http://www.europa.com/~itm/index.html
This is the address for the home page for the Institute of Traditional
Medicine (ITM). The address I gave before, and what you requested, was a
page from the ITM for Chinese Healing for MS. I had some time to explore the
site and found it very interesting. For those of you who may have looked at
the earlier address I gave, but did not go to the home page, I suggest you do.
They have a lenghty discussion of what practioners of Traditional Chinese
Medicine believe MS is caused by. They attribute it to qi (chi) being out of
balance . Below is an excerpt. I hope it teases others to check it out.
Nancy
MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS
As relates to MS, the Chinese believe that the disease process most likely
riginates with a combination of spiritual and emotional factors, and that the
trigger for the disease may be an experience of a feverish illness, usually an
infectious disease. áThe weakening of and loss of control over the musculature
may come about because the critical energizing and regulating functions of the
internal organs have become disturbed due to the loss of spiritual focus,
perhaps because of a frightful experience which has scattered oneÆs soul from
its resting place. The triggering disease consumes vital fluid essences that
are essential to nourishing the body and providing a relaxing medium for the
spirit. á Without spiritual relaxation, there is ongoing agitation, and
destruction of bodily harmony.
Western medicine is still pursuing the precise description of MS, but
currently it is believed that a combination of genetic predisposing factors
and an episode of a common viral disease initiates an autoimmune process which
leads to the symptoms of the disorder (inhibition of nerve transmission to the
muscles), exacerbated by subsequent infections or other stimulants to the
autoreactive immune system. áIn other words, the disease has nothing to do
with either personal experiences (other than having an infection) or general
bodily balance, but rather is attributed to an inherited coil of DNA and
another slice of DNA provided by the
virus. á Therefore, TCM diverges from Western medicine by placing human
experience above inheritance and biology as a cause. áTCM practitioners would
not deny that the specific disease manifestation multiple sclerosis, rather
than another chronic disease causing similar symptoms might be based on
heredity, but they would focus on other experiences to explain why the disease
arises and persists.
Therefore, the Oriental and Western views can be partially reconciled by
saying that a genetic propensity for the disease needs to be present in order
for one to experience MS, but that life experiences other than the viral
infection might also be necessary cofactors to initiate and maintain the full
disease process. áMS is a relatively rare disease in China, and this is
believed by modern researchers to reflect a genetic difference between the
Oriental population and the others mainly Caucasian that have a higher
incidence of the disease. áFurther, MS is more common in individuals who grew
up in northern areas rather than southern areas,
suggesting either exposure to a pathogen or food product that is more common
in the cold climates. á
Among those with the necessary genetic and environmental factors, the reason
why some are afflicted with MS and others are not, or why the disease follows
such different courses in different individuals, remains an open question for
which TCM theory may provide some insights. Although the Chinese see anxiety,
depression, fright, and fear as contributors to the disease process (helping
to initiate and
aggravate the condition), Western doctors observe these emotional patterns in
patients diagnosed with the disease and attribute the emotional conditions
largely to a reaction to the diagnosis. áThat is, once a person is informed
that they have a disease which may be progressive and debilitating, they
become anxious, depressed, and fearful. á
Western doctors observe demyelination of the nerve fibers and its eventual
scarring (sclerosis) as the characteristic pattern of MS. á Demyelination a
loss of fatty substance surrounding the nerve fibers roughly corresponds to a
description, by Chinese doctors, of the loss of a vital fluid essence (jing).
áThe autoimmune process, with stimulated production of antibodies that attack
the body instead of attacking a pathological organism, corresponds roughly to
the Oriental description of dysfunction and disharmony of the internal organs.
á Where the Western physician imagines the microscopic changes revealed from
isolated tissues, the Chinese physician imagines broad processes that
correspond to things experienced in daily life.