Western Medicine Verses Eastern Medicine : Outcome to Chinese Herbs and Acupuncture

By Michelle Longo-Bloom
November 2, 2010


While Eastern medicine is highly recognized and widely used here we must be careful in making certain distinctions. In November of 2009, exactly one year ago to date, I began investigating a holistic medical approach for my sporadic episodes of Bipolar II Disorder. Although hope is a void feeling for someone in my condition, in the mildest sense of the word, I felt compelled to exhaust every option available to me. I was forced to lift my head off my pillow on the days I was scheduled to be injected with tiny needles along the front and back of my body and pick up my powered mud to drink morning and night. Driving down the Westside highway on our way to Chinatown and glaring into the Hudson waters enabled me to see myself enjoying life on a 54 foot long Sea ray. It enabled me to envision life without treacherous moments of despair ready to strike at any given time regardless of the slightest positive or negative events happening around me when my illness was in attack mode.

After about 2 months I became very heavily immersed in a regular series of needle sticking and herb boiling and drinking. I remember feeling what I thought to be minute differences in my mood directly after each treatment which rarely lasted more than a few hours. However, these minuscule changes were more than any Western medicines were doing for me at the time. At this point I even began utilizing alternative methods in areas local to my home where more needles and more herbs, both in powder and pill form were being administered to me now. With each recurring treatment I would ask the acupuncture and herbal specialists the same question, “Does this really help people who have what I have?”

“Oh yes, very very good for this”

“How many people would you say you treat with my condition?”

“Many, many people.”

Never being able to pinpoint a number, after a few more sessions at two or three times a week, I began to kindly ask if I could leave my number for one or two other patients they treated who suffered from what I did. It was my hope to hear something about their recoveries, remissions or so called “success stories.” My request was avoided.

After 4 months of treatment I was beginning to feel somewhat disappointed. With the admitted exception of feeling slightly better emotionally and physically after drinking my boiled herbs, I felt no other significant differences. My skepticism began to set in as it did on the first day I walked into the door of a little side street off Canal and Mott. My unreserved amazement from the time my tongue was examined and all the precision of my ailments were hit on the head to the present time was increasingly dissipating. After 6 months of repeatedly hearing, “It could take a while”, I began to wonder how much time I had wasted by not being on “traditional” (in a less formal sense of the word) Western medication.

After about 8 months, I put a call into my psychopharmocologist, something that my therapist had been encouraging me to do for some time now and I was conveniently avoiding. I started back on medication and within 3 months I began to unravel the tangled web of confusion my head was submerged in. I began to see glimmers of hope. I started to rise up out of my bed where my body indentation was so engraved in my mattress that I could actually see myself lying there when I clearly wasn’t. I once again began looking forward to sandy beaches, turquoise waters, blue skies, green grass and fall foliage.

In closing, I am not about to knock my attempt at an Eastern medicine approach and experience. However, based on my recent experience my feeling is that it may not be right for everyone. There are certain mental illnesses and biological/chemical brain disorders far more insidious than certain physical illnesses. I have Bipolar II Disorder. I have had it for over 16 years. I am faced with the all too well known fear and inevitability of recurrent episodes for the rest of my life. For all those who share in this common condition, we need to be seeing our psychiatrists and therapists on a regular basis and we need be on Western psychotropic medication. This being said, I do not regret turning down a magazine offer to publish my article on Eastern Holistic Medicine only if I agreed to “bash” all of our Western medical treatments and approaches. While I do not deny for a single second that pharmaceutical companies are making millions and that there are real problems with our healthcare system, I am forced to ask myself, “Where would I be if I did not switch back?”