PROFESSIONAL DISCUSSION        CONSUMER TESTIMONIAL

Interviews with Practitioners Who Use Honso Products: What They Think

An Interview with Mark Pettee, L.Ac.

This is one of a series of interviews with alternative medicine practitioners in the US who frequently use Honso^® Kampo products in their practices. Honso is a pharmaceutical company based in Japan and branched in Phoenix Arizona, which produces and distributes pharmaceutical-grade Chinese herbal formulas or Kampo in Japan and the US.

Mark Pettee, L.Ac., has a 1987 BA in history from Ohio Wesleyan University and a Master’s in Acupuncture, graduating from NIOM in 2000. He practiced massage therapy from 1994 to 1997, then shiatsu from 1997 to 2000. Since 2000 he has been in private practice in Washington and Oregon as an acupuncturist specializing in Japanese meridian therapy and an herbal practitioner using Kampo-style granular formulas. And he has a long background in Vipassana meditation.

Joseph Garner, L.Ac, Dipl.Ac, Dipl.CH, conducting this interview, trained at Colorado School of TCM in Denver and is a licensed acupuncturist working in Phoenix, Arizona and faculty member at Phoenix Institute of Herbal Medicine & Acupuncture.

JG: Would you please talk about your background with Honso’s Kampo products?

MP: I started using Honso in tablet form when Honso first started in the US, before the professional granular line came out—the liver formula and others. I wanted premixed formulas. As soon as Honso came out with the professional granular line, I ordered several of the formulas and tried them out on patients. Patients liked taking formulas in this way, and results were good from the start. I use Honso granular formulas now almost exclusively in my practice. I even became a Honso distributor here in the Northwest about eight months ago. I practice Japanese meridian therapy and focus on pulse & hara diagnosis. I had a bit of herbal hara diagnosis training but not too much. I’m working with Nigel Dawes to set up a seminar in Seattle next March to train people in Kampo abdominal diagnosis, and hopefully this will turn into a series of workshops. I am also setting up a seminar in Portland this September with Drs. Shan Liang & Dan Wen.  They will lecture on the clinical use of Honso granular formulas.

JG: Thank you and best of luck with that. What formulas do you use the most?

MP: I use H48/Shi Quan Da Bu Wan and H68/Shao Yao Gan Cao Tang a lot. I often combine H48 with H24/Jia Wei Xiao Yao Wan.  I also use H09, H43, H41 & H12 a lot.

JG: Can you give me an example?

MP: I have a female patient with hepatitis C, fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue. Each disease will take turns being the chief symptom, so I’ve used H48 for the CFS, H09/Xiao Cai Hu Tang for the hepatitis C and H68 for fibromyalgia depending on what is most problematic. H68 helped her pain to subside and reduce her pain medications. The patient hadn’t worked for 10 years, and now she’s back working about 10 hours a week. She’s very compliant with the formulas because she’s seen the benefit, especially from the H48 and the H09. I only use H68 if pain predominates. And of course acupuncture is a big part of her treatment plan.  I use H68 a lot with patients who have muscular pain from accidents.

JG: That’s wonderful. I like this treatment plan. Can you give us other examples of your treatment methods?

MP: I have another female patient who presented with Crohn’s disease. She wanted to go the alternative route entirely and skip Western medicine. She was seeing a naturopath who used homeopathics on her with limited success, and the naturopath suggested she see an acupuncturist. I started her with H15/Coptis Detoxifying Formula for only about a week, since I wanted to clear up acute symptoms, and this worked, but she was too weak for that formula long-term. Her diagnosis showed Spleen Shu as the main pattern, so I gave her H41/Bu Zhong Yi Qi Tang to tonify her system. After four days on this formula she called me to say she could see a real improvement in her energy 7 sleep. She’d been getting acupuncture & moxa for six months, so such a quick response to the H41 surprised me. She uses H41 to maintain herself with. When she gets stressed (her father is dying), her Crohn’s flares up, so I take her off H41 and put her on H15 briefly until those acute symptoms clear up again.

I also have a patient who just gave birth about a week ago. I gave her H71/Si Wu Tang plus rice grain moxa on St-36 and TW-4. Her recovery has been very rapid: her qi came back up quickly. This patient’s midwife was very surprised by her quick recovery. This is the first time I’ve tried this post-partum. I have used this protocol before with miscarriage cases with success.

And I had two severe vertigo cases come to me within 10 days of one another. I used acupuncture and moxa, and I also perscribed H39/Ling Gui Zhu Gan Tang. This formula is used for very specific symptoms, so I don’t use it often, but when it is called for its results are excellent. One of the vertigo cases resolved quickly. The other was more stubborn because of underlying digestive imbalances. I started her out on half dosage, and she is coming along well.

JG: Glad you could help them. Any other formulas you like to use?

MP: I’ve often used H12/Chai Hu Jia Long Gu Mu Li Tang and H11/Chai Hu Gui Pi Gan Jiang Tang. Anyway, I use H11 for patients who present with the same sort of patterns H12 is for, but who have weaker constitutions. I had a patient with severe insomnia after an abdominal operation—palpitations, anxiety, etc. She weaned herself off sleep medications in two weeks. I was surprised at the speed of this, because I had told her it might take a couple of months. I gave her another two weeks supply and haven’t seen her since, which I take as a good sign. She had a liver and spleen pattern presentation. I first saw her one week after the operation which, as I said, was for her digestive system, but her focus in seeing me was exclusively insomnia, so that is all I worked on.

JG: Excellent. Well, that’s all I have to ask, except I’m curious just exactly how you go about diagnosing patients. Do you check the tongue at all?

MP: When I diagnose I look at the tongue with herbal cases, but it remains in the background for me. I diagnose with the pulse and the abdomen, and lastly major symptoms. If I’m going back and forth in my mind between two different formulas, I will muscle test the formulas. And as I said, if I’m unsure between H12 and H11, I’ll go with H11 for weak pulse presentations. Also, with the Honso packaging, I can break open a box and give a patient a week’s worth of herbs. That way, if that’s all they need, the rest of the box doesn’t cost them and then sit on their shelf till they throw it away eventually, and I can shift the formula for them if need be. I use H01/Ge Gen Tang for basic flu and cold cases, and for that I usually just give them a week’s supply, because usually that is more than enough, especially if their constitution is strong.

JG: Thank you very much for your time, Mark. I enjoyed talking to you.

MP: You’re very welcome. I enjoyed it too.

The above contents are only for the purpose of professional exchange of information. They do not necessarily represent Honso USA’s opinions. If you are a practitioner who has been using Honso products in your practice for some time and you would like to be interviewed for this format, please send email to info@honso.com.

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