Foods 'n' Herbs

The Diagnosis and Treatments in Chinese Medicine  

Chinese doctors spend a lot of time in interviewing the patient to find out their full medical history, diet and lifestyle. By feeling the patient's pulse, observing his/her general appearance and expression, listening and even smelling the patient, the doctor will have a good idea of where the problem is. He will then identify the basic constitution of the patient to see whether he/she has a strong or weak, yin or yang constitution.

The second stage of the diagnosis is to correlate the general constitution with the specific symptoms to identify the conformation of the sickness. The various conformations of sickness are fever conformation or chill conformation, yang conformation or yin conformation, surface conformation or interior conformation, deficient or excessive conformation.

In knowing the dynamics, the nature and the locality of the disease, the treatment uses herbal remedies to treat the problem and to reestablish the body balance. The classifications of herbs are Yin and Yang, hot and cold, tonic and purgative, dry or damp, ascending or descending, accumulating or dispersing.

• Yin drugs provide a cooling effect, calm hyperactivity, relieve inflammation and lower feverish temperature. 
• Yang drugs provide a warming effect and treat chill conformation, warm the body and stimulate metabolism. 
• Hot drugs are to treat cold symptoms such as cold extremities.
• Cold drugs are for controlling fever, profuse perspiration and constipation. 
• Tonics nourish and strengthen the body with a weak constitution and increase resistance to disease. 
• Purgatives expel foreign or accumulated wastes from the system of those with a strong constitution. 
• Dry drugs expel excess fluids from the body.
• Damp or moistening drugs increase the vital fluids necessary for lubricating the whole body system. 
• Ascending drugs control symptoms with too strong descending effects such as abundant urine, diarrhea, and blood in the stools, excessive menstrual flow and lack of perspiration. 
• Descending drugs control symptoms such as coughing, vomiting blood, abnormal perspiration and constipation.        
• Accumulating drugs control the too strong dispersing symptoms and exert an inward effect.
• Dispersing drugs ease congestion and stagnation, exert energy outward.

    In a nutshell, the diagnosis and treatment in Chinese medicine use the Yin and Yang Theory in reestablishing the body’s balance. However, problems are not just being looked at in isolation. It is often necessary to treat other organs, which can control the over-activity or promote the under-activity of the deceased ones.