TCM Treatment Based on Syndrome Differentiation:
Alternative medicine definitely has more treatment options. The model of simply fixing the gut, stabilizing the blood sugar level, balancing the hormones, taking enough essential fatty acids and anti-inflammatory protocols, and so forth, are effective. However, they are not any different than treating any type of autoimmune disorders.

The major deficiency is actually how to actively identify the autoimmune mechanism.In order to figure out the autoimmune mechanism, one must dissect the person’s cytokines production and the breakdown of T cells and B Cells to figure out what’s going on with the immune patterns.

By contrast, integrated medical practitioners treat the whole body as a single system and work with interdependent, oscillating energies and seek to achieve balance and integration of the entire body. There are natural, non-invasive, and wholistic approaches that incline toward discovering the imbalances, and integrate to correct them through diet and nutrition, exercise, acupuncture, massage, and individual customized education.

One of the basic theories of Chinese medicine, used in the integrated model, is that of yin and yang. The foundation is to view the body as a microcosm of nature, one that seeks homeostasis or balance. The theories and patterns of movement and interaction are quite complex, and it is not within the bounds of this article to fully describe or explain them.

While Yin and yang are oppositional, they are also interdependent, each always containing a bit of the other within and, together, they strive to be in a constant state of dynamic balance. When they go out of balance, the vital life force energy may be pooling, stagnating, or flowing in the wrong direction in the body’s innate energy pathway.

The role of an acupuncturist, for example, is to detect where the energies are out of balance and use acupuncture points to redirect the body’s energies in such a way that they "self correct." While this concept of yin and yang interacts dramatically and in a complex way with other systems in the body, and the practitioner uses these concepts in the diagnosis, along with integrating other treatment protocols, we can see that this would tend to take a person’s entire physiology into consideration. By analyzing, evaluating, and diagnosing from a vast menu of tests and data, a treatment plan is developed to address the interaction of all conditions in the system that signal disharmony.