Menopausal syndrome: How effective is CHM?

[Guest guest]

Yesterday, I received the October 2006 issue of The Journal of Chinese

Medicine from the UK. In it was an article by Volker Scheid on the TCM

herbal treatment of menopausal syndrome. It's a very thought-provoking

article, and I don't want to prejudice anyone who has not read this

article for themself. However, I do have a question for " the group. "

How effective have you found Chinese herbal medicine to be for the

treatment of menopausal and perimenopausal syndromes? Hopefully, your

feedback will help me clarify my own thoughts on this subject.

[Guest guest]

, " Bob Flaws "

<pemachophel2001 wrote:

> How effective have you found Chinese herbal medicine to be for the

> treatment of menopausal and perimenopausal syndromes? Hopefully, your

> feedback will help me clarify my own thoughts on this subject.

 

My practice is relatively new, so I've only treated about 10 cases of

peri / menopausal syndromes.

 

All of the cases were treated with custom herbal formulas based on

pattern discrimination, and only 1 or 2 of the cases also had

acupuncture.

 

Every case either improved greatly to the point that the patient

discontinued treatment or was " cured " of symptoms. The treatments

lasted anywhere from 3 weeks to 4 months.

 

For what it's worth, most of the formulas addressed some combination

of qi and / or blood vacuity. Most of the cases also had a damp-heat

component. Perhaps only 2 or 3 of the cases had a minor yin vacuity

component, and supplementing yin was not the focus of those formulas.

 

Brian C. Allen

[Guest guest]

Bob,

 

I have very similar results as Brian, but with many more cases.

 

Cheers,

Thomas

 

 

 

Faculty Department of Complementary and Alternative Medicine

John Burns School of Medicine University of Hawai'i Manoa

Honolulu, HI

 

www.sourcepointherbs.org

 

 

[Guest guest]

Bob,

 

I think that " effective " needs to be defined..

 

In my practice, I've found that regardless of pattern differentiation

and subsequent treatment, some of the symptoms improve, while others

not.. Most patient's night sweats, hot flashes and sleep

improves....often they stop taking the herbs and continue symptoms

free for while.. Eventually the symptoms come back and they return to

the herbs..

 

I consider that success..My goal is not focused on 'curing' menopause.

Instead, I view our role as assitants through this natural transition

in a ladie's life....

 

I have not found my treatments to be very effective in addressing the

dryness that often often presents during peri/menopause..although

there have been some exceptions.. Neither have I seen much help for

tinnitus.

 

I have also found that ladies who have had their ovaries removed were

more difficult to treat and often the need for some form of Western

intervention seemed to make a difference...

 

Most menopause patients that I currently see are busy professional

ladies whose minds are more focused on their careers and wish for a

quick solution..They often operate on nervous energy and if the

results don't come quickly, they seek other alternative such as

transdermal gels..

 

Fernando

 

 

 

 

>However, I do have a question for " the group. "

> How effective have you found Chinese herbal medicine to be for the

> treatment of menopausal and perimenopausal syndromes? Hopefully, your

> feedback will help me clarify my own thoughts on this subject.

>

[Guest guest]

I have treated menopausal stuff for 20 years or so

 

Over the years I have tried different approaches , as my knowledge

experience evoloved

 

1. Just using acupuncture ala zang fu approach with 2 treatments per week

for a 2-3 months gives no results

 

2. just using boil ups treating the patterns ( taking into account I got the

diagnosis's right) with 3 packets per week for 2-3 months gave mediocre

results, most patients stopped because they got sick of drinking the herbs

 

3. Using 8 extras ren and chong and simple formula using granules gets the

most dramatic results

 

 

 

How do I know or how do I prove it.? After 1-2 sessions using 8 extras and

granules, they refer their friends.

 

I only just received the journal today, will let you know what I think

 

I heard him talk at Brisbane . I think it was him anyway

 

 

 

Heiko

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Behalf Of Bob Flaws

Friday, November 03, 2006 6:12 AM

 

Menopausal syndrome: How effective is CHM?

