made up?

December 15, 2005

haven't checked my calendar, is it time to have the MSU debate again?

let me know, i'm way behind on these things.

thanks,

robert hayden

December 15, 2005

Chinese Medicine , " kampo36 "

<kampo36> wrote:

>

> haven't checked my calendar, is it time to have the MSU debate again?

What is there to debate?

We've had many discussions in the past about the transmission of

concepts in Chinese medicine, and the clinical importance of studying

and practicing authentic Chinese medicine as a basic starting point.

Obviously, it appears that many concepts popular in the West don't

need to have any historical, textual, academic, or clinical roots in

the actual practice of Chinese medicine in China in order to be

presented as Chinese medicine and perceived as legitimate Chinese

medicine in the West. In the past, we have had numerous rounds of

discussions about the difficulties of starting a practice and

achieving financial success. Now that we have established that it is

kosher to send private emails to list members for commercial interests

and objectors need moderation, we don't need to worry about struggling

through the more challenging aspects of practice-building. After all,

there is clearly a market for an acupuncture technique that

simultaneously corrects demonic imbalances while adding inches to your

length, brings the benefits of natural V11AGRA, helps you lose weight

and grow a new head of hair while you sleep, all while spreading

democracy to protect the world from WMD-armed terrorists who hate

freedom.

December 15, 2005

thanks.

good to know somebody who knows what " Authentic " is, as i've

come to

the conclusion that i have no idea and probably a lot of what i practice would

likely get

categorized as " made-up B.S. " ... some of it my teachers or teachers' teachers

made up and

some of it i made up myself.

probably a good thing i don't contribute to this list much anymore.

rh

Chinese Medicine , " Eric Brand "

wrote:

>

> Chinese Medicine , " kampo36 "

> <kampo36> wrote:

> >

> > haven't checked my calendar, is it time to have the MSU debate again?

>

> What is there to debate?

>

> We've had many discussions in the past about the transmission of

> concepts in Chinese medicine, and the clinical importance of studying

> and practicing authentic Chinese medicine as a basic starting point.

> Obviously, it appears that many concepts popular in the West don't

> need to have any historical, textual, academic, or clinical roots in

> the actual practice of Chinese medicine in China in order to be

> presented as Chinese medicine and perceived as legitimate Chinese

> medicine in the West. In the past, we have had numerous rounds of

> discussions about the difficulties of starting a practice and

> achieving financial success. Now that we have established that it is

> kosher to send private emails to list members for commercial interests

> and objectors need moderation, we don't need to worry about struggling

> through the more challenging aspects of practice-building. After all,

> there is clearly a market for an acupuncture technique that

> simultaneously corrects demonic imbalances while adding inches to your

> length, brings the benefits of natural V11AGRA, helps you lose weight

> and grow a new head of hair while you sleep, all while spreading

> democracy to protect the world from WMD-armed terrorists who hate

> freedom.

>

December 16, 2005

Chinese Medicine , " Christopher

Vedeler L.Ac. " <ckvedeler@a...> wrote:

I want treatments that get results,

> that are meaningful to my patients and myself. I want to connect with

> my patients at a very deep level. Sometime TCM is the vehicle for that

> connection, and sometimes not. I'm not attached to the vehicle, only

> the journey.

Please don't get me wrong, I am not at all opposed to innovations or

carving new territory. Chinese medicine, to say nothing of Japanese

and Korean styles, is not one uniform body of knowledge that is

inflexible and unchangeable. But I do think that orthodox Chinese

medicine is a good place to begin, and the best innovators tend to

expand into new realms after first mastering the basic consensus of

knowledge. Some of the new ideas and techniques may be useful and

some may not; some of the old ideas and techniques may be useful and

some may not.

My only point is that it helps to be clear about what type of

information is presented and what sources it is rooted in. Are some

of these new Western innovations really Chinese medicine? When I talk

about Chinese medicine, I am mostly referring to concepts that Chinese

practitioners have heard of rather than whatever my own intuition

points me to. This is not to discard intuition, but I feel better

representing my own intuition as my own intuition rather than

representing it as Chinese medicine.

