Trusting Chinese Medicine, Should You?

During our recent visit to China, we ended up visiting the "house doctor" at the Hilton Hotel in Shanghai. The incidents were rather a comedy of mistakes on one hand. On the other hand, my husband developed quite a nasty bronchial congestion and I soon picked it up. Blame the air quality. There is a reason they like to keep the tourists in buses.

When we got to the hotel, we asked at the desk if there was a local pharmacy. The desk clerk was extremely helpful, asking what the problem was, writing down the symptoms, and providing us with a detail description of how to get to the pharmacy. When we arrived, the pharmacy staff read the note, then asked my husband several questions about the type of cough he had and verifying what the hotel clerk had written. At this point, we were offered several medications. Luckily for us, the medicines were written in both Chinese and English. I was able to recognize ingredients from medicines we used at home and also some of the description for how and why to take the medicine. We ended up buying a twelve-hour pill with an expectorant that worked extremely well. When we tried to replace it in Hong Kong, we couldn't get the same pill but got something that was okay.

After buying the medicine, we returned to the hotel well after dark. My eyes were dry. So I asked my husband if we had any eye drops. We always take a first aid kit when we travel for just these problems. My husband said yes, and handed me the dropper. I went to the mirror and put a drop in my eye. Well, it turns out what he handed me was eardrop medicine purchased in Mexico that was basically hydrogen peroxide in an oil base. Boy did it sting. I spent quite a while rinsing my eye with water, expensive bottled water no less. But since I've had damaging eye injuries before, I wanted it checked out.

So we walked downstairs and was led by the helpful hotel clerk to the house doctor. She gave my eye a good examination. My eye checked out as being clear of the oil. The doctor offered my an antibiotic cream for my eye, pretty much what a local doctor in the US would do. I declined it. I once had damage caused by acid in my eye followed by a base and so not knowing the status of either, I thought it was safer to just go to bed, before something else broke.

The bottom line, Chinese doctors don't automatically use Chinese herbal and alternative medicines first. And, they are very helpful, quite competent, and very careful. We appreciated the service.