Herbs and Nutritional Support
Whatever you put into your mouth makes a difference:
your diet, your supplements, your medicines, your herbs and natural remedies.
They all count.
Although not so well known in the west, herbs are a key part of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Many TCM doctors would, in fact, say that herbs are the MAIN part of their medicine.
What this means for you is that there are many powerful and yet safe herbs and herbal combinations that can provide an excellent complement to your current nutritional and medical program.
Herbs are especially useful for treating systemic health issues such as circulation, mood, vitality, digestion and sleep. Nutritional lifestyle choices are also very important and discussed as part of every treatment here at Palm Beach Oriental Medicine.
Herbs deliver lasting healing support.
They provide essential and profound support for your improved health. In traditional Chinese practice, an acupuncturist utilized three key tools to help improve a patient’s health and well-being:
needles
moxa (herbs placed on or near the body and heated)
blood-letting (bleeding a small amount from specific points)
These three methods addressed the three main aspects of health: regulate the physiology (needles), strengthen the body (moxa) and remove stagnation throughout the body (blood-letting).
In today’s modern world, it’s often not possible to apply these three tools as traditionally practiced—either due to physical restraints (building codes, etc.) or social norms (not many folks in western countries like to get punctured by an acupuncture needle much less get bled).
Because of such clinical realities, it’s doubly important that you get appropriate care via the use of herbs since they can be used to achieve the same three goals (regulate, strengthen and disperse/remove stagnation).
Herbs also provide on-going therapy outside of your clinical visit and thereby serve to deepen and consolidate the positive benefits of your treatment.
How long will you need to take herbs? It depends but a rule of thumb says the duration of both acupuncture and herbal treatment matches the length of the illness or condition being addressed. So, typically, herbs are taken for several weeks for an acute condition and can be taken for several months, or longer, for more chronic situations.