East And West

Yesterday Khadijah baked some 18-carat Gold Carrot cake and gave some to me. It's really good but because it was very sweet, I can't take more than a slice a day. Later, she told me about a product called Silent Night Patch by LightWave that improves the quality of sleep. Actually, she was thinking if this patch would be useful for Mohd Shafiq because he experiencing excruciating pain to help him sleep better. I am still reading up on this expensive product.

On Thursday night, Khadijah said she was not feeling very well and she applied some ointment on her right temple as if she was applying the Silent Night Patch. Amazingly, she slept like a baby. After hearing what she said, I thought I would do the same. I bought another Eagle Brand wind medicated oil (Made in Indonesia). I applied the green colored aromatic oil on my right temple and did a quick massage. I also applied some on my nose and went to bed. Incredibly, I also slept very well, getting up only for my night urine.

This morning, I was having some difficulty in doing my morning enema. There was just too much colon spasm and I nearly could not hold. Not since I first started doing coffee enema did I experienced such strong spasm. I was doing the enema in my room and you could imagine what would happen if I discharge the solution into the room! I could not wait to complete the 15 minutes of hold and quickly went to the toilet to discharge. As expected, the enema discharge was very smelly.

TCM And Western Medicine
My friend Yeong, has been distributing TCM cancer herbs for more than 15 years. During this period of time, he has met hundreds, if not thousand of cancer patients and caregivers. The fact is 80%-90% of such cancer patients almost chose conventional medication as the first choice of treatment before considering TCM or other alternative treatments.

However, due to the increasing popularity of TCM, many patients have now opted to do conventional medicine along with TCM. However, due to the ignorance of the oncologist or specialist doctors who have no idea about TCM, the advice given to cancer patients is always not to mix TCM together with chemotherapy.

Since 1949, China has integrated TCM with Western medicine at national level. Experimental studies over the last two decades have demonstrated that Chinese medicine does have certain advantages at enhancing the immune system and reinforcing the body's ability to withstand disease and at preventing, correcting or reducing iatrogenic pain due to surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Statistical data covering recent decades indicate that 70-90% of patients undergoing radiotherapy or chemotherapy combined with internal treatment with TCM completed their course, compared to 50-70% for those undergoing these therapies without TCM treatment.

The five-year survival rate for patients given internal treatment with TCM stands at 50-60% for patients with stomach cancer (intermediate stage, postoperative) and more than 60% for patients with nasopharyngeal cancer, compared to 20-30% and 40% respectively for patients not receiving treatment with TCM. The survival rate of patients with cervical or vulval cancer, breast cancer and lung cancer increases by 5 to 10 years when combined on a long-term basis with supplementary treatment by TCM. This indicates that by combining TCM and Western medicine can improve the constitution of patients and enhance their quality of life.

Back home, in recent trends, many patients who chose to go for chemotherapy and radiotherapy are showing more acceptance toward taking TCM herbs. However, some are still reluctant after they did not get clearance from their doctors. Most who did take the herbs, did not tell their doctors. According to Yeong, the results was that those who took the TCM herbs did not suffer that much or had no side effects. This practice has been going on in China for over 50 years and just because our doctors are ignorant about the studies does not mean the patient has to continue to suffer the side effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Anyway, the body is yours, so you decide.

References:
Li Peiwen et. al. 2003, Management of Cancer with Chinese Medicine, Donica Publishing