How to defeat 10 common ailments with traditional Chinese Medicine

Text: Denise Ngo
Photos: Getty Images

Imagine, for a moment, that you have indigestion. And you’re at work (ugh). You’re nauseous, you can’t focus at all, and you suspect that your colleagues are judging you for visiting the bathroom five times in the past hour. If you’re anything like us (young, lazy, westernised and addicted to convenience), you’ll head to the nearest pharmacy to pick up a box of chewable antacids. You’ll pop a handful, drink some water, and an hour later, you’re good to go! Problem solved, right?

Well, no, according to Dr. Helen Chan, a registered Traditional Chinese Medicine Practitioner who was also schooled in Western Medicine.  It’s not enough to simply suppress your symptoms, as store-bought drugs often do – you need to identify the root of the problem, while strengthening your system against the affliction in the future. Her solution? Traditional Chinese Medicine. By taking the right supplements, you can restore the imbalances in your system and alleviate the pain at the same time.

Still, Dr. Chan understands why even those who grew up with TCM may have developed an aversion to it. Boiling the roots yourself is not only time-consuming, but it’s hard to learn. Plenty of TCM practitioners are quacks, while their treatments have no regulations.  For most people living in Asia, choosing between Western and Chinese medicine is a matter of taking some pharmaceutical drugs and some TCM ones in hope that if one doesn’t work, the other will.

But wouldn’t it be more efficient to combine the strengths of both traditions to create one master line of healthy drugs? Dr. Chan’s interest in bridging the gap between Western and Chinese traditions drove her to found Vita Green, where she is now the CEO, a company that applies Western pharmaceutical standards to TCM.  Rather than being brewed in someone’s back room, all Vita Green products are subjected to lab testing and strict processing to ensure safety and the highest quality of ingredients. Best of all, they’re available in drugstores alongside the usual Panadol and Claritin.

Today, Vita Green is a number one best-seller in Hong Kong. The company recently launched in Singapore with three supplements available at Guardian. Should the trend indeed explode in popularity here, we’d be down to try curing our everyday complaints with natural remedies.

If you’ve ever been curious to know how you’d get rid of sore joints or allergies without taking synthetic drugs, click through to see how a TCM practitioner would treat 10 common ailments, including acne, menstrual cramps, and bloating.