What Does Acupuncture Treat and What Do Chinese Herbs Treat

In Traditional Chinese Medicine there are many modalities of healing.  The main modalities are acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, and tuina massage though cupping and moxa and dietary therapy are also aspects of TCM.

You might wonder why you are going for acupuncture and you are told that you also need herbs or maybe you go for acupuncture but you only get herbs.  The reason is that acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine are mutually inclusive yet exclusive.

If you look at health or rather being in balance from the idea of a tree: the root (or trunk) and the branch.  The root of the tree represents to the constitution of the individual.  If the general state of an individual is out of balance then this will show up in the branch: the acute symptoms.  For example, some one comes in with complaints of always easy to become sick...always catches that cold that is going around and is currently ill.  The current illness, symptoms being cough with phlegm, runny nose, fever would be considered the branch or acute symptoms though the underlying issue is that the individual's constitution is weak so this needs to be tonified, strengthened so in the future the individual is not easily prone to the 'cold that is going around'.

How this is viewed from a treatment perspective is that the current cold chinese medicine would use both acupuncture and herbs to treat.  Then acupuncture and herbs or only herbs could be used for the long term tonification and balancing of the individual's constitution.

That is to say that acupuncture in China tends to be used more for issues of the nervous system or the musculoskeletal system such as stroke sequelae, hemiplegia, migraines, injury to muscles due to repetitive motion or accidents, emotional issues, insomnia and pain.  Whereas, Chinese herbal medicine is utilized for internal medicine issues, issues that are long standing or chronic such as digestive problems, gynecological problems, dermatological issues.

Though that is not to say that some cases require both acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine to optimize the effectiveness of treatment and return balance to the body.  

Chinese herbal medicine can also be used to prolong the effects of acupuncture, as can acupuncture ameliorate the effects of the herbs.

Chinese herbal medicine can be taken everyday so that the body is receiving the effect of treatment continually.  In North America, individual's will not come in everyday for acupuncture treatment (though in China the normal practice is to come everyday for a month of acupuncture treatment - then reevaluate) so this is where both economically and treatment wise taken herbs in conjunction with acupuncture optimizes the effect of treatment and the return to balanced health.