In a recent Two Hearts Wellness blog post I wrote a companion piece to this one. Titled “A Short Dictionary of Terms: The Language of Chinese Medicine,” I shared thoughts on the changing meanings of English-language vocabulary related to Chinese medicine. I’ll link a section of it below, but the full essay considered these terms: TCM/CCM (traditional Chinese medicine/Classical Chinese medicine); qi; acupuncture; meridians; and balance in the context of yin and yang. In this post, I will focus solely on the notion of this medicine being “alternative.”
The burning question being: is it really alternative at this point in time?
You may have heard of Chinese medicine being referred to as “complementary alternative medicine,” which references its use alongside mainstream allopathic care. That’s a little less dismissive than “alternative medicine,” which has a pejorative nuance to it and can be used in reference to any number of non-mainstream practices. Either way, I don’t see Chinese medicine as being an alternative at this point in time, at least not for everyone.
For some of us, it’s our only medicine.
Disclaimer: I am an acupuncturist and I stay within the bounds of my scope of practice. I do not encourage anyone to outright reject biomedicine. I most certainly do not think that “doing your research online” with some help from your friendly AI chatbot can replace science and scientific research. I do, though, work with a number of complex chronic illness people who have not found answers in biomedicine, people for whom Chinese medicine is their centered healthcare. And, speaking for myself, I have had so many ungodly adverse events in response to Pharma drugs (not to mention bad experiences with allopathic doctors) that I will never center biomedicine, nor will I ever view Chinese medicine as an “alternative.”
Speaking for myself, it is my only medicine.
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When I was still in my second graduate program (that would be the Chinese medicine one) I met a good number of patients who categorically refused–and I do mean refused–to have any dealings with Western medicine. Back then, I was still a little more obedient to allopathic practices and so I was quite taken aback by these folks. I thought they were hippies and groovies and weirdos, to be honest. But time went by and I also saw enough patients who had been abused by Western medicine and the biomedical-industrial complex and eventually, I began to understand and even empathize. Eventually, I also realized that I was just like them, so…
I am never surprised when a new patient comes in and they (a) are visibly anxious during the initial part of the visit and (b) tell me that they have medical PTSD. As my blog post on the subject discusses:
“Medical PTSD is a form of post-traumatic stress disorder caused by damage experienced within the contextual framework of healthcare. The trauma might encompass any number of events or occurrences. However, my focus in this essay is on the experiences of chronic, complex, and/or rare disease populations. One thing is to have an exceedingly unpleasant one-off at the doctor’s office or a surgery that went wrong and was subsequently resolved. Quite another is to be dependent on specialist medical care for your very life. Having no other choice but to engage with a system that might kill you just as readily as it keeps you alive you creates a dynamic that requires ongoing engagement and attention.
—Medical PTSD and Chronic Illness: Root Causes and Strategies for Survival
What can a chronically ill person and/or their loved ones do?”
Some of us honestly cannot deal with the biomedical-industrial complex because we have been gaslit so deeply or treated so badly that we are finished with that system. Finished.
In such cases, your practitioner of Chinese medicine might well end up being your primary care provider, the one you trust most, and the center of your medical strategies. Indeed, in New Mexico, Florida, and California, an acupuncturist can legally be designated as your PCP. So… really? It’s not alternative medicine, not really.
And what about people with substantive histories of adverse events to Pharma drugs? This is actually what got me into Chinese medicine in the first place. Nothing ever worked for me when my doctors would prescribe meds, and–more likely than not–I’d experience ungodly adverse events in response to whatever it was that I’d taken. Finally, I had to start looking for something else, something that wouldn’t damage me further. And that’s how I found Chinese medicine.
The last time I took a Pharma drug it nearly killed me. No lie, no exaggeration. It also kicked my MCAS into high gear and changed the course of my life. I will never take another Pharma drug again. True fact. And that’s ok, because Chinese herbal medicine works for me and doesn’t give me life-threatening adverse events.
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Your mileage may vary, but if you are a mastie with a history, you too might decide that herbal medicine is your better choice. If, to bring up a perhaps more common scenario, you are trying to decide whether or not to take an SSRI, you might opt to read psychiatrist, researcher, and university professor Joanna Moncrieff’s Chemically Imbalanced: The Making and Unmaking of the Serotonin Myth (Flint, 2025) and decide to do something else. Or you could read my blog post, linked here below, which picks out some of the more important points in the book and responds to them:
“Dr. Moncrieff says:
—Chemically Imbalanced: A Review and Some Replies
Re: placebo-controlled trials: ‘These [placebo-controlled] trials set out to measure depression as if it were high blood pressure, disregarding the obvious fact that human emotions are not readily amenable to being quantified. […]. It is doubtful that antidepressant trials tell us much at all, therefore, but if we accept these trials on their own terms, they reveal that antidepressants are barely better than a placebo, and the small difference detected is likely to be accounted for by amplified placebo effects’ (123).”
