Yesterday afternoon I took a walk on the beach with an old friend. She was asking me about the work that we do. As I was recounting how it all developed, I  remembered how incredible and important it is. I remembered the first time I read about Chinese medicine and how I fell in love with it. Even though I had spent a very long time -I think about three years studying western anatomy and physiology. When I opened that first book on Chinese medicine- it just all made sense even though it was written in a “language” with very foreign terminology. The crux of why I felt it made so much sense is because of the way in which it offered a system of analyzing the body through a system of very open, fluid, and flexible perspectives that when utilized and executed properly- may facilitate healing that may be difficult within a western paradigm. I know that it saved me when Western medicine saved my life but left me with no quality of it. It saved me when there were no answers. I found them within the paradigm of this amazing medicine.

However- when it came to IC- I do think that some ties between this profound ancient philosophy and a more modern understanding of the body system needed to be drawn- which I feel was embodied by my doctoral thesis. Explaining my thoughts on low grade microbial translocation takes SIBO and Leaky Gut to a different level and may be used as a model to delineate how not only IC is caused but may be used to define how many other chronic illnesses occur and why when a person has one chronic illness, they also have others. There has been a considerable amount of research on this topic.  

The woman I was walking with yesterday has a daughter that I helped some years back. Western medicine had no answers for her. She had amenorrhea- no periods. She was not in good shape at all. I helped her bring back her cycle and normalize it after it had been absent for years. She

had been very concerned obviously that she would have fertility issues due to this problem and the Western treatment of hormone therapy was not solving her issues and was only contributing to more issues.  We all resonate with different kinds of perspective in all things in life. To me the foreign language of Chinese medicine makes perfect sense and although Western medicine is critical to healthcare today in a very specific manner- I also believe that Chinese medicine is as well. They simply hold different places in applicability. They both may be equally critical and life changing. I would love to hear how some of you feel about how this paradigm changes your thinking or perspective.

Dr. M