Cure for Eczema?

One of my tutoring student D is visiting her sister in Taiwan these days (her sister is currently learning Mandarin in Taipei). Got an e-mail from her today asking me if I can tell her where my Chinese doctor's clinic is because her sister is suffering from very bad eczema and allergies.

As a veteran of having eczema and all kinds of allergies forEVER and had lived in Taiwan for over 30 years, I gave some suggestions for her sister:

• Find a TCM (traditional Chinese medical) doctor that is close or convenient to her (or covered by her student's insurance), so she can pay frequent visits whenever the symptoms get worse.

If you go to the western dermatologist, you will get the ointment, take some drugs to suppress the symptoms (or give you a shot of cortisone if the symptoms are really bad). Then you can only prey for a delay of the next burst sometime again. However, in TCM theory, eczema or many kinds of allergies are the results of the dampness in the spleen, ill digestion in the stomach, excessive heat in the liver and hence the depletion of liver energy.

Therefore, to possibly "cure" eczema (There's no way to cure eczema with today's medical technology. You can ask for living with eczema peacefully, and it only comes visiting your from time to time), the TCM use the herbs, acupressure and acupuncture, or moxibustion to enhance the funtions and circulations in certain organs, and therefore remove the stagnation/dampness/excessive heat of relative areas, and more effectively relieve your symptoms.

If we use "an overheated kitchen stove on a very damp tile floor" to be the analogy of eczema, let's compare how the western and Chinese way of dealing with the issues in the kitchen (our body).

• Western dermatologist: first of all, the doctor might splash some cold water or throw some ice(drugs or shots) on the stove to cool down the hot kitchen (so the kitchen will be cooled down right away). Then the doctor lay some paper towels on the damp floor (the ointment), so the cook (our skin) won't fall on the slippery floor. Then, the cook can still perform what he/she supposes to do in a short term.

And when the kitchen is soon over-heated again, the doctor might tell the cook to turn on a fan or air-conditioning(depends on how rich you are) to control the possible up-coming hazard...

• TMC doctor: first the doctor try to locate the origin of the hazard. If it's the broken knob on the switch, turn the switch down a bit to low fire, so the surface and back splash behind the stove (the breakouts and rashes in our skin) will gradually cool down. Then the doctor tries to find some rag to slowly absorb the dampness on the floor, so no one will fall on it again. However, the whole process will take a while (depends on how damp and over-heated this kitchen is).

I'll write more about other "cures" some other time. Go to run some errands now.