LETTERS: As a medical doctor, I was approached by a family member one day who came as a patient to me.
He was diagnosed with a minor stroke and asked me if traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) could cure his disease.
I was sceptical, but I did not understand enough of TCM to tell him no.
As a healthcare provider, my job is to provide the best available options to the patients and help them understand the risks involved.
So, I decided to find out more by doing my own research and came across the concept of Integrative Medicine (IM).
IM is a collaborative approach to healthcare that combines effective modern and complementary medicine for a more holistic approach to patient treatment.
In Malaysia, traditional and complementary medicine (T&CM) has seven practice areas recognised under T&CM Act 2016 including TCM, traditional Malay medicine, traditional Indian medicine, Islamic medicine, homeopathy, chiropractic and osteopathy.
Many hospitals in Malaysia have integrated TCM in their practices.
What can TCM offer to the modern medical world?
Acupuncture is used to help reduce the side effects of chemotherapy or radiotherapy.
Myofascial therapy helps release tension over surgical scars.
TCM post-stroke rehabilitation is used in addition to conventional physiotherapy to speed up the recovery process.
Acupuncture-assisted anaesthesia in thyroidectomy is conducted in the Ipoh General Hospital.
All of the above sound very promising, but do we have to worry about herb-drug interactions?
If you are seeking treatment and medication from both ends, what is the possibility of herbs interacting negatively with drugs? How serious can the side effects be?
Answering that question will take a few pages of explanation regarding drug and herb pharmacology, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics.
So will herb-drug interactions occur?
Yes, it can happen even though it is not something frequent. The consequences range vastly from something of very minimal effect to something detrimental to your health.
If you are seeking treatment from both modern and traditional medicine, the first thing you should do is ensure that you are seeing the right person for your problem.
Ensure your TCM practitioner is registered and certified.
Understand your purpose of seeking treatment and have a consensus with your healthcare provider of your treatment aim and plan.
Ensure both parties are aware that you are seeking treatment simultaneously, or even better, get a referral for T&CM within the same hospital setting if available.
As a western medicine practitioner, I strongly believe in evidence-based medicine.
I do not believe that traditional medicine itself is the solution to cancer or any other diseases but using TCM as an adjunct to complement modern medicine is something interesting and worth venturing into, as modern medicine itself is imperfect in many ways.
I am eager to see how much more TCM can be integrated with modern medicine to provide a better standard of care for patients.
Will TCM be integrated into the world of modern medicine so much that one day medical doctors will have to learn TCM in medical school?
Perhaps a medical physician will regularly delve into acupuncture for pain relief instead of prescribing paracetamol ?
Maybe.
I would like to thank Dr Lim Ren Jye (a medical physician trained in both modern medicine and TCM with a special interest in Integrative Oncology) for helping me understand the world of IM.
DR JOWYNE YAP
Kuala Lumpur
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times