Chinese Herbal Medicine Chinese herbal medicine has been practiced for thousands of years at a high level of expertise. Ancient herbalists used highly-developed diagnosis techniques to form specific differentiations for diseases. They recorded the results of their treatments, and, over time, created formulas for a wide variety of ailments. Over the centuries, Chinese cities became highly populated, and with the population explosion came new diseases endemic to large gatherings of people. But Chinese herbalists were already interested in public health, 1500 years ago, and responded well to the new epidemics. Chinese herbal therapy is natural medicine, but is also a powerful medicine that should only be prescribed by a trained and certified practitioner. Today, the medicine is used to treat many common ailments such as insomnia, hot flashes, digestive problems and chronic pain. Herbal formulas are also used to treat more serious diseases such as IBS, cancer and HIV. (Note: see the general description of Chinese medicine for a description of how biomedical treatment and traditional medicine diverge.)

Therefore, herbal therapy is an alternative to prescription medicine, and can allow many people to achieve their health care goals without the downside of extremely high expenses and the growing problem of multiple side effects. We use combinations of herbs that act to relieve the patient of exhibited symptoms creating few to no side effects. The advantage that Chinese herbalism has over biomedicine is that the formula can be adjusted for every patient. For instance, if you were given a particular formula and displayed a slightly objectionable side effect, the practitioner would adjust the formula to eliminate the complications without changing the healing aspect of the formula. In biomedicine, if the patient reacts badly to a medicine, the doctor must change to a different medicine, which may have the same types of side effects.

Herbal medicine is one of Traditional Chinese Medicines' great strengths, and can considerably boost the healing response in combination with other traditional treatments.