The Role of Pattern-Based Treatment and 'Using Poison to Attack Poison' During Cancer Therapy
Over the past two years I have visited a number of folk doctors who treat cancer with TCM, and followed up on patients who survived thanks to Chinese medicine. I have found that TCM anti-cancer treatment cannot do without "using poison to attack poison." Personally, I think TCM's use of poison to attack poison may be the root-treatment for cancer, while traditional pattern differentiation and treatment is only branch-treatment for cancer patients.
Since the second half of 2016, I myself have taken a big step forward in using poison to attack poison against cancer, and clinical efficacy has clearly improved. With poison-attacking-poison treatment, the success rate of cancer markers dropping and tumors shrinking is considerably higher than when treating purely by TCM pattern differentiation.
Cancer patients, at different stages of the disease, develop various different symptoms. TCM pattern differentiation and treatment has important significance in cancer care: it can help patients reduce suffering, eliminate some symptoms, prolong survival, and provide support for other treatments. But it has little effect in shrinking tumors or lowering the patient's cancer markers.
Through over ten years of practice and observation, I personally think the claim that raising cancer patients' immunity can fight cancer is, to some extent, self-deception. The classic TCM line from the Huangdi Neijing—"When right qi is stored within, the pathogen cannot assail"—has only partial validity for cancer. Right-supporting treatment can indeed moderately prolong cancer patients' survival and improve their quality of life, but it is still far from curing the patient or giving a long survival.
The late contemporary famous anti-cancer physician Sun Bingyan considered cancer to be a kind of toxin, which he named "cancer toxin" (ai du). Dr. Sun was highly skilled in treating cancer patients with poison-attacking-poison and precipitating/purging methods; among his cancer patients, nearly a thousand survived long-term, creating many survival miracles. I have also met a few folk healers who relied on poison-attacking folk remedies to treat cancer and achieved good results.
By comparison, the currently prevailing milder TCM cancer approach, based on supporting right qi and pattern differentiation, has the advantage of low risk, but acts very little in shrinking tumors or lowering cancer markers. Such treatment can only play an auxiliary role in integrated Chinese-Western treatment; it helps patients recover strength, relieves some symptoms, and reduces mortality from the side effects of surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy.
This treatment orientation of TCM anti-cancer care has also caused TCM to gradually become purely adjunctive during cancer therapy, unable to give full play to TCM's anti-tumor advantages—truly regrettable.
Cancer treatment requires combining pattern differentiation with disease differentiation. Cancer is a special disease; the cancer cell's development in the body has its own peculiarities, and only treatment targeted at the cancer cell can truly control cancer's progression. Personally, I believe the key to this targeted disease treatment lies in using poison to attack poison.
The four characters "using poison to attack poison" often sound terrifying, but in practice I have found it far less frightening than imagined. As long as attention is paid to dosage and measure, patients hardly experience any poisoning. Ordinary poisoning is mostly caused by doctors and patients dosing too recklessly; if dosage is well controlled and dosing intervals are not too dense, patients are very safe.
My own experience is to start from the lowest dose, gradually increasing the amount and variety of poison-attacking-poison herbs; if the patient shows intolerance, reduce the amount and variety. Moreover, after a certain period of dosing there must be periods off, so the body can expel toxin on its own. Thus one can both achieve the goal of treating cancer and ensure the patient's safety. This is also the universal approach of the great TCM external-medicine masters of the dynasties in treating cancer.
Highly toxic herbs like Pishuang (arsenolite) and Banmao (blister beetle) do have definite efficacy in treating cancer. When used properly, patients benefit greatly from these poison-attacking-poison herbs; Academician Chen Zhu, former Health Minister, was himself a master of using arsenic to treat leukemia. Dr. Sun Bingyan's relatively high success rate in treating cancer had a great deal to do with his daring use of such highly toxic herbs.
But pure poison-attacking-poison carries great risk, and for many cancer patients it can rapidly cause death. This is also an important reason why folk doctors who rely solely on poison-attacking folk remedies have low cancer success rates. Lacking systematic TCM knowledge, some folk healers blindly attack poison without being able to use pattern differentiation to handle the various complications that arise, so patients often die of severe complications.
Poison-attacking-poison must be timed precisely; it can be used only when the patient's bowel and bladder movements are unobstructed. When using poison-attacking herbs for cancer, if the patient's urination and defecation are not smooth, poisoning accidents easily occur, and patients often die from the toxins accumulating in the body beyond endurance.
Many clinical symptoms of mid-to-late-stage cancer patients cannot be resolved by poison-attacking-poison alone; these must be handled by the physician through TCM pattern differentiation. Moreover, poison-attacking-poison treatment itself brings side effects, which also need to be resolved through TCM pattern differentiation.
So TCM cancer treatment makes high demands on a TCM physician's comprehensive level and courage. Without enough comprehensive skill, he cannot resolve the patient's various complications; without enough courage, he dares not adopt poison-attacking-poison treatment—and both delay the patient.
Poison-attacking-poison treatment also requires the patient's trust and cooperation; the doctor can carry out effective work only under the premise of the patient's and family's trust.
Poison-attacking-poison treatment produces some unexpected side effects, but from what I have observed, the side effects of TCM poison-attacking-poison are far milder than those of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. I do not know since when TCM has come to be seen in the public mind as a purely regulating therapy that should have no side effects; so when side effects appear during treatment, patients and families immediately panic and even doubt the doctor, causing treatment to be impossible to carry through.
I generally "pre-vaccinate" patients and families by telling them the side effects in advance; sometimes, to fully allay doubt, I even describe the possible side effects as somewhat more severe than they will actually be, so the patient and family are fully prepared. Even so, many patients and families still give up treatment out of fear once side effects appear.
Out of concern for the clinician's own professional safety, I suggest that clinicians giving poison-attacking-poison treatment to cancer patients choose drugs as gradually as possible—starting from low-toxicity poison-attacking herbs and marketed poison-attacking patent medicines. Once tumor-shrinking efficacy is achieved, do not risk using more toxic poison-attacking herbs, to avoid medical accidents. It is better to lengthen the treatment course than to risk accidents that threaten the patient's life.
Patients using poison-attacking-poison treatment should also regularly assess efficacy. At the start, checking the tumor every two or three months with modern precision instruments helps judge whether treatment is working. Generally, if TCM poison-attacking-poison treatment is effective, tumor shrinkage appears within one to three months.
As for patients who are extremely advanced, or who have already undergone overtreatment, one should avoid poison-attacking-poison as much as possible, because such patients' original qi is already greatly damaged and cannot bear the side effects of poison-attacking-poison, which easily endanger their lives. For such patients, a more realistic TCM plan is symptomatic treatment to relieve symptoms. Before treatment the doctor should communicate fully with the family, telling them the expected result is not good and that hospice care should be the main approach.
TCM cancer treatment is extremely delicate work; it requires a doctor with a solid foundation, meticulous thinking, keen reflexes, and the ability to observe the patient's reactions in time. When the patient's condition is complex, the doctor may even need to watch the patient's reactions as closely as a nanny, keeping track of the body's changes at all times; only thus can the most ideal result be achieved.