Adventures in Asian Health Secrets

by Letha Hadady-During the mid 1990s, after being nationally certified as an acupuncturist in New York, I traveled to China for advanced training with a wonderful professor, Dr. Chao, who had worked with patients for forty years at Shanghai College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The cheerful, rosy-cheeked man treated everything from overweight to depression, thyroid conditions and schizophrenia to post-stroke paralysis using acupuncture needles and Chinese herbal medicines. I marveled at the ease with which he inserted the needles that immediately put his Chinese patients at ease.

 

A man with chronic depression came to the clinic for treatment. With doctor Chao’s guidance, I took the man’s weak, thready pulses, observed his coated tongue, and placed needles to strengthen the man’s digestion and ease tight circulation in his chest. He breathed deeply and smiled. Traditional Asian medicine makes no clear-cut distinction between mind and body problems, but enhances wellness as needed. Isn’t everyone depressed when they feel terrible pain, exhaustion, or starvation? Our T cells fall, our natural immunity to illness declines, when we grieve. The separation of mind and body seems a religious view stemming from the concept of original sin more than a scientific fact.

 

It was encouraging for me to witness positive and lasting results from acupuncture and herbs without any sort of drug addiction for the patient. Asian herbal formulas prescribed to hospital patients are always unique. The hospital pharmacy normally contains dried plants, roots, crushed minerals, shells, and various dried animal parts such as cicada skins or deer antler. Back home in New York I had resources in my local Asian communities and online that could provide medical care that I could afford. In later years I traveled to India, Thailand, and Ladakh to find healing secrets to stay healthy and vibrant. In the Thai jungle, riding on a Chinese train, or in a Latin American street market, people lined up to receive acupuncture I gave them with a laser. They were not strangers to Asian medicine. No one asked me to explain the concept of qi. They had pain. They had arthritic joints, headaches, upset stomach, and female problems. Acupuncture and massage work well to correct certain acute problems. But foods and herbs remain our best home medicines.

 

Looking at someone’s tongue in a market in Oaxaca, Mexico or at home in Chelsea, I recommend foods and herbs to support wellness. You can learn how to read your energy too. It can serve you and your family well to keep medical costs lower.

 

A Pale Tongue: This can look very pale pink, gray or white. You may also feel chilled and weak or have severe pain or numbness that feels worse in cold, damp weather. You vitality may feel low and it can make you feel weepy or depressed. That is the time to warm your vitality with ginger. Enjoy ginger tea, chew sliced raw ginger and keep warm. If you sit at a computer all day and your back and legs ache from fatigue, you may feel comforted by placing a heating pad or warming red Tiger Balm on your back at your waist.

 

A Red Tongue: This may be reddish, coated, cracked, dry or bright red and uncoated. You may have chronic thirst, hunger, or feel feverish. Smokers trap inflammation in the body. If you like hot spices or drink lots of orange juice or honey you may develop a skin rash or irritability unless you eat alkaline foods to eliminate digestive acidity. An itchy rash indicates acid is leaving the body through the skin instead of in wastes. Increase your green tea and if the rash persists, dandelion and honeysuckle flower tea with help to eliminate acid impurities.

 

The important thing for us to remember is that traditional Asian herbs are the medicine of the people. They cost little and work exceptionally well for many health and wellness issues. During this period of world economic collapse, as official American health care remains firmly in the hands of the pharmaceutical industry, as insurance companies fail to meet our needs, and many doctors refuse to accept Medicare payments–we need to return to affordable people medicine. That means foods, cooking herbs, herbal medicine products that are widely available and affordable for everyone.

 

Letha Hadady is the author of Asian Health Secrets, Personal Renewal, Healthy Beauty, and Feed Your Tiger. Her website www.asianhealthsecrets.com  has free articles, recipes, health videos, and restaurant reviews.

Upcoming Walking Tours with Letha Hadady:
4/18: A Seasonal Walking Tour of Chinatown
5/09: A Seasonal Walking Tour of Chinatown