It is approaching that time of year where, if you haven’t filled up on Vitamin D (and if you’ve been living beneath a blanket of toxins), it may be advisable to undergo some treatments that will fuel you for the winter months and beyond.

With a history that dates back 2,000 or 3,000 years, it is perhaps not unfathomable that Chinese medicine may hold some answers. Over its evolution, Traditional Chinese Medicine has offered an alternative system of diagnosis and cure to that of the West.

Although they may sometimes sound like old wives tales, Chinese medicine techniques are actually finding their way into Western medicine. Penicillin derived from mold, so why should the use of centipedes (for snakebites, convulsions and malaria), carps (for coughs, asthma and edema), frogs (for treating boils) or scarab beetles (nasal polyps, boils, piles and dysentery) in medicine seem so bizarre?

The central belief of Chinese medicine is that the source of the illness needs to be treated primarily. It requires a deep understanding of the body and its networks, its qi or vital energy. So to avoid illness altogether, try some of these slightly absurd, but proven by popularity, treatments that have been curing (and possibly causing) pains and ailments in China for years.