While it is true that there is no verifiable test for infection (if one chooses to name the disease after the purported pathogen*)... but it is also true that people do *know* if they are sick, and their symptoms fall into discernible patterns. Leaving test results to one side, I have treated many people over the years who are able to tell me that "this [chronic pattern of symptoms]" all began after I came down with "that [cold, flu, tummy bug, etc]".
I can therefore confirm that, while most people do recover from acute illnesses, some do not, and their illness continues to express itself in low-level, often debilitating, chronic patterns of disease.
To a TCM practitioner, like myself, this tends to confirm that every disease is a dance with (at least) two partners - the pathogen and the host. The host experiences the attempts their body is making to clear a pathogen away, and to bring itself back to balance, as "symptoms". If these attempts succeed, the symptoms will clear away quickly. Otherwise the pathogen will "linger" and the host must continue to attempt to clear it, producing further symptoms, which, when the disease turns chronic, also testify to increasing diminishment of the host's resources and strength.
To treat a disease, therefore, strengthening the host, augmenting the host's resources, is as critical as weakening the pathogen. And the timeframe in which this takes place may be a short one, or a long one, often depending on how strong the host was, and how plentiful their native resources, at the start of the illness.
* naming conventions, of course, differ, and in the West, currently, we name our infections after the presumed microbial "invader". In Chinese medicine, the convention is to name our infections after the presumed climatic "invader" - ie Wind Cold, or Wind Heat - these are the most common acute infections - which can then (as I said) become complicated by excessive weakness in the host, or excessive strength in the pathogen.
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I can therefore confirm that, while most people do recover from acute illnesses, some do not, and their illness continues to express itself in low-level, often debilitating, chronic patterns of disease.
To a TCM practitioner, like myself, this tends to confirm that every disease is a dance with (at least) two partners - the pathogen and the host. The host experiences the attempts their body is making to clear a pathogen away, and to bring itself back to balance, as "symptoms". If these attempts succeed, the symptoms will clear away quickly. Otherwise the pathogen will "linger" and the host must continue to attempt to clear it, producing further symptoms, which, when the disease turns chronic, also testify to increasing diminishment of the host's resources and strength.
To treat a disease, therefore, strengthening the host, augmenting the host's resources, is as critical as weakening the pathogen. And the timeframe in which this takes place may be a short one, or a long one, often depending on how strong the host was, and how plentiful their native resources, at the start of the illness.
* naming conventions, of course, differ, and in the West, currently, we name our infections after the presumed microbial "invader". In Chinese medicine, the convention is to name our infections after the presumed climatic "invader" - ie Wind Cold, or Wind Heat - these are the most common acute infections - which can then (as I said) become complicated by excessive weakness in the host, or excessive strength in the pathogen.