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Chronic fatigue is a status that our deep energy is deprived by:
With the symptoms and presentations like muscle pain, repetitive and unresolving flu, chronic headaches, or mood issues which strongly affects our work, family, and daily life. Our body fails to regenerate, repair, and refill the energy.
It is like a leaking bottle. When infections come, the body cannot defend itself while the infections cause more damage and further weaken the body. It is a vicious cycle, frustrating and exhausting, keeping us from living an enjoyable life.
On the highway of life
Our lifestyle changed dramatically since the last century and even faster in the past few decades. In the old days, life is tough on the body but mostly easy on mind (except during war time) but now we are living in a much more competitive era. The nature of work shifts from physical work or simple manufacturing tasks to much more intellectually demanding ones. Workers are always asked to be more productive while management is looking for ways to survive the highly competitive environment.
If our lifestyle is a car, we are definitely driving much faster than in the old days. It gives us advantage and convenience on one hand, but also brings us troubles and difficulties on the other. This type of demanding lifestyle is exhausting our deep energy like a car running out of fuel. And since the lifestyle transformed, the car itself changed as well, so we might need another type of fuel. Our diet is mostly adapted from the days for physical work, and science has yet fully developed an approach to modern nutritional needs, many chronic fatigue patients are like cars with low and wrong fuel. They cannot go far. They cannot function as smoothly and normally.
Treating chronic fatigue with TCM
Traditional Chinese medicine is a unique philosophy of understanding our body through a holistic system. It provides one of the solutions to this exhausting situation of chronic fatigue. Chinese herbal medicine (an herb remedy ) is one of the most sophisticated herbal medicine systems in the world. With the TCM consultation, the TCM practitioner identifies and locates the affected system. The principle of treatment is to restore the body to its optimal and functional status. We call it “filling up the deficiencies, cleaning up the extras”. It is important to bear in mind that treating chronic fatigue is not just about filling up energies. Having the right type of energy is the key. Too much of some unnecessary and wrong type of energy could be problematic. This is one common mistake many of my patients make. They try to energize themselves with energy drinks or supplements or special diet. Sometimes it works, sometimes it does not, and yet very often they complicate the whole situation. This is how TCM treatment differs from over the counter supplements or online articles. TCM herbs are so powerful that they should be used with caution and under control by a trained professional.
[Read more: Qi deficiency: What is it and how do you manage it?] [Read more: Coffee In The View of Chinese Medicine]
With the appropriate treatment like acupuncture, herbal supplements, diet and lifestyle adjustments, the body can fight off infection more efficiently therefore saving and restoring energies for systemic regeneration. If the chronic fatigue person is like a leaking bottle, then TCM treatment is an approach to clean up and fill up the water level while repairing the holes.