The hidden risks of using traditional Chinese medicine with Western prescriptions

In the second instalment of a four-part Health Matters series on traditional Chinese medicine, Aidyn Fitzpatrick investigates the drug-interaction risks of combining Chinese remedies with Western medicine, and how Hongkongers can protect themselves from avoidable complications.

An elderly woman with a mechanical heart valve was taking warfarin, a blood thinner to prevent and treat blood clots, when she began using the Chinese herb danshen, often marketed for “blood circulation”. Her blood lost its ability to clot normally, resulting in severe bleeding complications.

The case, which Dr Raymond Wong Siu-ming encountered as a consultant at the Prince of Wales Hospital’s Poison Treatment Centre and a lead expert with the Integrated Chinese-Western Medicine Treatment Safety Centre, illustrates an increasingly common blind spot: Chinese medicine and Western prescription drugs are often used together, but patients may not always know the impact of the combination.

For many Hongkongers, Chinese medicine is not an alternative so much as part of everyday life: a chrysanthemum tea, a bowl of tonic soup, a session of cupping, a proprietary pill bought from a pharmacy. The crucial distinction is not whether something is “natural”, but whether it is used as food, symptom relief or as a concentrated treatment alongside medicines that have their own powerful effects.