Gracie Ang is a strong  believer in the importance of diet in treating musculoskeletal problems and other related health issues. She believes people should be treated with food and herbs, not prescription drugs. The herbs Gracie recommends, depending upon an individual’s unique problems, have been successfully used for centuries in helping people overcome diet deficiencies. Gracie strongly recommends a high water intake, eating organic produce, reducing or eliminating red meat, alcohol, dairy, and in some cases gluten. Most of Gracie’s dietary recommendations are based upon the study and practice of TCM.

What is TCM?

TCM, or Traditional Chinese Medicine, is a wide range of medicine and treatment practices developed in China over the past 2,000 years. It includes branches of herbal medicine, acupuncture, Tui na (massage), qigong (exercise), and dietary therapy.

TCM strives to help people live a life of balance and harmony by empowering individuals with a way to unite body, mind, and spirit. It is one of the oldest healing systems known to man and deeply rooted in unchanging natural laws.

Four Principles of TCM

Prevention is the best cure. TCM teaches you how to read the language of your body, your tongue, your skin, your breath, your pulse, your urine, and many other indicators, so you can be proactive about your health.

Your body has a natural healing ability. Your body heals you, not the doctor. Treatment helps to facilitate this healing process.

Your body is a complex, integrated whole.  Every part of your body is a necessary part of the whole. Your mind, emotions, spirit, and physical body are all powered by a central life force or energy, referred to in TCM as qi.

We are all connected to nature. Changes in your surroundings will always be reflected in your body. TCM factors in geographical locations, seasons, time of day, genetics, your age, air quality, water quality, and other natural factors when looking at your health issues.

Herbs in TCM

In TCM treatment, herbs are used internally for tonifying, detoxifying, relieving, and invigorating the whole body and internal organs. External applications are used to stop bleeding, repair injuries, and rejuvenate scarred tissues.

Listed below are TCM herbs recommended and used by Gracie in her practice:

HERB NAME: Jie Geng,  Root of the balloon flower, platycodon.

Its function:

1. Opens up and disseminates the lung chi and expels the phlegm, for cough.
2. Promotes the discharge of pus: for expelling pus associated with lung abscess or throat abscess.

Benefits the throat: used in many cases of sore throat or loss of voice.

HERB NAME: Ju Hua, chrysanthemum flower.

Its function:

1. Disperses wind and clears heat: for wind-heat-patterns with fever and headache.
2. Clears the liver and the eyes for red, painful, dry eyes, or excessive tearing.

HERB NAME: Niu Xi, achyranthes root.

Its function:

1. Invigorates the blood stasis patterns with such symptoms as dysmenorrhea, amenorrhea, and lochioschesis.
2. Strengthens the sinews and bones and benefits the joints for pain and soreness affecting the lower back and knees.

Can be used to treat painful urinary dysfunction or vaginal discharge, nosebleeds, toothaches, vomiting blood, and  bleeding gums.

HERB NAME: Pi Pa Ye, loquat leaf, eriobotrya.

Its function :

1. Transforms phlegm, clears lung heat.
2. Harmonizes the stomach, vomiting, hiccoughs, and belching.

HERB NAME: Pu Gong Ying, dandelion.

Its function:

1. Clears heat and relieves fire toxicity: for any heat disorder, especially Liver heat with red, swollen, and painful eyes.
2. Reduces abscesses and dissipates nodules: for abscesses and sores, particularly if they are firm and hard.
3. Clears heat and jaundice and painful urinary dysfunction.

HERB NAME: San Leng, bur-reed rhizome, scirpus.

Its function:

1. Forcefully breaks up blood stasis.
2. Promotes the movement of qi and alleviates pain for blood stasis patterns, amenorrhea, dysmenorrheal, and post partum abdominal pain.
3. Dissolves accumulations: for severe abdominal pain and distention due to food stagnation and stagnant qi.

HERB NAME: Sang Ji Sheng, mulberry mistletoe stems, loranthus.

