The Stages of Healing: Reaching your Health Goals with Chinese Herbal Medicine

How long will my herbal medicine treatment take? Will I need to take herbs forever? These are common questions you may have about treatment at my clinic.

The length of your herbal medicine treatment plan is variable based on the condition, severity, and a number of individual case factors. Treatment is focused on creating positive changes in your body rather than suppressing symptoms, so most of my clients do not need to continue taking herbs when their treatment is complete.

Your treatment is complete when you feel better and that improvement is stable. This may mean complete resolution of your condition, or it may mean as good as we can possibly get it. 

The method I use follows 3 phases: relief, stabilization, and maintenance. 

1. Relief: we want to see you feeling better with a reduction in symptoms of 60% or greater. 

2. Stabilization: we continue treatment for roughly the same amount of time that it took to get relief in order to make sure that the relief you experience becomes your new normal.

3. Maintenance: this may include using gentle diet, lifestyle, and exercise changes to help prevent recurrence or future problems. It can also include a low dose of herbal medicines. 

   
   

Let's look at an example of this approach on action:

A client comes to me experiencing daily panic attacks and anxiety. We begin with the relief phase. After six weeks of taking 12 grams of their custom granule extract formula daily, they are no longer having panic attacks and they are able to manage stress at a reasonable level. Now we move on to the stabilization phase. We continue treatment for another six weeks at that dosage to establish this state of relative calm as the new normal.

Next is the maintenance phase. This will depend on the stresses and triggers in life. If it was an acute period of stress that initiated this problem, treatment may be complete with no maintenance. If it was not acute stress, but a chronic stress that created the problem (like a high pressure job that will continue into the foreseeable future), then we will create a maintenance plan.

That might look like daily meditation practice, taiji, qigong, or yoga. Or it may look like taking 3 grams per day of a granule extract formula, or 6 capsules of an appropriate standard formula. I work with you to create a good plan that will work to keep you on the track to feeling good and staying that way.