KATHRYN Harris suffered debilitating hay fever growing up in the North East.
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Her red, swollen eyes watered for weeks on end, her throat itched and she sneezed constantly during the hay-cutting season on the family dairy farm at Bruarong near Yackandandah.
She tossed and turned at night; wet washers and home remedies were her only respite.
In the spring-time scented flowers like wattle and jasmine were the last straw.
At its worst, she missed school and later work.
Eventually settling at Baranduda Mrs Harris grew to rely on a cocktail of antihistamine eye drops and tablets to manage her allergies.
"When I developed a chronic health issue around 12 years ago I was no longer able to use antihistamine tablets so I had to enlist the services of complementary medicine," Mrs Harris explains.
Mrs Harris sought help from Chinese Medicine physician Dr James Liu in Wodonga.
Describing Dr Liu as “amazing”, she often got instant relief from acupuncture for her hay fever and sinusitis symptoms; later regular treatment improved her general health and she stopped taking some other medicines.
"Dr Liu was able to reduce my suffering through the use of acupuncture and Chinese herbs," she says.
"Sometimes it took more than one acupuncture treatment to get a really good result but it was certainly worth it; now my sensitivity to various scents has reduced and I rarely react to flowers or hay any more."
MORE than 1.8 million Australians pay for alternative health services in an average month, new research from Roy Morgan shows.
Whether it’s acupuncture or cupping, reiki or shiatsu, hypnotherapy or aromatherapy, iridology, reflexology or kinesiology, almost 1 in 10 Australians 14+ (9.4 per cent) paid for some type of alternative health service in the past four weeks, Roy Morgan Single Source data for the year to June 2015 shows.
Government health departments and medical research organisations often now describe many of these services as “complementary” rather than “alternative”.
Of the 1,825,000 Australians 14+ who paid for alternative health services in the past four weeks, 969,000 (53 per cent) also paid for a doctor’s visit during the same time.
Of the 655,000 men who paid for alternative health services in the past four weeks (7 per cent of all men), 388,000 also paid for a doctor’s visit (59 per cent).
Women are more likely than men to pay for alternative health services in an average four weeks but there is less overlap with doctor’s visits: Of the 1,170,000 women (12 per cent) who paid for alternative health services, just under half (581,000) also paid for a doctor’s visit.
TRADITIONAL Chinese medicine has evolved complex methods of diagnosis and treatment over 5000 years tailored to a person’s individual patterns of disharmony.
Since moving to Australia 18 years ago Dr Liu has seen a greater interest in traditional Chinese medicine remedies which use medicinal herbs, acupuncture and Tui Na remedial massage.
"People are willing to try different things these days and are looking for alternatives," Dr Liu says.
Dr Liu studied western medicine at the Capital University of Medical Science in Beijing. After he graduated in March 1977 he stayed at the hospital as a clinician and lecturer until 1988 when he moved to the China Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Having lectured in Chinese Medicine at RMIT University since 1997, Dr Liu set up a practise in Wodonga about a decade ago.
"I think there is a place for traditional Chinese Medicine to work well with westernised medicine," he says.
"The most important thing about Chinese Medicine is that it is completely natural and it very rarely has side-effects unlike western medicine which often has side-effects.”
In China traditional Chinese Medicine is taught as well as practised alongside western medicine. All of the major hospitals have western and traditional Chinese departments and patients are referred between departments.
Dr Liu offers his patients treatments made from more than 300 common herbs, roots and bark and herbal granules.
He says traditional Chinese medicine uses herbal medicine as a preventative measure to maintain good health.
"This medicine can work hand-in-hand with western medicine for better results," he says.
KATHRYN Harris’ family, including her dairy farmer father aged in his 70s, have had treatment from Dr Liu for everything from allergies to influenza.
Mrs Harris is sensitive to many chemicals and tries to avoid them.
When she attended a large gathering in Canberra recently she was exposed to perfume and cleaning and hair products.
"I developed some allergy symptoms including a red nose and some sneezing, puffy eyes, but mostly a tight aching head and sinuses and nausea. As a result I was struggling to sleep," she recalls.
During her acupuncture treatment she felt a sensation similar to when your ear pops, only it was in her nasal sinus.
"The tight stuffy feeling in the head and headache and nausea also went," she explains.
"It was replaced by a warm relaxing feeling not just in my head but over my whole body."
MAINTAINING ties with China, Dr Liu has been trialling an acupuncture point developed during the 1970s, which had proved to cure and lessen the symptoms of hay fever, chronic rhinitis and sinusitis in some people.
Dr Liu travelled to China in 2012, 2013 and in May 2015 to learn the technique from its inventor, ear, nose and throat surgeon Professor Xinwu Li, now aged in his 90s.
“According to Professor Li’s published papers about 70 per cent of rhinitis and sinusitis could be cured using the technique while more than 30 per cent of hay fever could be cured by one acupuncture treatment,” Dr Liu says.
Dr Liu did extra training in maxillofacial anatomy at the Capital University of Medical Science in Beijing and Charles Sturt University at Thurgoona.
“I use the Xinwu point combining with traditional acupuncture points and Chinese herbs to treat most nasal, sinus and throat problems, which function to boost the immune system,” Dr Liu says.
“The success rate is even higher than with the single Xinwu point.”
Dr Liu says the new acupuncture point together with integrated therapy also treats many conditions such as chronic atrophic rhinitis, chronic suppurative nasal sinusitis, mycteric submucous cyst, nasal polypus, tinnitus, vertigo, sudden deafness, Bell’s palsy, facial spasm, maculopathy, bronchial asthma, vocal nodules, myopia, gastroduodenal ulcer and reflux.
A free trial to test the treatment will take place on October 3, 10, 17 and 24, 2015, at the Wodonga Chinese Medicine Clinic. Bookings: (02) 6056 1345.
LOOKING to the future, Dr Liu says western medicine has made dramatic achievements in emergency medicine and surgical specialities but fewer inroads with internal medicine and psychiatry.
“Western medicine still cannot cure or effectively treat a lot of diseases such as arthritis, depression, menopause and infectious diseases; these can be managed very well by Chinese Medicine.
“I would like to see Chinese Medicine (acupuncture and herbal medicine) as popular in the world as it is in China.”
