The Fundamental Difference in Recognizing Sub-health State between the Chinese and Western Medicine

Many people suffered from cancer and could not feel it. Once the diagnosis was established, it was too late to treat. Many patients lost their life for stroke. They did not feel the warning message. Many heart attack patients did not aware the insidious body message long before the dreadful events happen…. Therefore, catching the early message to prevent serious illness is our goal. The best doctor is able to treat the non-sick, but not only a fire-fighter.

How do we know if we are healthy or not? In daily life, people obtain messages with their five sense organs, how we feel. For our health, we describe our symptoms, also get information by signs examined by doctors and various physiological and pathological data and lab tests, such as: blood pressure, temperature, heart rate, lab chemistry tests, ECG, X-ray, ultrasound, CT etc…. All the information is needed to judge the status of disease or health. If some of the above findings are abnormal, one will be defined as sick. While the findings are normal, we’ll be classified as “not ill” and therefore no “treatment” to the situation, but why we still feel not “right”. Are these indeed “all in the mind”? These we call sub-health or sub-clinical state.

Then, how do we find out if the person is in the sub-health state? There is a fundamental difference in the knowledge of recognition and practice between the Western and Eastern medicine. For example: there was a patient called “Mary”. She was very healthy before. Occasionally she felt tired but she could recover quickly by short resting. Recently she was very busy with work, gradually she felt easily to be tired, insomnia and headache. She could not recover from resting and had no energy to work. When she went to see a Western doctor, all of route tests all in normal range. The western doctor thought she was not ill (no disease diagnostic name can be given) and therefore she was still healthy. There is no need and treatment for her, except some sleeping pills and pain-killers for the symptoms. But Mary was suspicious about the conclusion because she still felt uncomfortable.

In the evaluation of the health state, the Chinese Traditional medicine is very different from the Western medicine, because the former is based on the whole body yin-yang balance. The key in the Chinese medicine to recognize the status between health and disease is evaluating the yin-yang balance in a complicated path-physiological situation. This method of evaluation is with a view of dynamic change. For example, if the whole body is lost balance, usually certain meridian(s) or organ(s) also appear to loose balance. The symptoms felt by the individual are reflecting the unbalanced organs and meridians. With the diagnosis of Chinese medicine, inspection, smell, ask and feel pulse are used by the traditional way to detect the whole process of the occurring and developing of an illness. For the case like Mary, her series symptoms already suggest that she is deficiency in qi and blood. His fatigue suggested that his body is overloaded. This can be treated though regulate the balance of liver, spleen and kidney. The timely treatment can prevent the situation become worse to a “diagnosable” situation by the Western medicine term.

Meridian diagnosis is elite of the Chinese medicine. In combination of the Western technology, the computerized meridian analysis can be well used for the sub-health status evaluation. This is a best scientific way to know your body yin-yang and organ meridian balance. Your meridian balance can be visualized by yourself (not only felt by the doctor for pulse diagnosis in the traditional way), quantified and recorded for following up comparison. And much, much more, this equipment can screen for nutrition deficiency, allergy test and even to help select herbal remedy, nutritional supplements etc. (detail to refer the MSAS introduction in Service section). It is an objective way to evaluate if you have a sub-health condition and get help.