At the end of 2022, after 32 years, I closed my combined practice for family medicine and Chinese medicine in order to pursue, from then on, only my true passion: a practice devoted exclusively to Chinese medicine. Patients are welcome if they wish their health problem – usually a chronic or chronically recurring complaint – to be treated exclusively, primarily, or perhaps as a complementary approach, with Chinese herbs.

Whether Chinese medicine is applied exclusively, or as a supportive or complementary approach alongside conventional treatment (led by the family doctor or specialist), and what conventional diagnostic work-up should precede it, is decided by the individual situation and by medical reasoning.

In many chronic, chronically recurring, chronically inflammatory and recurrent infectious conditions, conventional medicine still relies heavily on medications that are undoubtedly very useful in an acute situation, but in a chronic situation are often associated with numerous drawbacks and side effects. The most important examples are certainly painkillers, cortisone, antibiotics and psychotropic drugs – particularly when, as so often happens in complex situations, they have to be used in combination. The problems of overtreatment and polypharmacy are well known and difficult to avoid.

Chinese herbal therapy is a good alternative to this. Many chronic, chronically recurring, chronically inflammatory and recurrent infectious conditions can be treated with it without NSAIDs, without cortisone, without antibiotics and without psychotropic drugs. Sound clinical training and long clinical experience are, of course, essential prerequisites!

Over the years I have developed these prerequisites in various fields:

• recurrent infections of the upper respiratory tract and lungs: sinusitis, pharyngitis, tonsillitis, bronchitis, recurrent urinary tract infections

• dermatological problems such as acne, rosacea, atopic and seborrhoeic dermatitis, psoriasis, lichen planus, urticaria, herpes simplex and herpes zoster, pompholyx eczema, and stasis eczema

• digestive tract problems such as inflammation of the oral cavity, stomach complaints, functional bowel problems such as constipation, diarrhoea and severely disruptive bloating, irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel problems such as ulcerative colitis, and milder forms of Crohn's disease

• menstrual cycle problems such as absent periods after stopping the contraceptive pill, PMS, and severe period pain

I like to describe Chinese medicine as a regulatory therapy. It does not work through heroic, miracle-working formulas that can simply put everything right quickly – it does not work like a trick! Rather, it is patient, relatively slow work to gradually reverse accumulated dysfunctions and so bring the body, the person, back to better, more independent, more normal functioning. Ideally, such a therapy should also be supported by those affected – the patients themselves. Medical research and studies of the past 10–15 years have built up strong evidence for how much we can all influence and improve our wellbeing and health by reducing bad habits and adopting good ones. These certainly include diet, exercise, sleep and relaxation. There is hardly a treatment with me in which we do not look at these aspects of your lifestyle and consider what you yourself can contribute to improving your quality of life.

Areas of practice focus: Chinese herbal therapy

• TCM dermatology
• TCM gastroenterology
• TCM paediatrics
• TCM infectious diseases
• TCM gynaecology

Languages: German, English, Spanish, Italian, French

Practice Address:

Praxis Wilfriedstrasse
med. pract. Silvio Schaller, M.D.
Wilfriedstrasse 8
8032 Zurich

Phone:  +41 44 262 03 40

E-Mail: silvio.schaller@hin.ch

Conventional Medicine:

• 1975–1982: Studied medicine in Zurich
• 1982: State examination
• 1983–1990: Training as a general practitioner. Resident positions in surgery, paediatrics, internal medicine, general medicine, gynaecology and obstetrics
• Since late 1990: In own practice

Chinese Medicine:

• 1976–1990: Basic training in shiatsu, APM (acupuncture massage), acupuncture, Chinese herbal therapy and Chinese dietetics
• 1990 and 2000: Clinical training in Chinese herbal therapy at the hospital of the TCM University in Chengdu (Sichuan Province, China), in paediatrics, gastroenterology, gynaecology, dermatology and infectious diseases
• 1990–2003: Repeated clinical training courses at the TCM university hospital in Chengdu
• 1992–2014: Continuing education and clinical supervision in own practice from TCM specialists (OMD Mazin Al-Khafaji, dermatology and immune disorders; Prof. Liu Guohui, general medicine; Prof. Wu Yuning, gynaecology; Prof. Zhang Zhiwen, infectious diseases; Prof. Su Shurong, paediatrics; Prof. Yu Xinwei, Prof. Dr Marc Sapriel and Prof. Dr Patrick Stoltz, oncology)
• 2008–2010: Diploma course in gynaecology with Prof. Wu Yuning, Beijing, China
• 2015: Diploma course in dermatology with Mazin Al-Khafaji, OMD, Brighton, England