If only it were that simple
Jul 17th, 2007 by Michael Max
It is a curiosity. Perhaps it is because Yong Kang clinic looks like something from outside the brittle borders of our country. The walls are lined with assorted jars full of bark, leaves, twigs, and roots. This stuff looks like it means business. I should not be surprised when people walk in and ask:
So, what you have you got for diabetes?
Twenty year blinding migraines?
Intractable insomnia?
Infertility?
As if it was that easy.
I wish I did have a formula. A few leaves, some roots, a branch of twigs. Cook it up and suddenly blood sugar stabilizes. A quick cure for modern disease, that is the promise sold on TV. The secret wish we all have that maybe we can escape the consequences of our lives.
If it was that easy. Then these illnesses would not be a problem.
Diabetes would have gone the way of polio. Migraines would be a chapter in some dusty medical history book. Those jars at Yong Kang hold substances that look like magic, but they are just medicine.
But, they are a different kind of medicine. They work on the root of the problem. Unlike western pharmaceutical drugs, they have few side effects. They tend to work slower, like easing into a new habit. The change can be profound.
In my experience the best answer to treating illness is to call on the wisdom of the body, and it’s built-in capacity to self regulate and cure itself of disease. The Chinese have a term 調理, it means to regulate and adjust. To call on the innate wisdom of the body to heal itself.
This is what we offer at Yong Kang, ways to encourage healing, balance and health. There are no simple answers to complex problems, but we often have some options, where other medicines only offer a lifetime of drugs, and their side effects.