I am interested in people's individual experiences and discoveries of

acupuncture and herbal medicine. I tend to trust people who represent

their philosophies clearly- if your techniques come from your Taoist

priest, your silent meditation, your church, your mother, your drugs,

whatever, I don't look down on whatever sources inspire people and I

don't discount the fact that useful ideas come from a variety of

sources. I just think that it helps to be clear about the roots of

our knowledge and the sources that inspire us. My confidence is high

in people who have the integrity to openly state what they know from

primary sources and what they know from their own intuition. My

confidence is simply not inspired by people who need to send spam to

sell their V11AGRA or snake oil, that's all.

Sorry to have caused offense. I'm not trying to imply that there is

only one true Chinese medicine or that CM is a stagnant, unchanging

force. I just like it when the sources are clear because many

students don't yet have a solid understanding of the consensus

knowledge base in our field, and thus cannot discern one person's

interpretation from a consensus shared by thousands of doctors. If

people simply are more open about their sources of knowledge, readers

can better judge for themselves what they feel is valid and what they

feel skeptical about.

Eric

December 16, 2005

As to gui zhi fu ling wan being a very commonly-used formula to treat blood

stasis during pregnancy, I caution that both moutan and persica are cited by

some sources as contraindicated. That doesn't mean I wouldn't use it, but it

means that (like all diagnosis and treatment), decisions should be based on

the level of risk one is willing to assume and your savvy concerning all the

potential ramifications (informed consent, etc.). Of course if you use a patent

form of wan/pills, I wouldn't expect it to do much anyway.

On the issue of " made-up " , I would ask the junior hardliners (with anything

less than 5 years post-licensing) to temper expectations that everyone should

fit the museum curator model espoused by current academicians. Maybe

when you realize that _western medicine_ is a myth, not an entity, you may

see that Chinese medicine has long since expanded beyond territorial

boundaries, and any practitioner with a few hundred successful cases is

intrinsically part of the _ongoing development_ that is the hallmark of

tradition. Most _expert consensus_ is nothing but the product of an

exclusionary club. What tends to happen with some percentage of good

doctors is a blurring of technique and methodology as well as non-concern for

the labels that preoccupy students and seminar circuiteers. As far as I'm

concerned, the only accountability that matters is vis-à-vis the existing

dominant healthcare system that our patients are seldom not also involved

with.

Re: Dr K's postings, - amidst the fanciful and cryptic, I've spotted some real

gems of clinical knowledge that cut straight to the essence of a differential.

By the way, I live in the San Gabriel Valley (aka China California), and my

recent patient successes have been straight out of the PRC, not Taiwan. So

there.

Wo shi Joe

And to paraphrase the immortal Mr. Peabody, " What you think may not be;

What you thought is only history ! "

December 16, 2005

Chinese Medicine , " "

<zrosenbe@s...> wrote:

>

> 2) Once one is grounded in a tradition, as Robert Hayden is, one can

> be very creative.

well thanks, Z'ev, but in the spirit of full disclosure and intellectual

honesty, i think there's

something which needs to be explained about Japanese meridian therapy (Keiraku

Chiryo,

the school of praxis with which i am most closely associated) which may apply to

other

styles as well. This comment is made to the best of my understanding, as i am

not an

historian or scholar in even the loosest sense of the word, just a guy trying to

piece all of

this together.

Meridian therapy is decidedly and self-consciously classical in its orientation,

but as a

lineage in the physical sense (meaning direct transmission from teacher to

student) it

really only goes back to the 1930's. Japan had basically turned away from

traditional

medicine (and culture) to embrace all things Western in the late 19th century.

Acumoxa

was divorced from its links to systematic correspondence of the Nei Jing/Nan

Jing. The

revival of traditional medicine in Japan began with Kampo practitioners (who did

apparently maintain transmission) but the acumoxa revival was linked to Sawada,

who had

been away in Korea basically studying part-time from an acupuncture manual he

picked

up. Sawada (who developed some unque theories and methods from his self-study)

came

back to Japan in 1922 and was held up by traditionalists as representing their

cause. In

the 1930's Yanagiya Sorei " rediscovered " the Nan Jing and formed a circle of

students who

became the first generation of Meridian Therapy practitioners.

I have no idea whether they read classical Chinese or not; but the generation of

blind

practitioners who followed certainly did not -- their editions were in Japanese

braille, and

they couldn't even enter the schools of Yanagiya et al due to their blindness.

So their

study groups (which must have been quite something, given the passion and

tempers

involved) were the source of their knowledge, and clinical experience was their

test.

Through this process, they developed some unique (and controversial) methods;

but their

only " transmission " to the larger corpus of CM was their relationship to the

written word,

from limited sources, in translation.

