TCM is especially effective on people with chronic fatigue

By itself, low energy or fatigue is not an illness; it is a feeling of profound exhaustion that impacts our daily happiness as well as our capacity to achieve our purpose and goals in life. When we feel a temporary sense of fatigue, it is usually our body’s way of saying it’s time to make some positive lifestyle changes that can help improve our general health. Fatigue that persists is a sign that the energy system of our body requires treatment.

Signs and Symptoms
Practitioners of Chinese Medicine collect the signs and symptoms of the patient and then diagnose them all together. A practitioner would never call or label an illness or a syndrome with a complicated name. The practitioner instead is constantly mindful that the illness is a dynamic process that is viewed as a disharmony pattern that just not affects one body system or organ but the person as a whole. A treatment approach that addresses all the signs and symptoms, results in a natural more balanced healing effect. In Western medicine, the doctor addresses the patient’s complaint (his/her signs and symptoms), but not necessarily, their root cause. 

A Western doctor will give a name to a set of signs and symptoms. If those signs cannot be labeled by the doctor or if the symptoms are not obvious, single or multiple medical tests will normally be performed. If the results of the test are negative, the patient is deemed to be absolutely free of any medically perceived illnesses. But if the patient still thinks that he/she is sick, some physicians will attribute that to the patient’s "imagination," something that exists only in the patient’s head. Traditional Chinese medicine does not work that way. A practitioner will consider all patterns of disharmony as potential evidences of an imbalance in health that need attention with or without a Western diagnosis. That is the main reason why Chinese medicine is especially effective on people with Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, chronic lack of energy or other problems that western medicine has no means of treating.

Patterns of Disharmony
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine there are two distinct patterns of disharmony:Qi deficiency and Qi stagnation, both of which can result in lack of energy. Qi deficiency occurs when the energy of the person is run down and the person simply does not have enough energy to perform daily normal activities. Qi stagnation arises when the energy of a person does not move freely or becomes stuck within the meridians of the body. In Western medicine, this is analogous to nerve impedance and/or sluggish circulation supplying energy to an organ system or a limb within the body. Chinese medicine will treat these two patterns in a completely different way although herbs and acupuncture treatment are often used for both patterns.

Acupuncturists see these patterns in almost every patient. In order to achieve a lasting and effective end to their problem, it is important to treat both Qi deficiency and Qi stagnation with different treatment modalities. For most acupuncturists myself included, herbal medicine and acupuncture are very artistic forms of medicine in the sense that the healer has to be very creative in selecting the precise acupuncture points and herbs that are best suited to the particular needs of the patient. This is the only way than an enduring and even permanent cure for low energy can be achieved.