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In general, comparisons must be made under the same conditions and environments to be meaningful.

For some acute diseases and functional disorders, such as headache, common cold, sprained ankle, menstrual pain, or stiff neck, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) can use physical therapies like acupuncture and tuina (massage) to quickly alleviate symptoms on the spot. Modern medicine's anti-inflammatory and pain-relief drugs still need to be digested and absorbed, so TCM definitely has a faster therapeutic effect. Some TCM physicians "claim" that one or two doses of medicine can cure such illnesses.

However, for some sudden major injuries or illnesses, such as being severely injured in a car accident, bitten by venomous snakes or wild beasts, liver cirrhosis complicated by massive hematemesis, or pesticide poisoning, modern medicine's emergency care and surgeries are certainly more life-saving than relying on TCM.

In terms of chronic diseases, modern medicine mostly adopts symptom control (masking or covering up the surface manifestations), medication, or surgery, which are effective quickly. This is the strength of modern medicine, but it does not address the root cause of the disease, so continuous medication or repeated surgeries are necessary, prolonging the condition as long as possible. Sometimes, the dosage of modern medicine increases over time, eventually leading to severe and difficult-to-treat conditions. If the disease "luckily" improves, it is mostly due to the patient's self-healing ability. As for many other civilization diseases, stubborn chronic diseases, and complex illnesses that modern medicine can only treat superficially, symptoms often recur immediately after stopping medication, and each episode tends to be more severe than the last, requiring lifelong medication until death.

TCM treats chronic diseases not only by addressing the surface symptoms but also by treating the overall pathology behind the symptoms, such as regulating the imbalance of zang-fu organs, strengthening the functions of zang-fu organs, and restoring the smooth flow of information, energy, and material channels, etc., to truly cure the disease (no recurrence after stopping medication). However, the reason chronic diseases are difficult to treat and prone to recurrence is that the overall "material quality" of the person has already undergone significant changes. Therefore, to cure chronic diseases and long-standing illnesses, it cannot be achieved overnight; a certain "quantitative change" is necessary, gradually leading to a "qualitative change". Thus, TCM's cure for chronic diseases requires time, bit by bit, to restore the patient's "quality." If the treatment dose is too low or the treatment frequency is too sporadic, the effect will also be poor. For example, for long-standing sciatica or migraine, some patients take medicine two or three times, receive acupuncture a few times, and when the symptoms alleviate, they think they are cured and stop treatment, only to relapse two or three months later, blaming the doctor for ineffective treatment.

Many people mistakenly think that TCM's slow efficacy is due to chronic diseases, but no matter how slow TCM is, it is still faster than modern medicine, which can never cure and only control surface symptoms for life. In addition to taking Chinese medicinals, if combined with physical therapies like tuina (massage) and acupuncture, even symptom control may not be inferior to modern medicine. Of course, if the problem is so severe that surgery is required, TCM cannot help, and modern medicine must be relied upon.

Although TCM is slow in treating chronic diseases, some minor or major illnesses have a certain course (see "Disease Course - The Natural Recovery Timeline of Illness"). Failing to cure within this course and blaming TCM for being slow is a poor excuse for bad medical practice.

Generally, diseases that only affect functional imbalances and have not yet caused significant organic changes can be quickly cured by TCM, as TCM is most adept at regulating internal balance and treating diseases in accordance with their natural development trends. However, if organic changes have already occurred (such as various chronic diseases and lifestyle-related illnesses), TCM can improve the internal environment and enhance self-healing conditions as much as possible, but it requires a period of recuperation, often measured in months. According to experience, for the same chronic disease, the treatment course for those who have not taken modern medicine to control the disease is generally shorter than for those who have taken modern medicine for a period of time. This is because modern medicine can only suppress and mask local symptoms, without addressing the root cause of the disease, and it has a certain degree of toxic side effects. The longer the medication is taken, the more the underlying disease cause worsens, and the constitution becomes more rigid and the microenvironment deteriorates. Therefore, the time required to restore the constitution is roughly proportional to the duration of modern medicine use, and the constitution of strong and young individuals recovers faster than that of weak and elderly individuals.