 

 

 

Yesterday, I received the October 2006 issue of The Journal of Chinese

Medicine from the UK. In it was an article by Volker Scheid on the TCM

herbal treatment of menopausal syndrome. It's a very thought-provoking

article, and I don't want to prejudice anyone who has not read this

article for themself. However, I do have a question for " the group. "

How effective have you found Chinese herbal medicine to be for the

treatment of menopausal and perimenopausal syndromes? Hopefully, your

feedback will help me clarify my own thoughts on this subject.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Bob

 

Thanks for info re Warferin

 

If I could work out my way around that complicated BP site I will try order

the book

 

Heiko

 

 

 

 

 

On Behalf Of Bob Flaws

Friday, November 03, 2006 6:12 AM

 

Menopausal syndrome: How effective is CHM?

 

 

 

Yesterday, I received the October 2006 issue of The Journal of Chinese

Medicine from the UK. In it was an article by Volker Scheid on the TCM

herbal treatment of menopausal syndrome. It's a very thought-provoking

article, and I don't want to prejudice anyone who has not read this

article for themself. However, I do have a question for " the group. "

How effective have you found Chinese herbal medicine to be for the

treatment of menopausal and perimenopausal syndromes? Hopefully, your

feedback will help me clarify my own thoughts on this subject.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Thanks to those who responded to my question. I personally have found

Chinese medicine quite effective for the overwhelming majority of

peri- and menopausal syndrome patients I have seen over the last 20 years.

 

By " effective, " I meant capable of significantly decreasing or

completely eliminating pathological symptoms.

 

Bob

[Guest guest]

Bob,

I don't know if you are still interested in approaching this

topic at this point, but I've taken several weeks to think about

perimenopausal syndrome, and to digest Volker's article.

 

My clinical experience is mostly one of positive results,

although I've rarely treated perimenopausal patients for simple

kidney yin vacuity. I've seen a variety of patterns, and have had

success with a number of prescriptions, including dang gui liu huang

tang for severe yin vacuity fire, and tian ma gou teng yin for liver

yang hyperactivity.

 

I looked in your " Handbook of Menstrual Diseases " (I don't have

the most recent updated version yet), and it states clearly that

perimenopausal syndromes are a recent addition to Chinese medical

textbooks, and lists several possible patterns other than kidney yin

vacuity that can contribute to problems of this type. I do not have

the texts that Volker refers to, but if " Handbook of Menstrual

Diseases " is an accurate reflection of Chinese language TCM

textbooks, they would seem to be more varied than what his article

claims.

 

At the same time, I think Volker has made some valid points about

the need for historical clarity in representing TCM, especially in

English language discussions. It is true that I haven't seen much in

the way of discussion of lily disorder/bai he bing and zang zao/

visceral agitation in relation to perimenopausal syndromes, and I can

see where the connnection may be quite valid. I will consider such

Golden Cabinet prescriptions such as gan mai da zao tang jia wei in

the future as well.

 

The reductionism to simple kidney yin vacuity and liu wei di

huang wan may well be in other textbooks, and may well be informed by

HRT in biomedicine. However, it is not in Blue Poppy's textbooks,

and not taught this way in classes that I am aware of at PCOM.

 

 

 

 

 

On Nov 2, 2006, at 9:11 AM, Bob Flaws wrote:

 

> Yesterday, I received the October 2006 issue of The Journal of Chinese

> Medicine from the UK. In it was an article by Volker Scheid on the TCM

> herbal treatment of menopausal syndrome. It's a very thought-provoking

> article, and I don't want to prejudice anyone who has not read this

> article for themself. However, I do have a question for " the group. "

> How effective have you found Chinese herbal medicine to be for the

> treatment of menopausal and perimenopausal syndromes? Hopefully, your

> feedback will help me clarify my own thoughts on this subject.

