When should someone NOT use Chinese medicine at all?

A list of situations where this tradition says stop, and a doctor says start.

Gladly, because this is where honesty earns trust. Do not use Chinese medicine as the plan when: symptoms are sudden and severe - chest pain, one-sided weakness or facial droop, trouble breathing, confusion, a stiff neck with fever or a spreading rash, coughing or vomiting blood, black stools, a sudden severe headache, or any injury with deformity or loss of function. Those are emergency departments. Do not use it to manage pregnancy in the first trimester, or any paediatric dosing, without qualified oversight. Do not use it if you have liver disease or take medications with a narrow therapeutic index without telling both prescribers what you are taking. Do not use it to delay a cancer workup when you have unexplained weight loss, a lump, or bleeding. Where it sits reasonably well is the middle ground: functional complaints that have already been investigated - bloating, poor sleep, tension patterns, period discomfort - where a low-risk intervention plus tracking plus attention to food, warmth and routine is often more than placebo. The order matters: rule out first, then decide.

Qicura reads a described symptom against this kind of material and returns a pattern in plain language with the sources named. It does not dispense: no herb quantities, no formula composition, no preparation instructions, and no needling technique - those are deliberate limits enforced on the server, not wording we soften for a page.

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