Medicine - Chinese style!

Just before I left the UK, I had some vaccinations (hooray for the free NHS) so while I was there (and still having my cold since Jason's birthday) I asked the doctor there if I should take something to get rid of my persistent cold/flu symptoms especially since I was going away. The standard western medicine response is that it will go away by itself and they would rather not give me any antibiotics since "it will only get rid of the infection a few days earlier than not doing anything" and they would rather not give me antibiotics "unless I really needed it" otherwise later on this medicine will not be effective on me.

However in Taiwan, where Chinese medicine is practiced, I visited a local doctor who spoke very good English and proceeded to examine my nose and throat by looking down my nose and then putting some tube into my nose and then spraying some chemicals onto my throat and nose and using a sucking device to remove the excess gunk. Sounds quite disgusting I know but I did feel better afterwards. Also he prescribed a 3 day course of medicine which consisted of many different shaped tablets which are sorted for you into little daily packages so it's easy to know what you have to take. Can't say for sure which medical advice was the best except to say my cold cleared up not long after visiting the Chinese doctor :)

Picture of one of my daily packets follows...