>

>

>

> Messages in this topic (1)Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic

> Messages | Files | Photos | Links | Database | Polls | Calendar

> Chinese Herbal Medicine offers various professional services,

> including board approved continuing education classes, an annual

> conference and a free discussion forum in Chinese Herbal Medicine.

>

>

>

>

> Change settings via the Web ( ID required)

> Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch

> format to Traditional

> Visit Your Group | Terms of Use | Un

> Recent Activity

> 2

> New Members

> 1

> New Files

> Visit Your Group

>

[Guest guest]

Z'ev,

 

Some of Volker's arguments re the introduction of menopausal syndrome

as a disease category into CM in the 1960s hold water. However, his

dismissal of the historical record in terms of equating the tian gui

with kidney water is so simplistic and cursory as to make me wonder if

there isn't a larger agenda here. Really authoritative CM

practitioners back as far as the Ming have equated the tian gui with

kidney water and this is the accepted standard interpretation in China

today. So possiting that yin vacuity is the precipitating disease

mechanism of menopause is not simply a modern, erroneous idea.

 

This points up the critical importance of translation. By choosing to

translate tian gui as menstruation or something along that order,

Volker is able to go on an build his entire argument criticizing

modern CM. For those who cannot themselves check the Chinese

literature, his argument is logical, well written, and compelling. For

those who can, it appears there is a hidden agenda behind Volker's

argument given his scholarly credentials (meaning here that I would

think Volker would know better).

 

That being said, there has been continuous change and evolution in CM

over the centuries, and one of the things this change has shown is

that people can be wrong. Anyone can be wrong no matter how famous

they were or are. Such wrong ideas have to weeded out over time via

discussion and trial. As we know, the pruning that took place during

the 10-15 years of the Cultural Revolution was excessive. It did

oversimplify the medicine. However, I think mostly that " throwing of

the baby out with the bathwater " has been remedied in the 30 or more

years since. In the last 30 years, practitioners have been able to

read the entire gamut of premodern and modern literature and pick and

choose what to believe and practice. Therefore, the level at which one

thinks about and practices Chinese medicine is largely one's own choice.

 

Since the Nei Jing, there has always been the recognition that there

are different levels of insight and expertise among doctors.

(Inferior, medium, and superior are the traditional ways of describing

these levels). And I think we can say that, in reality, most

practitioners fall into the inferior and medium (i.e., mediocre)

categories in the same way that the majority of practitioners of any

art will fall into those two categories. That's just the way bell

curves operate. However, that is due to these practitioners' own

innate intelligence and natures and acquired habits and proclivities

rather than anything that has to do fundamentally with the medicine

itself. The way I read Volker's article is as a critique of modern CM

for being overly simplistic, and I fully agree that some practitioners

of CM do practice in an overly simplistic way. However, I disagree

that this is a fault with the system itself as opposed to a deficiency

in its particular practitioners.

 

If one reads widely in the Chinese gynecological literature, then one

can easily see that there is very much more to the CM treatment of

menopausal syndrome than simply yin vacuity. My recently published

book (Menopause & ) describes many more patterns

involved in this change of life and, therefore, many different and

complex formulas beyond those that simply supplement yin. To single

out yin vacuity and base one's entire understanding of menopausal

syndrome on that one disease mechanism is simplistic and clinically

unworkable. But there is nothing within the modern CM which limits a

practitioner to such a simplistic approach.

 

Oh, and I too have found Chinese medicine to be valuable in the

treatment of menopausal syndrome in the overwhelming majority of my

patients -- just not the simplistic version Volker describes in his

article. So again, I have to wonder, does Volker have a larger agenda

here, and, is this agenda part of a putsch by a larger group of people?

 

Bob

 

P.S. In terms of refuting three of Volker's particular statements, in

1986 when interning at the Yue Yang Hospital in Shanghai, I did see a

steady stream of menopausal syndrome patients in clinic and not a

single one was diagnosed or treated as a simple yin vacuity pattern.

Therefore, in my experience, 1) menopausal syndrome is a common

complaint in China, 2) it is not solely treated as yin vacuity, and 3)

CM does offer effective treatment for this disorder.

 

 

, " "

<zrosenbe wrote:

>

> Bob,

> I don't know if you are still interested in approaching this

> topic at this point, but I've taken several weeks to think about

> perimenopausal syndrome, and to digest Volker's article.

>

> My clinical experience is mostly one of positive results,

> although I've rarely treated perimenopausal patients for simple

> kidney yin vacuity. I've seen a variety of patterns, and have had

> success with a number of prescriptions, including dang gui liu huang

> tang for severe yin vacuity fire, and tian ma gou teng yin for liver

> yang hyperactivity.

>

> I looked in your " Handbook of Menstrual Diseases " (I don't have

> the most recent updated version yet), and it states clearly that

> perimenopausal syndromes are a recent addition to Chinese medical

> textbooks, and lists several possible patterns other than kidney yin

> vacuity that can contribute to problems of this type. I do not have

> the texts that Volker refers to, but if " Handbook of Menstrual

> Diseases " is an accurate reflection of Chinese language TCM

> textbooks, they would seem to be more varied than what his article

> claims.

>

> At the same time, I think Volker has made some valid points about

> the need for historical clarity in representing TCM, especially in

> English language discussions. It is true that I haven't seen much in

> the way of discussion of lily disorder/bai he bing and zang zao/

> visceral agitation in relation to perimenopausal syndromes, and I can

> see where the connnection may be quite valid. I will consider such

> Golden Cabinet prescriptions such as gan mai da zao tang jia wei in

> the future as well.

>

> The reductionism to simple kidney yin vacuity and liu wei di

> huang wan may well be in other textbooks, and may well be informed by

> HRT in biomedicine. However, it is not in Blue Poppy's textbooks,

> and not taught this way in classes that I am aware of at PCOM.

>

>

>

>

>

> On Nov 2, 2006, at 9:11 AM, Bob Flaws wrote:

>

> > Yesterday, I received the October 2006 issue of The Journal of Chinese

> > Medicine from the UK. In it was an article by Volker Scheid on the TCM

> > herbal treatment of menopausal syndrome. It's a very thought-provoking

> > article, and I don't want to prejudice anyone who has not read this

> > article for themself. However, I do have a question for " the group. "

> > How effective have you found Chinese herbal medicine to be for the

> > treatment of menopausal and perimenopausal syndromes? Hopefully, your

> > feedback will help me clarify my own thoughts on this subject.

> >

> >

> >

> > Messages in this topic (1)Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic

> > Messages | Files | Photos | Links | Database | Polls | Calendar

> > Chinese Herbal Medicine offers various professional services,

> > including board approved continuing education classes, an annual

> > conference and a free discussion forum in Chinese Herbal Medicine.

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > Change settings via the Web ( ID required)

> > Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch

> > format to Traditional

> > Visit Your Group | Terms of Use | Un

> > Recent Activity

> > 2

> > New Members

> > 1

> > New Files

> > Visit Your Group

> >

[Guest guest]

Bob, having re-read Scheid's article I agree with much of what you say about

this

provacative and fascinating piece. Can you expand on " does Volker have a

larger agenda

here, and, is this agenda part of a putsch by a larger group of people? "

Certainly the anthropologist in Scheid has opened himself up by politising in

using the

colonization references. Since you have a better sense of the global TCM world,

besides

turning us all into Kanpo practitioners who do you see as benefitting from these

arguments?

 

I would encourage others to read the JCM which can be downloaded for fifteen

dollars or

so at the JCM site. Perhaps when others have read it we can expand the

discussion about

the article itself.

 

http://www.jcm.co.uk/catalogue.php?catID=203 & opener=0-195-203

or simply

http://www.jcm.co.uk/

 

 

doug

 

>

 

, " Bob Flaws " <pemachophel2001

wrote:

>

> Z'ev,

>

> Some of Volker's arguments re the introduction of menopausal syndrome

> as a disease category into CM in the 1960s hold water. However, his

> dismissal of the historical record in terms of equating the tian gui

> with kidney water is so simplistic and cursory as to make me wonder if

> there isn't a larger agenda here. Really authoritative CM

> practitioners back as far as the Ming have equated the tian gui with

> kidney water and this is the accepted standard interpretation in China

> today. So possiting that yin vacuity is the precipitating disease

> mechanism of menopause is not simply a modern, erroneous idea.

>

> This points up the critical importance of translation. By choosing to

> translate tian gui as menstruation or something along that order,

> Volker is able to go on an build his entire argument criticizing

> modern CM. For those who cannot themselves check the Chinese

> literature, his argument is logical, well written, and compelling. For

> those who can, it appears there is a hidden agenda behind Volker's

> argument given his scholarly credentials (meaning here that I would

> think Volker would know better).

>

> That being said, there has been continuous change and evolution in CM

> over the centuries, and one of the things this change has shown is

> that people can be wrong. Anyone can be wrong no matter how famous

> they were or are. Such wrong ideas have to weeded out over time via

> discussion and trial. As we know, the pruning that took place during

> the 10-15 years of the Cultural Revolution was excessive. It did

> oversimplify the medicine. However, I think mostly that " throwing of

> the baby out with the bathwater " has been remedied in the 30 or more

> years since. In the last 30 years, practitioners have been able to

> read the entire gamut of premodern and modern literature and pick and

> choose what to believe and practice. Therefore, the level at which one

> thinks about and practices Chinese medicine is largely one's own choice.

>

> Since the Nei Jing, there has always been the recognition that there

> are different levels of insight and expertise among doctors.

> (Inferior, medium, and superior are the traditional ways of describing

> these levels). And I think we can say that, in reality, most

> practitioners fall into the inferior and medium (i.e., mediocre)

> categories in the same way that the majority of practitioners of any

> art will fall into those two categories. That's just the way bell

> curves operate. However, that is due to these practitioners' own

> innate intelligence and natures and acquired habits and proclivities

> rather than anything that has to do fundamentally with the medicine

> itself. The way I read Volker's article is as a critique of modern CM

> for being overly simplistic, and I fully agree that some practitioners

> of CM do practice in an overly simplistic way. However, I disagree

> that this is a fault with the system itself as opposed to a deficiency

> in its particular practitioners.

>

> If one reads widely in the Chinese gynecological literature, then one

> can easily see that there is very much more to the CM treatment of

> menopausal syndrome than simply yin vacuity. My recently published

> book (Menopause & ) describes many more patterns

> involved in this change of life and, therefore, many different and

> complex formulas beyond those that simply supplement yin. To single

> out yin vacuity and base one's entire understanding of menopausal

> syndrome on that one disease mechanism is simplistic and clinically

> unworkable. But there is nothing within the modern CM which limits a

> practitioner to such a simplistic approach.

>

> Oh, and I too have found Chinese medicine to be valuable in the

> treatment of menopausal syndrome in the overwhelming majority of my

> patients -- just not the simplistic version Volker describes in his

> article. So again, I have to wonder, does Volker have a larger agenda

> here, and, is this agenda part of a putsch by a larger group of people?

>

> Bob

>

> P.S. In terms of refuting three of Volker's particular statements, in

> 1986 when interning at the Yue Yang Hospital in Shanghai, I did see a

> steady stream of menopausal syndrome patients in clinic and not a

> single one was diagnosed or treated as a simple yin vacuity pattern.

> Therefore, in my experience, 1) menopausal syndrome is a common

> complaint in China, 2) it is not solely treated as yin vacuity, and 3)

> CM does offer effective treatment for this disorder.

>

>