Hello, dear friend,

This is Dr. Zhu Ming, President of Zhongfang Red Cross International Hospital, and the director of ALS Expert Team of this hospital. Our hospital uses Chinese medicine to treat various chronic and difficult health problems. Even though our international service has only been in existence for seven years, we had offered inpatient service to more than one thousand international patients from around the world. There is an obvious phenomenon that about one fifth of them suffer from ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). This condition is included in the list of the World Top Six Most Difficult health problems. Western medicine has almost given up on treating such a difficult disease except for offering Rilutek tablet or operation of stem cell transplantation which are of no help to the root of the disease.

From the viewpoint of western medicine, the causes of ALS are unknown and might be infection, injury, immune factors, working environment, emotional problems, etc. The symptoms of ALS include loss and atrophy of muscles, weakness of the four limbs and body, muscle jumpings (fasciculation), pains of the muscles or joints, stiff or flaccid legs, swallowing difficulty, tongue shrinking and inability to talk, much saliva in the mouth, difficulty of breathing, etc. The patient may lose the muscles and strength of the four limbs and body step by step. In common condition, during 3 to 5 years after that happens, gradually the patient can not walk, can not handle daily life, gets on the wheelchair and then dies of failure of the respiratory function or other severe weakness of the organs. Even we met some cases that the patient survived only six months after the diagnosis was given.  

Our international TCM service team now has approximately eighty working staff, including medical professors, doctors, acupuncturists, translators, nurses, guards, office clerks, etc.

Frankly speaking, since our international service started from the end of 2005, in the first year, we had about ten ALS patients, most of them did not get improvement. However, our medical staff gathered precious experiences from the first year’s practice. We diligently work together to research into this most difficult health problem. Our team of ALS experts started to design a comprehensive treatment strategy for this problem in October, 2006, and we enrich and perfect this system incessantly during these six years. Our ALS team of experts and I came to the consent that from the viewpoints of Chinese medicine, ALS belongs to the categories of “dystrophy pattern (wei zheng), impediment pattern (bi zheng), or deficiency labor (xu lao) ” in Chinese medicine, there are following reasons to cause it, for example, attacking of external wind-cold-damp or wind-damp-heat, yin (fluids) deficiency and effulgent deficient fire, deficiency of the liver and kidneys, qi weakness of the spleen and lungs, lung heat damaging fluids, etc. Our team of experts also confirms that overworking, over-thinking, depression, inflammation, too much sex, negative living environment, improper diet, vaccination, chemical toxin, etc., could cause this disease.

Therefore, based upon different individuals with different symptoms, corresponding treatment strategies are adopted, such as expelling external wind-cold-damp or wind-damp-heat, clearing damp heat, moistening yin fluids, lowering deficient fire, nourishing the liver and kidneys, strengthening qi of the spleen and lungs, fortifying spleen to transform phlegm, softening hardness to dissipate masses, eliminating wind to calm spasms, etc. The major treatment methods are drinking Chinese herbal tea, medical massage and acupuncture.

Even though these three treatment methods are different, the therapeutic strategy remains the same to make sure best cooperative role. Also it is important that since every ALS patient has different illness reasons, different features of cold, heat, deficiency and excess, different symptoms, therefore, for every patient, we will give different treatment strategies and different herbal prescriptions and acupuncture formulas so that the treatment is the most accurate and helpful. So, there are multiple treatment strategies and multiple herbs and acu-points to fit every patient, rather than a single chemical ingredient like Rilutek or half hour operation like stem cell transplantation to try to resolve such a big complex of various symptoms. This treatment way is called “syndrome identification and treatment determination” which is proved to be very scientific and efficient during thousands of years practice of TCM. When a patient stays here, we often adjust the formula every three or four days according to the response and progress of the patient.

From October 2006 to April 2007, our clinical statistics reveals that we had 14 patients from USA, Canada, Israel, Sweden, Algeria, Czech, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand, Yugoslavia, Portugal and China. Their ages ranged from 30 to 65 years old, their treatment periods ranged from one month to four months. The results indicated that 6 patients had very obvious improvement, 5 patients had some improvement, and 3 patients had no improvement.

With our treatment experiences for ALS became more and more mature and comprehensive. From April 2007 to December 2008, among 36 international ALS patients, 21 patients had very obvious improvement, 10 patients had some improvement, and only 5 patients had no improvement.