Many people tell that gallstones can be removed with Traditional Chinese Medical Treatments. But western medical doctors say that the patients come back within 6 months to get remove the gallbladder as it not treated. Is there any evidence based study to prove that the gall stones can be removed/ Treated successfully by TCM
Comment by Chad J. Dupuis, L.Ac.
Gallstones are commonly treated with Chinese Medicine and not only resolve well, but the contributing issues are dealt with more efficiently than when removing the organ. So doctors will remove the gall bladder at the first sign of trouble in many countries. While that is a temporary fix, the patients will often continue to have trouble or will have similar digestive issues 3-5 years later that then gets harder to treat due to the missing organ.
While you should never use formulas just for symptoms alone a common herbal formula for gallstones is Li Dan Wan. While there is enormous clinical outcomes information, full studies are expensive and do not exist for many well and commonly treated issues within Chinese Medicine.
For li dan wan, which is more or less just accepted to work in many circles, there are studies like the following on a guinea pig model to figure out -how- it works as the fact -that- it works is, again in certain circles, not the issue: