Prevention is Better than Cure

There once was a famous doctor named “BianQue”. He was regarded as the best doctor in his times.

One day a King asked him, “I know both you and your two brothers are all doctors, who’re the best among you three?”

BianQue answered, “My eldest brother is the best, my other brother second, and I am the worst.”

The King was surprised and asked, “Why is that so? You are the most famous among the three of you!”

BianQue then replied,

” My eldest brother knows how to treat the disease before its onset, he often prescribes herbs to people even if the patients don’t feel they are sick. Therefore no one recognizes him.”

“My second brother recognizes and treats patients in their early stages of sickness. The patients thought only a minor disease was treated.”

“While for me, I only treat patients when they are very serious. Although I have successfully treat them, they and their families have experienced pain. But that is also why I became famous.”

BianQue

One of the fundamental principles of Chinese Medicine is “Treating disease before its onset”. As the story above, the best Chinese Medicine doctors can foresee disease from happening and treat the patient before it even occurs.

Preventing the Disease from Happening

1. Strengthening your Vital-Qi

Having a strong Vital-Qi can help you fence off any pathogenic factors from invading. This can be done by developing a healthy lifestyle, doing regular exercises, regulating emotional activities, artificial immunity such as vaccines, or taking Chinese herbs to strengthen your body.

2. Distancing from Pathogenic Factors

Making sure your Vital-Qi is important, but avoiding Evil-Qi is as important. You can choose to prevent yourself in an environment that can harm your health. Such as avoiding the six climatic factors, the seven-emotions, etc.

Restrain Existing Disease from Aggravation

1. Early Diagnosis

It is ideal to prevent diseases before they occur. But once a disease occur, timely treatment is important to prevent it from getting worse.

You might think that you must need professional Chinese Medicine doctors to diagnose you regularly, but that is not the case.

You are actually the best doctor for yourself. Because you can “Feel Yourself”. Any minor feedback from your body should be taken seriously. For example, feeling fatigued, heart palpitation, chest pain, sudden weight loss or gain, nausea, etc.

2. Treating Potentially Disease

Everybody has a different body type. Different body types can lead to potential diseases.

Therefore by understanding your own body type allows you to foresee what disease might happen in the future, and you can target the specific prevention related to that disease.

I will be explaining all the different types of body types in the future.

This concludes the introduction to Prevention Medicine in Chinese Medicine. In summary:

1) Always be conscious of how your body feels.

2) Learn more recognize patterns that could lead to diseases.

3) Treat the diseases completely before even it happens.

In the next article, I will finish off the “Chinese Medicine Basics” series by explaining the unique treatment principles in Chinese Medicine.

Registered Acupuncturist (R.Ac), Alex Hui created this blog to share with the world the treasures in Chinese Medicine (CM).