There are times that a person needs the Pharma drugs and when my patients need them, I encourage them. You know your own health and you know when you need a Pharma drug. People with type I diabetes, for instance, need to follow the program that their MD sets for them and there is no shame in that. But that still doesn’t turn Chinese medicine into an alternative.
And what about whether or not your issue doesn’t respond well to biomedicine? Your MD might only be able to offer pain management but you are determined to achieve a measure of pain relief. In my estimation, Chinese medicine is much better than Western for pain relief, anxiety, gut health, and complex issues like chronic inflammation. (For treatment in these realms in the context of EDS, refer to “How Chinese Medicine Treats hEDS (Where to Begin).”)
And–once again–it’s not that Chinese medicine needs to be the center and Western the alternative. We can co-exist, I believe. And this is a thought that brings me to the companion piece I mention at the beginning of this essay. The whole thing is worth reading (at least, I think so) but the discussion of the word “acupuncture” reiterates my point here. To wit: language changes. And the language we use when we refer to Chinese medicine as alternative can change too, if you ponder it:
“Acupuncture as a term was coined in the 17th century by Dutch physician, Willem ten Rhijne, to describe what he observed in Asia. The word combines two Latin words: acus (“needle”) and puncturus (“pricking” or “piercing”). Common parlance over time made this word representative of what happens when you go get poked at your licensed practitioner of Chinese medicine’s office.
–A Short Dictionary of Terms: The Language of Chinese Medicine
And yes, this has begun to change recently. It started with “medical acupuncture,” blossomed via “drying needling,” and really got some legs with “trigger point therapy.” Language does change with the times, and so did the word acupuncture.
[…]
Medical acupuncture is a term that was coined by doctors at UCLA in 1987. It’s an unfortunate term, because by calling what they do “medical acupuncture,” the implication is that what we do (CM) is not really medicine. Basically, by giving it this name, allopathic physicians took all authority for biomedicine and left us with… energy healing, I guess.
To be fair: I can see how that made sense back when the term was coined. Acupuncture came to the United States in the 70s and was embraced by counter-culture sorts like Tupac Shakur’s stepfather. Dr. Mutulu Shakur himself was an acupuncturist who founded the first acu-detox clinic in the United States. Also, hippies were into acupuncture. Yoga, acupuncture, turn on, tune out, drop out…yeah, baby! To doctors at UCLA in the 1980s, it probably made perfect sense to call what they did the more sober and trustworthy “medical acupuncture.”
But herbal medicine used to be called “Oriental medicine,” and in fact my third MA degree (the one I earned in my second graduate program) is an MAcOm (Master of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine) reflects this. Recently (and by this, I mean less than a year ago), that term changed. Herbal medicine is herbal medicine. It is no longer “Oriental.”
I had a lot more to say about this topic (read the blog post!) but the above-quoted is the gist of it: language changes. And the word acupuncture and how it’s understood has changed too.
Why not the notion of being alternative? Chinese medicine is just that, really: it’s medicine. It’s a choice, an option, a great resource. We can co-exist, truly.
What do you think?
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Dr. Paula Bruno, Ph.D., L.Ac., is a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist, an AOBTA-CP traditional Chinese bodywork therapist, an author, and a health coach. She maintains an active and growing practice at Two Hearts Wellness, her Austin, TX office. Dr. Bruno is also available for distance appointments for wellness consultation or coaching.
In her first career, she was a Spanish professor.
Dr. Bruno’s specialties as a Chinese medicine practitioner include: • Musculoskeletal health (acute or chronic pain relief; Ehlers Danlos syndrome & hypermobility support) • Digestive support, gut health, and weight loss • Aesthetic treatment, including scar revision • Men’s health • General preventative care and wellness support for all persons.
She is the author of Chinese Medicine and the Management of Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome: A Practitioner’s Guide.
When you are ready to discover what traditional medicine plus a vibrant and engaged approach to holistic health can do for you, either contact Dr. Bruno or book an appointment online.
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