five elements. Wu Xing is one of the foundations of Oriental medicine; each element is connected to one or more meridians or as Western medicine calls them, organs, in the body.
“The five elements are earth, fire, metal, wood and water,” acupuncture therapist Suzanne Woods-Cohen, 34, said. “The earth represents the spleen and stomach, metal represents the lungs and large intestine, wood represents the liver and gall bladder, fire represents the heart and small intestine and water represents the kidney and urinary bladder.”
Each element corresponds with organs in the body that are used to help further a diagnosis and figure out how deep a pathogen is in the body. There are two organs corresponding with each element listed. Zang, solid organs, and Fu, hollow organs, go along with the elements.
“The lungs, heart, kidney and liver are a part of the Zang organs,” Woods-Cohen said. “The Fu organs are the small and large intestine, stomach, the urinary bladder and the gall bladder.”
Uretz said there is a reason why the Fu organs are hollow and the Zang organs or solid.
“Fu organs are accumulative organs. The stomach accumulates food and drink, while the urinary bladder gathers all the used liquids in your body, for example,” Uretz said. “The Zang organs create substances like blood, digestive fluids or fluids that are used daily in our activities.”
Pinpointing a problem in the body with Oriental medicine is done very simply. Along with Wu Xing and the Zang and Fu organs, there are 10 questions that a therapist will ask a patient to help find the problem.
“They are pretty simple questions,” instructor Daryll Daley, 47, said. “We ask about their body temperature, how often they sweat, we ask about their aches and pains and appetite. We also ask about their sexual activity and how often they use the bathroom. We can learn a lot just from those 10 questions.”
Daley teaches at the Midwest College of Oriental Medicine, where he specializes in acupuncture and herbal remedies. Daley spoke to a class about finding the problem in a person’s body. He mentioned the tongue and smell as important proponents in a diagnosis.
“You can locate all the organs on the tongue,” Daley said. “Some conditions may have a smell to them. If they’re having a stomach problem, their breath is usually very strong.”
One of Daley’s students, Gabriel Echeverria, 25, of Wauconda, said, “The tongue will never lie. I looked at a patient’s tongue and found exactly what I was looking for. That was my first time doing that. I couldn’t believe it.”
Another student, Anthony Sparer, 25, of Libertyville, said he at first could not believe a therapist can simply look at the tongue or smell a person to find his or her problem.
“I didn’t believe the smell thing at first until I put it to the test,” Sparer said. “Someone came in and I could smell urine on them; that usually means they have a kidney problem. I checked with Daryll and sure enough, the man was having kidney troubles.”
While finding the problem is one thing, finding the remedy for it is another. Whether the patient goes through acupuncture or moxibustion, there is usually homework that follows the treatment. Herbal remedies are normally used to ensure that the problem is resolved.
“We usually assign more than one herbal remedy if the problem is a chronic issue,” Uretz said. “For problems like a shin splint or allergies, we usually treat them and make sure [the patients] come back a week later for one more session. No herbs are needed for those kind of ailments.”
Many herbs are used in Oriental medicine. Some herbs may surprise the average person; most of the herbs are plant based while others are animal based.
“Cinnamon is actually a very common spice used in our remedies.” Daley said. “Some herbs that people would be surprised to know we use: Chan Twei, which is cicada shell, dried earth worm and tiger bone are among the many animal-based herbs that we use here.”
The goal of Oriental medicine is to realign energy and put it in proper balance with the help of herbs and therapy, according to Uretz.
“When your energy is balanced and flowing freely, you have a good bill of health,” Uretz said. “You also have to put into account the quality and frequency of that energy. Your emotional state is also put into account when checking your energy.”
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