When should the medicine be stopped

As important as finding a good medicine is when to stop that medicine. Using medicine for a long time is not the goal. I think knowing how to step back well is a part of treatment.

Medicine is not a substitute for the body

The way I use medicine is not to do the body's work for it, but to push from beside it so that the body regains its own regulating power. I make use of the property whereby a small stimulus draws up the body's power of recovery. If so, once the body begins to stand on its own, the pushing hand must withdraw. Because if it keeps pushing, the body learns to lean on that hand.

Beyond this, as I said before, the mechanism that produces an effect produces side effects when taken to excess. Even a medicine as mild as licorice, if used for a long time and in large amounts, can shake electrolytes and blood pressure. So "continuing to take it even after getting better" is the point where the benefit shrinks and the risk begins to grow.

It is safer to reduce and stop a medicine once its goal is achieved, and herbal medicine is no exception.

From the moment I first give a medicine, I set the ending together with you. I tell you in advance: "When such-and-such improves in such-and-such a way, we reduce it; and when we confirm such-and-such, we stop." Treatment without a set ending easily loses its direction.

I taper the herb as the body improves

When I start a medicine, I set the goal and the duration together, and as I watch the course, I reduce the medicine as much as the improvement. I step back while checking whether the body has gained the power to maintain itself. And we look together at the places where it carries on out of habit even after the symptom has gone. Using it short and precisely when needed, then stepping back — this is what I consider the good use of herbal medicine.

Cases where you must go to a hospital first

That said, there are cases where suddenly stopping a medicine on your own judgment is dangerous. Prescription drugs, especially blood pressure medicine, diabetes medicine, steroids, and antidepressants, must not be stopped arbitrarily. You must adjust them in consultation with the place that prescribed them. When you feel something wrong in your body while taking herbal medicine, too, do not judge on your own — let me know. You have to be more careful when stopping and adjusting a medicine than when starting it.

Withdrawing well matters as much as prescribing well

Medicine only needs to stay at your side until the body can stand on its own. Using it well and stepping back well — I will gauge that timing together with you.

References

• Above a certain amount and beyond about 30 days, licorice can bring swelling, raised blood pressure and low potassium — Frontiers in Nutrition, 2021
• Deliberately reducing and stopping a medicine that has met its goal is now treated as part of care — Pharmacy, 2019
• Stopping steroids abruptly after long use is dangerous — the dose has to be tapered — StatPearls, 2023

Written by Dr. Heo Ji-young (PhD in Korean Medicine Pathology, Kyung Hee University · former Research Professor of Herbology, Kyung Hee University)