According to my patients' feedback, it is quite common that patients will get enormous improvement during the first week of TCM treatment, especially for those who have never seen a TCM doctor.
The mechanism of TCM works to push the body in the correct direction to adjust the mistakenly balanced body equilibrium and then have chain reactions afterwards. That is the reason why TCM can cure several body discomforts with simply one prescription.
Why patients get enormous improvement during the first week of TCM treatment？
Since your condition is at the most severe stage in the very beginning, being given the proper prescription with enough doses, it is quite easy to have made significant progress by the time of your first follow-up visit.
It is not at all rare to see significant differences in skin or whole body problems simply with a one week TCM prescription. You can see several examples from here, here, here, here, here and here.
Since progress is significant in the beginning, patients might think they are fully recovered and without consulting me, they might decide not to bother to make another appointment.
Don't quit TCM treatment of your own accord or take herbs irregularly.
However, no matter if it's suddenly quitting your treatment or taking herbs irregularly, this will result in delaying your recovery and complicate the situation as well as cause a relapse.
Your body is like a see-saw with a wrong equilibrium. With the herbs pushing towards the correct direction, you might mistakenly think you are totally cured. However, this new equilibrium is based on the effect of the herbs taken. TCM treatment is like giving consistent subtle adjustments, and suddenly quitting will result in a relapse if the new equilibrium has not yet stabilized.
Irregular herb-taking makes the concentration of the dosage never enough to work and therefore delays your progress. One step forwards and one step backwards only makes you stay in the same spot.
Irregular herbs-taking also makes it difficult for TCM doctors to adjust according to their patients' feedback on the prescription (which discomfort was relieved to which level？which discomfort was not yet relieved？Did any other new discomfort occur?）, since the dosage taken wouldn't be enough to make any change.
Therefore, I do not recommend patients to stop treatment of their own accord without my consent.
My steps to end your treatments properly – gradual reduction and then completion
When the patient is satisfied with the treatment result, and their situation gets stable and consistent, I will let them know that we are going to end the treatment step by step.
First of all, I will reduce the dose in two stages and monitor if there is any relapse or degeneration during this period. If not, then I will end the treatment without any concern of a relapse.