Is there a big difference between these practitioners and, say, Dr Keikobad, who

has given

every indication of devoted and reflective study to those resources he has

available? If his

interpretation of CM doesn't jibe well with yours, then hit the delete key. But

how

appropriate is it for any of us to sit back and fling feces at him or Worsley or

whoever else

because they don't meet one's criteria of authenticity.

Yes, herbal Viagra and pop-CM is odious to me too. But i don't see the email in

question

as being equivalent, i see it as the product of sincere study and a desire to

share one's

understanding. Dr Keikobad has been very generous in giving his advice on this

forum,

and whether you think the advice to be sound or not, it doesn't seem to me at

least like

he's doing it to make a quick buck -- as Pete often points out, quick bucks and

CM don't

mix too well )

Anyway i'll leave it there -- my contribution to the tempest in the teapot --

hey, after

three hurricanes i was bound to have some wind left over...

robert hayden

p.s.: sorry if any of this crossed the line into forbidden discussion, moderate

if necessary.

December 16, 2005

Chinese Medicine , " kampo36 "

<kampo36> wrote:

Dr Keikobad has been very generous in giving his advice on this forum,

> and whether you think the advice to be sound or not, it doesn't seem

to me at least like

> he's doing it to make a quick buck

Yes, Dr. Keikobad has been a significant and generous contributor who

is just trying to offer the best advice possible to help people. I

would forever sit silently on the sidelines under normal

circumstances, but I got into the discussion just because I wanted to

point out that our emails are private and sending emails to the group

for commercial purposes is not acceptable. If we want CEU classes,

we'll use the web to search for CEUs; if we want a discussion forum,

our use of the forum does not implicitly suggest that we want to

receive special offers by email from group members. Moderate if you

must, but please also consider the fact that multiple people here use

an email address for the purpose of this list only; if they are

receiving mass emails then it is likely that there is abuse of the

list going on.

Eric

December 16, 2005

Robert,

In our profession there is presently a great divide between

clinical practice and scholarship that wasn't there originally.

Scholastic standards remain abominable, so does that mean that anyone

can say whatever they like without any criticism? If so, woe for

Chinese/Asian medicine in the West. There are standards of

scholarship in the study of Chinese, Japanese and Korean medical

texts, and we ignore them to our peril. I am sorry, there has to be

some accountability for what people say and teach. It is sometimes

not enough to hit the delete button. Sometimes our ideas need to be

challenged and engaged in discussion.

On Dec 16, 2005, at 6:10 AM, kampo36 wrote:

> Is there a big difference between these practitioners and, say, Dr

> Keikobad, who has given

> every indication of devoted and reflective study to those resources

> he has available? If his

> interpretation of CM doesn't jibe well with yours, then hit the

> delete key. But how

> appropriate is it for any of us to sit back and fling feces at him

> or Worsley or whoever else

> because they don't meet one's criteria of authenticity.

December 16, 2005

A simple lab analysis will reveal if there are drugs in this

product. Capsules with powdered herbs in them would seem to be

suspect to me in producing Viagra-like effects. Any herbal product

that was effective would probably work slowly and gradually, not

instantly, because of the generally milder effects of herbal

medicines in general, especially those listed in products such as

Tango. The thought of people trying supposedly herbal products while

getting hidden drugs is beyond ethical bottom-feeding. We've already

been through this with PC-SPECS a few years ago. Some people on

another CM list were offended that I suggested that there were drugs

in that product, and it turned out later there were at least five

drugs in a supposed herbal treatment for prostate cancer.

By the way, Alon, I don't see how you compare this to 'attachment to

authentic teachings'. What is 'authentic' about Tango?

On Dec 16, 2005, at 8:05 AM, wrote:

> The bottom line does it work? for example i can tell you that

> another CM herbal viagra perpetration works great (tango), actually

> too well and i am suspicious because it works too well.All this

> attachment to what is considered by some as authentic without any

> evidence that it is better than any other approach is as dangerous

> to our profession as is the MSU stuff.

December 16, 2005

Z'ev

What i am saying is that clinical outcome is the only guide of relevance for me.

If one wants to study past works for other then their medical uses that is great

with me, but irrelevant to my practice and needs. If one makes formulas that

work (obviously not by adding hidden drugs) that is what i am looking for in

information. The fact that something was past down for generation to another

means nothing to me. I have seen such info fail time and again.