Arthritis Pain: Five Factors Chinese Medicine Addresses For Relief

Whether it is because of concerns about side-effects or because one's current medication regime isn't working as well as it used to, individuals suffering from arthritis pain can turn to Chinese medicine for reliable and time-tested answers. Chinese medicine is a holistic medicine. The criteria for holism varies from case to case, but below are five significant factors that will be addressed through a Chinese medical approach to arthritis.

Factor 1: Blood Flow

The microvasculature, or tiny blood vessels, is commonly stagnant in arthritis cases. Many researchers believe that acupuncture is effective in minimizing pain because it increases blood flow in the microvasculature. An adage from the Chinese medical classics states "Where there is pain, there is stagnation." One of the primary causes of any pathology in Chinese medicine is stagnant blood flow. Blood flow can slow either due to sluggish blood quality or the accumulation of phlegm.

Factor 2: Blood Quality

Arthritis is an auto-immune condition. This means that the immune response is constantly receiving messages that are telling it to attack the joints of the body, in the case of arthritis. These messages go by varying names, immune factors, cytokines, inflammatory markers.

Chinese herbs can down-regulate the immune system by removing factors from the blood that excite the immune response. Herbs that fall within the category of blood tonics perform this function, loading the body with vital nutrients targeted to the body's circulatory system.

Factor 3: Breath

The classics state "blood is the mother of qi and qi the commander of blood." If the qi is weak, blood cannot be commanded to flow freely. What is qi? In this context it is the breath and specifically lung function. The heart pumps the blood, but if the lungs are weak the heart will have little strength to pump the blood efficiently.

Qigong is a gentle form of movement and breathing exercises that works on increasing qi capacity. Qigong, literally means, qi work. There are numerous forms of qigong, just like its more popular variations Taiji, more commonly Taichi, and Gongfu, aka Kung-fu. All of these martial arts work the qi, emphasizing different aspects of development, strength, stamina, flexibility, and often drawing inspiration from nature to articulate the forms: preying mantis, crane, clouds. Although breath enhancement is a principle reward, the combination of learning synchronized movement with the breath also benefits the neurological, digestive, and other systems of the body. When the qi of all the systems is enhanced then the immune system too is regulated, slowing the growth of and reducing accumulations around the joints.

Factor 4: Fluid and Digestive Metabolism

Imbalance in fluid metabolism, implicating lymphatic, muscular, and respiratory systems, can cause the swelling of joints. There is a category of herbs that specifically targets the draining of excess fluids. The level at which such actions catalyze is within the lymphatic, muscular and respiratory systems.

Certain herbs, qigong, and acupuncture improve digestive function, the hypo-function of which plays an important role in fluid excess. Fluid congestion characterizes aspects of arthritis. This is often called "phlegm" or "dampness" in Chinese medicine. Improving system function will rectify fluid congestion because such a problem is the result of functional impairment. Basically by working specifically on fluids and the source of fluid metabolism dysfunction, Chinese medicine addresses both the symptoms and the cause of arthritis.

Factor 5: Diet

Last but certainly not least is diet. Nothing can go toward addressing chronic conditions like arthritis in a more dramatic way over time than changing one's diet. An effective approach to diet modification is a process, whereby one learns as much about what to include as what to avoid based on one's individual constitution.

Constitutional medicine is a distinguishing aspect of Chinese medicine. It takes into account each individual's body type to allow dietary recommendations to be specific. Food, like herbs, have properties that produce predictable effects in the body. Th classics express a sentiment identical to Hippocrates, "Let food be thy medicine." Chinese medical theory actually provides a framework for understanding how foods work as medicine based on your constitution.

Conclusion

Blood flow and quality, breath, fluid metabolism, and diet are five aspects of a Chinese medical approach to holistically addressing the chronic condition of arthritis. Herbs, acupuncture, qigong, and dietary collaboration are tools applies in restoring balance naturally.

The Yin and Yang of Tea: A Balanced Look at Tea’s Benefits

A new patient of mine, who has come seeking assistance for “heart problems,” lamented that she had tried to drink such and such amount of tea everyday but it makes her feel pretty rotten and she feels she doesn’t respond to caffeine very well because she gets palpitations. “Then why are you drinking it?” I asked. “Well Dr. Oz says it’s really good for you and…”

I have no idea who Dr. Oz is. I’m sure he knows his stuff. An article, by a likeminded chiropractor Dr Mercola, also touts the benefits of tea. “Research dispels the common belief that tea dehydrates. Tea not only rehydrates as well as water does, but it can also protect against heart disease and some cancers.” (http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/07/06/tea-healthier-drink-than-water.aspx). These learned and studied health professionals base their opinions on solid scientific evidence and studies.

Why on earth would my 65 yr old patient be experiencing what she reports, if the properties of tea are so documented? Mercola goes on later to state, “There's still some debate as to which kind of tea is the most beneficial -- green- and black tea being the most cited, but you can also consider Indian herbal teas like Tulsi.” This statement confuses “herbal teas” with actual camellia sinesis, tea, and leaves one with the impression that green and black teas are the same. They are not.

