When Taking Chinese Medicine for Cancer, Beware of Ruining Your Stomach

Cancer is a chronic disease, and treating it is a long process. Patients who choose TCM against cancer, in particular, must take Chinese medicine for a long time to achieve effective control.

But not all patients benefit from Chinese medicine. Many take it for cancer yet grow worse and worse; afraid to stop lest the cancer run out of control, they force themselves to keep taking it, only to become weaker and weaker, ending emaciated—dying not of the disease but of the medicine. That is a great pity.

When a Chinese herbal formula is used improperly, it can damage the stomach severely. On recent out-of-town consultation trips, over half the patients I saw were critical cases whose stomachs had been so injured by Chinese medicine that they could take neither food nor water.

The TCM physicians who prescribed for these patients were no mediocrities—mostly well-known TCM experts from their regions. So patients and families, in the course of taking the medicine, are especially prone, out of blind faith in the expert's authority, to keep taking it even when obvious side effects appear.

Whether Chinese or Western, achieving a 50% response rate in cancer patients is already remarkable. So no matter how authoritative a TCM expert, the formula he prescribes is not necessarily truly beneficial and harmless. During TCM treatment, patients should be smart, not superstitious, and learn to judge for themselves whether a doctor's prescription suits them.

Not long ago, on a consultation trip to Guilin, Guangxi, I met a patient taking Chinese medicine prescribed by a locally renowned veteran TCM physician. The veteran had given him a modified Longdan Xiegan Tang (Gentian Draining the Liver Decoction). Leaving aside the side effects of mutong (Caulis Akebiae) in the formula, the longdan cao (Gentianae Radix) alone is basically among the bitterest of all Chinese herbs. After taking it for over forty days continuously, the patient was vomiting even water.

The doctor, thinking the patient had a stomach problem, prescribed stomach medicine and told him to continue Longdan Xiegan Tang. The patient resisted, because he knew his stomach had been fine before the medicine; it was after taking the herbs that it broke down.

When I asked about his condition, he told me that after about forty days of Longdan Xiegan Tang, his mouth was so bitter that even his teeth felt bitter, and drinking water triggered vomiting. Unable to eat, he had lost weight sharply, constantly craved sugar, and was surviving on Western nutritional IVs, basically bedridden.

After my assessment, I used modified Xiao Jianzhong Tang (Minor Construct the Middle Decoction) and Guipi Tang (Spleen-Returning Decoction) to regulate his appetite. After about a week, he could eat, no longer vomited, recovered his strength, and could go out cycling. It must be noted here that when cancer patients need long-term medication, bitter-cold herbs should not be used for too long.

Even in patients with a heat tendency who need bitter-cold heat-draining herbs, the duration of use must be considered and combined with herbs that protect the spleen and stomach. Once bitter-cold herbs are overused, the result is like this Guilin patient: spleen yang is injured and food will not go down. The spleen is the root of acquired constitution; once it is injured, the very root of survival is injured.

Early this month, when I went to Lanzhou to see another patient, I encountered a very similar situation. This patient had previously taken about a year of bitter-cold, purgative Chinese medicine, losing over fifty jin in weight, becoming emaciated and weak.

According to the family, the previous doctor had a very high reputation in Gansu and used bitter-cold purgatives for a long time. After taking the medicine, the patient had severe diarrhea; the patient and family thought this was "detoxifying," and persisted for about a year, finally causing great damage to his original qi.

I should mention here that purgatives like dahuang (Rhei Radix et Rhizoma) should also not be used long-term. Dahuang can loosen the bowels, but long-term use can cause habitual constipation. TCM holds that prolonged use of bitter-cold herbs damages spleen yang; from ancient times to today, physicians have been cautious about long-term use of such herbs.

Another thing I have seen often over the years is patients who take medicine year after year, 365 days a year without a break, until they finally ruin their stomachs. A ruined stomach is the most troublesome thing of all. Without a good stomach and the ability to eat, even the finest miracle drug cannot save a life.

For my own patients, I closely watch changes in their appetite while they take medicine. I specifically require them to pause for a few days after every period of dosing, and I tell them to be smart: whenever they feel their appetite is significantly affected, stop immediately and contact me. In this way we can at least preserve a relatively healthy stomach.