Two Common-Sense Points About Taking Chinese Herbal Medicine That Patients Easily Overlook But That Can Be Fatal

Because patients and their family members are not professional Chinese medicine physicians, and because clinicians cannot monitor everything a patient does, unpredictable high-risk events frequently occur, sometimes even causing death. I have written this article to alert patients.

The first point is that a vital principle in Chinese medicine treatment is to "strictly follow the disease mechanism and adapt as the pattern changes." In other words, when a physician writes a prescription, that prescription targets the disease mechanism of the moment. The "disease mechanism" in Chinese medicine is the set of symptoms a patient manifests right here and now. Once a patient obtains the prescription, he should take it immediately.

Some patients misunderstand Chinese medicine, believing that an herbal prescription can be taken at any time without problem. This view is seriously mistaken. Once the symptoms have changed, taking the old prescription can easily cause a serious medical accident, and in severe cases it can cost the patient his life.

It is especially dangerous when a patient gets a prescription from one physician, then goes and takes medicine prescribed by another physician, develops various transformed patterns, and then, days later, picks up the medicine prescribed by the first physician and takes it again—this can lead to major trouble.

I just encountered a patient who, after taking the medicine of a certain famous "Doctor X," had previously been in fairly good health but immediately took to bed, her strength declining sharply. She then came to me, and I prescribed a heavy emergency formula to rescue the collapse. But she was reluctant to waste the herbs: she had not yet finished Doctor X's medicine, so she kept on taking it, and afterward developed irritability, nausea, and constipation. At that point she did not even consult me about whether she could still take my original prescription; she took the medicine I had prescribed that day on her own. After one dose she vomited immediately. Because her will to survive was so strong, she refused to give up even after vomiting and took another dose, whereupon the vomiting grew even worse.

Judging by the symptoms that appeared, I believe that while continuing Doctor X's medicine she had already developed intestinal obstruction. Doctor X's formula was strongly acrid and hot, and Doctor X had prescribed toxic cantharis (banmao) and similar substances, which had already caused her difficulty urinating and leg swelling. When obstruction is present, one should primarily use purgatives to unblock the bowels and remove the obstruction. Taking a collapse-rescuing formula at that point only worsens the obstruction.

This lesson has been seared into my memory; it still makes me tremble. The reckless use of Chinese herbal prescriptions can kill people. Had this accident been any worse, a single such event could have landed me in prison for more than ten years. This experience also frightened me so that I no longer dare to prescribe lightly. I hope all patients will take note: an herbal prescription cannot simply be picked up and taken at any moment. And the prescriptions of two physicians with different rationales must never be taken at the same time, or serious problems will result.

The second point concerns the toxic side effects of Chinese herbal medicine. Everyone assumes Chinese herbs have very low toxicity, but among the patients I see now, many have been brought down by a single decoction or a few days of a patent medicine—some have died within days. My own late mother is a case in point: after being introduced to a so-called "divine physician's" medicinal wine by a fellow patient, she deteriorated sharply within a few days and never recovered from it.

There was also a sixteen-year-old brain-cancer patient who came to me through a fellow townsman's referral. Because she was so young, I never dared to treat her directly and only donated money, urging her mother to seek treatment from reputable qualified specialists. Several times, the specialists the mother found brought the patient down within a few doses; each time I had to rescue her emergency, and once she recovered I still dared not treat her, again urging her to find another famous physician. This repeated many times, and she finally died rapidly from the medicine of another "divine physician." This experience of patients seeking treatment on their own and fighting the disease together has frightened me even to this day.

The pharmacognosist Zhang Tingmo once said that Chinese herbs are not only toxic but can be highly toxic. Not long ago I heard of a patient being treated for atrophic gastritis who developed liver poisoning because he took toosendan fruit (Chuanlianzi) for too long. Another elderly woman, who did not have cancer but was afraid of dying, heard that oldenlandia (Baihuasheshecao) fights cancer, so she boiled and drank it to kill the so-called "large numbers of cancer cells present even in healthy people"; she ended up with liver necrosis.

Patients taking herbs must take care: start with a small trial dose, gradually increase, and do not take them for long periods. Take at least two days off each week to reduce the burden on the liver and kidneys.