For starters, there are all types of herbal beverages that are called tea, but which are not tea at all. It is rather like in China when they ask you if you would like water and you get tea, or when they refer to tea as “tea-water,” cha-shui,茶水. Ginger, sassafras, hibiscus, and cinnamon are NOT really tea 茶. They’re tasty and health-imputing beverages, just like tea. But sassafras and hibiscus no more have the same properties than do black and green tea, even though they come from the same plant 茶. This is the yin and yang of tea that you must master, Grasshopper, if you are to truly balance the forces within. Thus, in understanding the properties of the beverages we consume, we can see an intrinsic blindside to “nutritionism,” a position favoured by some in bio- and wholly in orthomolecular medicine.

Nutritionism is the scientific position that, in effect, a whole is the sum of its parts and hence the parts constitute that which is important to the whole. Thus, what’s important about the apple is not it’s freshness, how far it had to travel, or deliciousness, per se, but its “fibre content,” its vitamin store, so on and so forth. Once you get so much fibre and vitamins, eating apples or anything for that matter becomes rather unimportant. This here Snickers-Plus has all the electrolytes, fibre, and B vitamins for three apples and two chicken livers… and it’s organic! Can’t beat that with a stick, now can you? Right there on the label, see fibre, vitamins,… hey and NO transfats! It really is good for you. Remember, even Oprah and the Dalai Lama endorse Snickers-Plus. Surely, you have got to be a Tea Party, conspiracy nut if you still insist on eating actual apples and liver!

I digress, but only to contrast this position from that of Chinese medicine which takes the whole as the base unit of a bioactive compound, not its parts. The apple, to return to our previous example, is a whole, which possesses certain properties. Tea and herbal beverages also have properties, which in Chinese medicine are largely categorized upon taste. There are five recognized flavors, salty, sour, bitter, sweet, and spicy. Each has a certain predictable effect on the body, under certain circumstances.

Let’s continue to cast the yin and yang of tea into something that we can understand on a practical level, while at the same time suggesting why such a casting is meaningfully different from nutritionism. Among the varieties of tea there are only three: green, oolong, and black teas. So-called “white” tea is just another variety of green, though milder. They all come from the same leaf, differing by their relative degrees of oxidation. Green teas are oxidized very little and are cool by nature. They are therefore considered yin. The more intense the green, the colder it is by nature, regardless if it is drunk with warm water or not. An example of a high-grade intensely green and cold tea is the Japanese Gyokuro. On the Chinese side of things there is Bitter Nail Tea, ku-ding cha 苦丁茶，which is rolled long as a nail and unbelievably bitter. It is drunk only in summertime and a solitary “nail” is used for several cups.

Black teas are more yang in nature. This means that they are warming on the digestive system and can be drunk with greater frequency by those who have weak digestive systems, a condition marked by bloating, cramping, and an abdomen cool to the touch. Oolong tea is half-oxidized between black and green tea. It is perfectly balanced, so to speak. Some company in China, no doubt involved with the selling of its particular oolong product, made curious claims about some “research” substantiating the superior slimming effects of oolong versus its green and black siblings. Oolong has a distinctive floral taste. High quality oolong is intoxicating in its breadth, notes high and misty fill the senses, providing considerable delight to those who find drinking green tea rather like having grass-clippings.

Traditionally, different parts of China favored different types of tea. In the central region along the Yang-zi River, green teas were the norm. These regions are temperate and humid. Green tea’s bitterness cools in oppressive summer heat and drains excess dampness. Bitter’s draining action is difficult to reconcile with the scientific findings on “hydration” above. More ironic still is that water isn’t considered particularly hydrating either, not in Chinese medicine. Oolong tea has been more commonly enjoyed by the Cantonese and Fujianese, those of the far south. In Hong Kong they may have taken up the drinking of black teas from India due to the British colonial presence. There are varieties of Chinese black teas which are quite nice, but they seem to be enjoyed primarily by the Cantonese. The ethnic minorities of the Southwest and Northwest rather universally drink black tea, brick being the most common among them, as it is regarded an essential digestive aid for the heavy grease of lamb and yak, the meats common to their diets.

Processing tea can enhance or diminish the natural properties of the tea itself. Exotic Indian infusions of black tea, like Earl Grey and Darjeeling, invariably require some understanding about the properties of the essential oils used to gauge its effect on the tea’s over all nature, yin or yang. Northern China almost universally drinks jasmine tea, which is a green tea infused with jasmine. The jasmine seems to enhance the draining nature of the tea, judging from personal experience. The climate of the north is temperate and dry. Still, that’s what they drink.

In instances where the body is characterized by hypofunction or a yin state, a yang tea is more appropriate. The opposite applies for the body in a state of hyperfunction. Tea in itself can NEVER be considered a yang tonic because it is yin by nature. It is not a yin tonic either, because by being bitter its function is to drain downwards: detox in other words. The point is, however, that if the body is characterized by hypofunction, detox should be the last thing on one’s mind—the body is looking for support. What good are all the health-promoting properties of green tea if the body principally requires warming? To put it another way, no meaningful benefit from any herbal beverage can be garnered without understanding that beverage’s yin-yang nature relative the yin-yang state of one’s own body.