I don’t think there is a need to rush into surgery for these types of gynecological conditions. At least, surgery is not your only option.
One, ovarian cysts; one, endometriosis; and another, uterine fibroids.
Ovarian cysts and endometriosis have been the subject of my clinical research for many years, so I’ll start with these two pieces.
Why do Western doctors recommend surgery? The reason is that for these two problems, so far, modern medicine does not have any specific medicine.
The most famous of the western medicine are “three elements”. Which three elements? Hormones, antibiotics and vitamins.
When it comes to ovarian cysts, can you use hormones? The hormone will only stimulate the cyst to grow bigger and bigger; what about antibiotics? It is an anti-inflammatory drug, and ovarian cysts are not bacterial-induced inflammation; vitamins, to enhance resistance, and your disease is not caused by a lack of micronutrients, so vitamins are not useful.
The cause of endometriosis is not very clear to modern medicine, it may be related to the medical dissemination factor, it may be related to the backflow of menstrual blood, and it may be related to immune factors and many other factors. If the cause of the disease is not known, it is difficult to find the point of action of the treatment, and the efficacy of the treatment is not satisfactory.
In this case, Western medicine proposes to operate, and everything is done.
The psychological acceptance of surgery is different for each person: some patients hope that surgery can cure the disease; others are afraid of surgery when they hear about it. Surgery is definitely dangerous and costly, and each surgery can’t be carried out without 7 to 8 thousand dollars. Time, psychologically, physically and monetarily, the patient pays too heavy a price.
The worst thing is that if you bite the bullet and have the surgery, there is a problem of high recurrence rate.
I had a patient with an ovarian cyst who had a recurrence less than 4 months after her ovaries were peeled off, so she was in tears and finally came to me to see a TCM doctor. The recurrence rate of endometriosis after surgery is also quite high, at 50%. Want to avoid recurrence? It’s as simple as having a radical operation to remove the uterus and bilateral adnexa – what woman can afford to have such an operation?
How does herbal medicine eliminate a cyst that is too big for a pear?
Why can’t surgery solve the underlying problem?
Because it only eliminates the discovered lesion, but can’t do anything about the factors that created it. This is called treating the symptoms but not the root cause.
The advantage of TCM is that its treatment philosophy is to treat both the symptoms and the root cause. Therefore, in the treatment of ovarian cysts and endometriosis, TCM is quite advantageous. My experience is that most of the ovarian cysts can be removed by TCM and surgery is not necessary up to a certain level; most of the endometriosis, which is less than 4 cm, can be eliminated by TCM in 1-2 months.
In our school canteen, there is a young couple from Jiangxi. They couldn’t have children, so they came to Hangzhou to work and see a doctor at the same time. One day when I went to the canteen, the woman told me that she hadn’t had her period for 3 months and her left lower abdomen was very painful.
I asked her to come for an ultrasound on Sunday morning, and I was stunned to see that there was a cyst the size of a duck pear in her ovary, so it was strange that her stomach didn’t hurt!
This cyst, more than 6cm in diameter, and modern medical regulations, more than 5cm cysts need to be operated, she was afraid of surgery, so I will use Chinese medicine to treat it first. She took Chinese medicine for 7 days and came back for ultrasound on the second Sunday morning and found that the cyst had shrunk to the point where she couldn’t find it.
There are many more cases like this. After doing more cases, I have my own experience that newborn cysts are good to go away, but old cysts are harder to go away. Newborn cysts can gradually disappear as early as a week or as late as a month or two. However, old cysts that are more than one year old are already fibrotic inside and have poorer absorption of drugs, so I have to give another 3-6 months for the old cysts to go away.
Why does Chinese medicine have the same effect as open surgery without opening surgery? Where is the science of Chinese medicine? Let me give you an analogy.
In rainy weather like now, a mushroom grows on a log, and you take the method of excision to eliminate this mushroom, is it a method? Yes, but you just remove the mushroom, as long as it is still raining, the wood is still the same wood, then the mushroom will still grow.
The idea of Chinese medicine is to take a wood with mushrooms and put it in the desert of Iraq and see if it still grows! By the same token, TCM does not surgically remove cysts and endometriosis lesions, but TCM can gradually improve your internal environment and change the internal environment where mushrooms grow, so that the cysts and lesions will naturally grow from large to small and disappear.
Treatment of endometriosis and sometimes chloasma removal
I can tell you one more interesting tidbit about TCM’s focus on both the symptoms and the root cause.
In terms of medication, for ovarian cysts, I focus on “resolving phlegm”, using herbs such as seaweed, oyster, and Xia Gu Cao to resolve phlegm and eliminate symptoms. In the case of endometriosis, Chinese medicine considers it to be an interconnection of phlegm and stasis, so I focus on removing the stasis in my treatment. In a classical formula called “Ligament Effect Elixir”, I chose herbs such as Boswellia, Myrrh and Salvia to invigorate blood circulation and remove blood stasis, which are particularly effective in treating endometriosis.
Interestingly, there was a patient who worked in Zhejiang University, and she was looking for irregular menstruation, which is often a clinical manifestation of endometriosis.
After half a month of eating, she was very happy and said, “Dr. Zhang, this medicine can also reduce the spots!”
I saw that she had a lot of chloasma on her face, especially on the sides of her nose, but now there was not a single spot.
This same prescription has cured several people. I once had a patient with a very strong endometriosis, she had ectopic to her ovaries, vagina and rectum and was in pain all day long. In her words, she was in so much pain that she could not even be a human being. She had already undergone an operation, and this time she had a new ectopic endometriosis, which was in a bad position, so there was no way to operate again. Two months later, the ultrasound showed that the chocolate cysts in her ovaries disappeared, her periods were normal, and she was pain-free. Originally, she had very dark skin on her face, but after her period was normalized, her face was also much whiter.
These examples are a good indication that Chinese medicine is indeed a holistic treatment.
According to TCM, 80% of skin problems are related to dysfunction of the liver, spleen and kidneys. For example, the liver directly affects the blood vessels, and a strong liver fire or liver qi stagnation can easily result in poor circulation of qi and blood, which affects the blood circulation of the face and naturally dull skin.
Most of the polycystic ovaries can be treated with Chinese herbal medicine
In the treatment of gynecological diseases, I do not reject the advanced things in Western medicine, such as ultrasound. I think that in order to develop Chinese medicine, we must actively absorb and apply contemporary science and technology and methods for our own use, so as to improve the efficacy and reduce the detours.
I attach great importance to ultrasound, which is very intuitive, and using it well is particularly helpful in treating polycystic ovary syndrome.
Polycystic ovary syndrome is an endocrine disease in which the ovaries are enlarged and contain many small follicles that do not grow, and the level of androgens is increased and ovulation is not possible. In addition to acne, obesity and hairiness, the main symptoms of this disease in women are menstrual disorders and amenorrhea.
I don’t agree with the fact that some doctors use progesterone as soon as a patient says she has amenorrhea for more than two months. Again, amenorrhea is highly variable and should not be treated simplistically. Under the observation of ultrasound, amenorrhea should be divided into several cases.
1. the follicles can be large, but it is difficult for them to then grow.
2, follicles can grow sufficiently, but cannot be expelled and eventually become cysts.
3, no follicles, mostly premature ovarian failure, this is quite troublesome, but after the use of drugs such as follicles can grow, there is hope.
4, many follicles, there are more than 10, but they are less than 1cm long, mostly polycystic ovaries.
When I have made a clear observation, I will be able to follow up the herbal medicine in time and use it correctly.
I once had a patient who had been amenorrheic for 3 months. After ultrasound, I found a 1.3cm follicle, but the follicle didn’t have the strength to grow any bigger on its own. At this point, if I hadn’t judged carefully with ultrasound and rushed to progesterone as soon as I heard of amenorrhea, her follicle would have shrunk and her endocrine secretion would have been more disrupted. After 5 days of follow-up, I could conclude that her follicles were almost big enough based on her physical signs.
With menstruation, the next step is easy. If you don’t have your period, how can your infertility get better, right? I have a 28-year-old patient who has been married for more than two years and has not been able to conceive a child. After treatment with herbal medicine, one follicle grew to 1.3cm, so I said there is hope! I told her to have an ultrasound every other day, and as long as the follicles could grow to 1.8cm, she could prepare for the birth of her baby.
Thus, with a complementary course of Chinese and Western medicine, this patient’s basal body temperature was elevated for 25 days when the ultrasound showed an embryo in the uterus (at which point eugenic and nutritional guidance was given again), and I was no less happy than the patient at this point. After decades of being a doctor, it is times like these that I am most happy and make me feel that my profession is indeed rewarding.