Clinical experience of treating multiple sclerosis with traditional Chinese medicine / 中国中西医结合急救杂志

ABSTRACT

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic central nervous system disease characterized by primary pathological inflammatory white matter demyelination in the central nervous system, the etiology is unclear and the disease can result in one of the main causes of non-traumatic young adults with disabilities, and regretfully, there are no effective ways to cure it radically. Western medicine often uses primarily corticosteroids and immunosuppressive agents for the treatment of this disease. However, using western medicine alone is not ideal to control the disease progress. For more than 10 years, the author has used the following traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for treatment of this disease, the scheme of TCM is based on the western medicine's control of the acute phase, simultaneously using acupuncture, Chinese medicine, and correcting the patient's bad habits to treat MS, and we have obtained good therapeutic results, the neurological symptoms are significantly improved and the immune function regulated; in addition, the dosages of corticosteroids and immunosuppressants used can be decreased and further, the disease severity, incidences of recurrence and western drug side effects can be reduced and the disease progression can become milder or much milder or prevented, so as providing compensation to the deficits of western medicine.