Polyneuropathy

Neurologists are of the opinion that there is no real therapy with which the disease process can be reversed or even only halted. Treatment is limited to regulating sugar levels and prescribing vitamins, pain killers and psychopharmaceuticals for relief. Cortisone (inflammation blockers) and cytostatics (cancer medicine) are also sometimes used.

Chinese medicine, with its understanding of illness and its methods offers a road of therapy with astounding results. The central treatment method is Chinese medicinal therapy. On the one hand, their responsible application requires illness findings that were obtained based on modern medicine. But on the other hand, a diagnosis according to the rules of Chinese medicine must also be made so that a picture of the individual course of illness can be drawn. The reason behind this is that Chinese medicinal formulations consist of a composition of medicinal herbs that are designed for each individual case and modified according to the course of the respective therapy.

Chinese medicinal therapy for polyneuropathy is based on a certain understanding of disease. This understanding is not brought about by dismissing ourselves from modern Western medicine but by incorporating the Chinese insights to create a broader horizon. In the case of polyneuropathy, the Chinese term "tan", which is translated as phlegm in English, plays a major role. The term encompasses all undesired substances that continuously evade the clarifying and eliminating activities of the body. They have a tendency to accumulate with age and to sink into the lower regions of the body where they are deposited on tissue structures or the walls of capillaries. According to the Chinese definition of the term, they also have the tendency to develop an inflammatory, tissue-damaging potential. Since they impair micro-circulation in tissue and thus hinder supply and elimination, the process here is self-reinforcing. Once "congestion with phlegm" has begun, it keeps itself going ("auto-catalysis").

This view of the illness process corresponds to the fact that polyneuropathy is typically disease of the elderly. The question as to what the biochemical substrates are that are generally called "tan" according to the Chinese understanding remains unanswered. Their identification is a project for future research and will have to begin with the causes that are deemed certain: diabetes, toxin stress and paraproteins. There are good reasons for assuming that the biochemical substrates are protein molecules or fragments of these. Circulating "immune garbage" from everyday inflammations or the remains of tissue shedding come in question; but endogenic protein molecules should also be considered which have attracted the attention of the immune system by binding to toxic substances and are then treated by the immune system as foreign bodies. Paraproteins certainly belong to the substances that come in question (paraproteins are immune proteins incapable of functioning that are produced in excess quantities in certain white blood cell diseases).

With the aid of Chinese medicinal formulations it is obviously possible to dissolve these inflammatory conglomerates, bring the material back into circulation and eliminate it through the mucous membranes. During the phase when individual polyneuropathy symptoms improve, striking changes in excrements and other vegetative signs can be observed which indicate that these substances are being flushed out of the body. Chinese medicine describes this as "mobilisation, conversion and elimination of tan".

This healing process can be promoted by acupuncture and various physical therapeutic methods. Used alone, such external treatments do not have nearly the effect that they can develop in combination with Chinese medicinal therapy. The art of medicinal therapy is - to put it in a nutshell - properly modifying the basic formulations designed for the disease. They must be adapted again and again for each individual patient and to the individual course of therapy. The goal is to provoke the organism into a healthy reaction without overtaxing it.