Traditional Chinese medicine

[Silver_Fairy]

Has anyone tried TCM for their thyroid complaint? Are you hypo or hyper. What helped? Self medicated or through an expert.

Thanks

[JANJAN2]

I have hypothyroidism and I am on armour thyroid. I spent many years having acupuncture and Chinese herbs.I think that a good acupuncturist can be fantastic in aiding diagnosis by tongue and pulse observation and the treatments probably helped me. However I really feel that the only way to successfully treat hypothyroidism is through the correct amount of medication for you-and we are all very different. The late and great Dr Skinner led me through my recovery years.A lot of people have to self medicate if they cannot find an understanding doctor.My acupuncturist did help me as well in reaching the correct dosage.

[Silver_Fairy in reply to JANJAN2]

Thank you Jan

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK]

You might find something of interest in this list of papers found on PubMed:

dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u...

I simply searched for "tcm thyroid" - so it does include some totally unrelated results. As I understand from things I have read, much treatment of thyroid within China uses the standard levothyroxine and liothyronine we get - but sometimes with some other things added. I am not aware of a TCM "alternative".

One of the things that makes it difficult is finding a TCM practitioner with the right experience and you feel you can trust. I'd find it very difficult to walk through the door of at least one Chinese medicine shop in this area having read some reports over bad treatment which burned a patient. Please note: TCM may very well have a lot to teach us.

Rod

[Silver_Fairy in reply to helvella]

Thank you Rod. I have Graves so they would have to try something different!

I bookmarked, and lost said bookmark! a website that sold the products, they did a really interesting write up on each one saying why it worked etc. I wasn't going to buy but the explanations were very interesting.

[helvella Administrator Thyroid UK in reply to Silver_Fairy]

Go to PubMed and type "graves disease tcm" into the search box on the site. Only a handful of hits but possibly interesting. At least those that have some in English (I don't know any Chinese at all!)

[Glynisrose]

No, nor would I! Until the use of rare species parts is removed from Chinese medicine I will never use it!! I take NDT and although I have been on it for some years I am convinced that the long years of levo only therapy have left their indelible mark!!

[Silver_Fairy in reply to Glynisrose]

Now that's a whole new can of worms One could include testing on animals, using animal parts etc. I'm sure most of us do things against nature which are morally wrong, but pick and choose according to our wants and needs.