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            Dr. Pan's Clinic of TCM

Much ado about a patch 

An recently acquired product of Traditional Chinese Medicine has been achieving consistently successful results with patients at a Victoria clinic.  Now, as supplies have nearly dwindled to nil, doctors are toiling to obtain something that originally just fell into their laps.

For years in China, doctors of Traditional Chinese Medicine have been attempting to develop forms of external herbal treatment that utilize the principles of acupuncture without the use of needles.  Within the last year at hospitals in China, a new product appeared that achieved this goal.  In December, this product popped up at a TCM clinic in Victoria where the doctors promptly put it into use.  The results have been noteworthy.   

This product is essentially an herbal patch.  It looks like a teabag—a small waterproof, weaved circular satchel stuffed with potent herbs.  Basically, the patch is activated by body heat, seeps into the pores easily, and was designed so it wouldn’t itch.

The current patch has evolved from two simpler predecessors.  Dr. Pan, an herbal specialist who spent 21 years practising TCM in China before opening a clinic in Victoria in 1999, explains how the previous patches lacked the granule sacs of the new patch.  The granules are what allow the patch to nourish the body’s energy like needles would during acupuncture.  The granules of the new patch are so effective that Dr. Pan affirms, “In China, nowadays, there are hospitals that only use the patch and don’t use needles.” 

The current patch was originally placed in shoes to treat foot aches.  When patients informed doctors that other bodily conditions beyond their feet were being treated, the doctors experimented with locating the patch to other spots.  This is how doctors discovered that they could use herbal satchels as if they were using needles.

There are ten different herb combinations available in the patch.  Any single patch is claimed to be capable of treating a variety of ailments.  For example, the number four patch [which tonifies qi (life-source/energy), nourishes yin (bodily non-movement/fluids), clears heat, and transforms blood stasis] is used in treating ailments ranging from, as an official pamphlet lists, coronary heart disease, haemorrhoids, to the proliferation of the mammary gland.  To a mind like mine which is accustomed to Western medicine, it seemed peculiar that one patch would be able to simultaneously tend to illnesses as wide-ranging as heart disease, haemorrhoids, and breast growths.  Dr. Pan responded:   “In Traditional Chinese Medicine, many ailments together are derived from one imbalance”.

To treat a particular imbalance, through the process of differentiation (as the diagnosis process is called in TCM), the practitioner hones in on a spot on each particular patient that will be most conducive to accommodating the internal flow of the patch’s herbs.   This spot is then subjected to fifteen minutes of “tui na” (Chinese-style medicinal massage) to prepare it for application. The patch is then injected with a small amount of water to activate its medicinal properties.  Finally, the patch is stuck to the body with medical adhesive mat.  The herbs then diffuse through the skin, which encourages the medicinal ingredients to spread to the ailing areas through the bloodstream.

As an emerging form of traditional Chinese medicine treatment, the advantages of the patch are many.  For many acupuncture patients, needles can be painful, frightening, sometimes more disruptive than therapeutic.  The patch avoids the typical discomforts associated with needles.  Also, because it is worn for days at time, the patch provides a steady feed of medication over a longer period of time.  Other major forms of TCM treatment (acupuncture, tui na, and herbs) require repeat visits to sustain their remedy.  Finally, the patch overcomes the problems that plague the oral intake of herbs (long time to cook; vile smell during cooking; vile taste during ingestion).  With the patch, the patient receives the benefits of herbs without the usual drawbacks. 

Likewise, there are a few disadvantages to the patch.  The herbs create an obvious scent on the patient for the seven to ten days the patch is usually worn.  Wearers of the patch have described this scent as very similar to curry.  Also, the medical adhesive mat, or the herbs themselves, can cause allergic reactions.  Dr. Pan had one patient lash out at him.  He recalls: “She was very angry.  She said it didn’t work.  It irritated her skin a lot.”   In another instance, a woman who wished to remain anonymous was quite adamant that the patch had hurt her much more than it had healed her.  She claimed it not only gave her a rash, it also caused uncomfortable energy shifts in her body that she had never experienced before or after its usage.  These energy shifts led to tremors of pain that sprung up sporadically across her back until she eventually took the patch off.  She concluded by suggesting the patch worked only because people believed it worked.

Yet, even in the face of negative reactions, Dr. Pan is convinced that the majority of people who use the patch not only find it therapeutic, they seek to experience it again.  “I’ve used it on maybe 200 people, only one person had an allergic reaction to it, and altogether it hasn’t worked for two people”, he told me.  One patient was so impressed with the results of the patch after her first treatment, she promptly returned to Dr. Pan’s clinic and spent over $200 stocking up on it.