Its function:

1. Tonifies the liver and kidneys.
2. Strengthens the sinews and bones.
3. Nourishes the blood and calms the womb: for restless fetus or uterine bleeding during pregnancy.
4. Nourishes the blood and benefits the skin: for dry, scaly skin due to blood deficiency.

Can be used to treat hypertension.

HERB NAME: Sang Ye, white mulberry leaf.

Its function:

1. Expels and clears heat from the lungs.  For fever, headache, sore throat, and coughing.  Also for lung dryness with cough and dry mouth or lung heat with thick, yellow sputum.

Can be used to treat fever, headache, sore throat, and coughing, as well as, lung dryness with cough and dry mouth or lung heat with thick, yellow sputum. It can also be used to treat eye problems due to red, sore, dry or painful eyes, or spots in front of the eyes.

HERB NAME: Shan Yao, Chinese yam, dioscorea.

Its function:

1. Tonifies and augments the spleen and stomach.
2. Tonifies the lung energy for chronic cough or wheezing.

Can be used to treat spermatorrhea, frequent urination, and vaginal discharge. Can also be used to treat diarrhea, fatigue, spontaneous sweating and lack of appetite.

HERB NAME: Shan Zhu Yu, Asiatic Cornelian cherry fruit, conus.

Its function:

1. Stabilizes the kidneys and retains the essence.

Used to treat leakage of fluids due to weak essence with symptoms such as excessive urination, incontinence, spermatorrhea, and excessive heating. Also used to treat lightheadedness, dizziness, sore and weak lower back and knees, impotence, and prolonged menstruation.

HERB NAME: Sheng Ma, bugbane rhizome, black cohosh rhizome, cimicifuga.

Its function:

1. Releases the exterior and vents measles: for headache and early stages of measles.
2. Clears heat and relieves toxicity: for sore teeth, swollen or paintful gums, ulcerated lips or gums, canker sores, painful and swollen throat, sores, or blotches from warm-febrile diseases.

Can also be used to treat shortness of breath, fatigue and prolapse.

HERB NAME: Suan Zao Ren, sour jujube seed, zizyphus.

Its function:

1. Prevents abnormal sweating: for both spontaneous sweating and night sweats.

Can be used to treat irritability, insomnia, and palpitations with anxiety.

HERB NAME: Tai Zi Shen, pseudostellaria.

Its function:

1. Strengthens the spleen and augments the qi: for spleen and stomach deficiency with fatigue and lack of appetite.
2. Generates fluids: for thirst and injury to fluids after a febrile disease.

Can be used to treat spontaneous sweating, as well as unrelenting fever or summer heat in children.

HERB NAME: Tian Ma, gastrodia rhizome.

Its function:

1. Controls spasm and tremors.
2. Disperses painful obstruction: for wind-damp painful obstruction with pain and numbness of the lower back and extremities.

Can be used to treat headache, dizziness, childhood convulsions, epilepsy, tonic-clonic spasms, opisthotonos, tetany, and wind-stroke.

HERB NAME: Wu Jia Pi, acanthopanax root bark.

Its function:

1. Strengthens the sinews and bones.
2. Reduces swelling for urinary difficulty, edema and damp-cold leg qi.

It is particularly suitable for treating the elderly, and for developmental delays in the motor functions of children.

HERB NAME: Xia Ku Cao, selfheal spike, prunella.

Its function:

1. Clears the liver and brightens the eyes.
2. Clears heat and dissipates nodules.

Can be used to treat red, painful or swollen eyes, headaches, dizziness, and hypertension. Can also be used to treat neck lumps or nodules, as in scrofula, lipomas, or swollen glands.  Can also be used to treat nodules in the inguinal canal and other parts of the body.

HERB NAME: Xing Ren, apricot seed or kenel.

HERB NAME:-

Its function:

1. Stops coughing and calms wheezing.
2. Moistens the intestines and unblocks the bowels.

Can be used quite broadly for many kinds of cough disorders caused by either heat or cold. Because the herb is moist in nature, it is especially useful for externally-contracted dry cough.

Make an appointment with Gracie, today!