They simply do not want to mask their ill health, and instead seek to build on good health at the root level. They not only have access to this information, they are more educated about herbs and want to find ways to balance their health without depleting it. Typically, more than two herbs are used together in a formula to create the optimal effectiveness to treat a disharmony or disease in the body. This is called compound herbal therapy. Herbs are but one of several branches in Chinese Medicine, the other main modalities are acupuncture and Tuina massage.
Chinese herbs have a very important role in the overall treatment response.
They are plentiful, inexpensive and offer alternatives to drug therapies which may present a whole separate health issue of side effects. There are over ten thousand TCM herbal formulas which have been established over the course of history. Today, about two thousand are currently in use. According to the earliest known TCM texts, called The Yellow Emperors Classics of Internal Medicine , in TCM formulas the primary herb is called the king. Then other herbs are used to build a specific prescriptive for each individual's condition.