The success of the patch, in Dr. Pan’s eyes, is that it can achieve results in ways that Western medicine cannot.  “For pains, the patch is very effective.  Modern medicine provides the patient with painkillers, which hide the pain but do not stop the pain.  When the patch works, it actually stops the pain.”  As an example, Dr. Pan cites a recent patient who, after years of waitressing, complained of a harsh aching in her tray-carrying shoulder.  He applied two patches to her shoulder and within a day, her shoulder ache lessened.  Even Dr. Pan was surprised. “I didn’t expect it to relieve pain so easily.”

An unsolicited testimonial for the patch popped up during a conversation with Margot Whitney of Noosa, Australia.  A few months earlier, while still living down under, Margot had a pile of timber fall on her.  This accident left her with a herniated disc and a stinging throughout her entire body.  Her Doctor, a Western MD, recommended an earlier incarnation of the patch.  Margot’s relief was like that of Dr. Pan’s waitress.  As she says, “Once I got the patch, the pain was alleviated.”  The relief was significant enough that Margot, who been quite uncomfortable in the passenger seat during the long ride from Noosa, was feeling comfortable enough to operate the car for the drive home.

* * * * How It Landed In Dr. Pan’s Lap * * * *

The patch was introduced to Dr. Pan this past December by a pair of his TCM students.  In September 2002, Illya Borreson and Jeremy Unwin began the final semester of their TCM program by serving as interns at a hospital in Tianjin, China.  One night in a bar, after they had been interning for a couple months, Illya and Jeremy were chatting with a brain surgeon named Crown.  Crown told them that his father was a TCM doctor working in rural China and he no longer used acupuncture, he only performed external herbal treatments with the patch.  Illya and Jeremy informed Crown that no such treatment existed yet in Canada and that there would be a huge market for it back home.  Crown promptly invited Illya and Jeremy to visit his father in rural China.  Crown’s father upped the ante of his son and offered to cover all of the expenses of Illya and Jeremy’s trip.  Illya recalls, “Crown’s father thought it was a great business opportunity”. 

For four straight days at the rural hospital, Illya and Jeremy observed and took notes as Crown’s father administered the patch to a countless variety of patients.  They felt like a lightning bolt of opportunity had struck them.  At the end of the four days, Crown’s father sold them a substantial quantity of the product and agreed to allow them to be the distributors of the product outside of China.  Illya and Jeremy were so intrigued by the business possibilities that they cut their trip short and immediately returned to Canada to peddle the patch.  They did not have a single hour of formal business training between the two of them. 

So what, Illya and Jeremy thought, the patch would sell itself.  Rushing home, they invented a company name, opened a business bank account, and were thrilled about sharing their product first with the TCM community in Victoria and then with the rest of the country.  Within days, they recognized they had been duped.  Illya recalls, grinning at his own gullibility: “The company told us we had sole distribution, but right when we returned home, after we talked to doctors from our school and had these doctors call the company and order through them, we found out that they could also get the patch.  It was funny.  The company kind of just lied to us, but it’s okay.  It’s Chinese business, I guess”. 

With the help of Dr. Pan’s clinic, Illya and Jeremy were still able to distribute the patch to a large number of patients throughout Victoria upon their return.  However, in recent weeks, as the patch sold off his shelf at a rapid pace, Dr. Pan tried to purchase additional supplies, only to discover that the issue of distribution rights was worse than he had expected.  As the patch had been sold to his naive students out of the side door of hospital, it did not come from the product’s official distributor.  The official distributors were requesting a $200 000 Canadian licensing fee for the rights to distribute the patch.  Dr. Pan is not presently able to pay this asking price.

Thus, currently in Canada, the patch languishes in a state of limbo.  Though it was developed and regulated by the Bo Hong Company in Beijing, China (which is a subsidiary of the Chinese Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine), the patch has no way of being officially designated a medicine in Canada.  In Canada, herbal remedies such as the patch are deemed by our regulatory establishments to be food items.  Health Canada is only now in the midst of creating a regulatory body, the Natural Health Products Directorate, to deal with the growing influx of TCM remedies like the patch.

Presently, Jeremy has relocated to England, and Illya is in the process of relocating from Victoria to Vancouver.  They each intend to continue to develop their careers as certified acupuncturists, and eventually become full-fledged TCM doctors.  They remain in regular contact regarding the patch, but their keen plans to be the original distributors of it to Canada have temporarily ended. 

The job of distributing the patch has thereby fallen to Dr. Pan.  He insists that though the $200 000 licensing fee is a massive challenge, it will not prevent him from somehow acquiring further supplies.  “Many practitioners want to use it.  I have a list of 10 doctors, from Argentina, Brazil, Taiwan who want to use it.  In the near future, I will go back to China and learn about the patch from the company”.  

The clinical results are too noteworthy for Dr. Pan to overlook.  “The patch works perfectly and is easy to use”, he insists.  “It is good for doctors and good for patients.  I am very optimistic".

Last modified: 12/13/10