Starting today, I will study "Basic Theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine" with an experienced practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine. The first lesson is "Diseases and Symptoms, the Concept of Diseases of Traditional Chinese Medicine", which is to understand how Traditional Chinese Medicine treats diseases.
In order to deepen your understanding and memory, record the following study notes. This note was written by pre-studying the teacher's article, listening to the teacher's lecture, based on the teacher's material, and combining it with my own understanding. Finally, I summarized the key knowledge and memorized it (this will be the case for future related study articles) ).
We all know the story of Duke Huan of Cai who concealed his illness and avoided medical treatment. Bian Que saw the various stages of the development of Duke Huan of Cai's disease many times, and told him every time that he needed treatment, but Duke Huan of Cai didn't take it seriously. In the end, he became terminally ill and passed away. Powerless. So how did Bian Que know Cai Huangong's disease and the progress of the disease at various stages without the help of instruments?
In fact, Bian Que knew Cai Huangong’s disease by observing Cai Huangong’s physical condition, and judged Cai Huangong’s disease through Si Wai Cai Nei. Si Wai Cai Nei analyzed the internal organs through changes in external body surface characteristics. Change means seeing the essence through phenomena.
Thinking outside and inside is the characteristic of clinical thinking of traditional Chinese medicine.
Sun Guangrong, the master of traditional Chinese medicine, said that the external signs and symptoms are based on the four diagnostic methods of observation, smell, inquiry, incision and ginseng, and the internal pathogenesis changes can be inferred from the external signs and symptoms. Taking the outside into account, Chinese medicine has gradually formed a "holistic view" of the unity of nature and man, and the unity of form and spirit, which has unique characteristics and advantages.
"Lingshu" says: "Look at its external response to know its internal organs, and then you will know the disease." That is, "whatever has internal symptoms must have external symptoms." By observing the patient's external manifestations, you can tell where the disease is by looking at the clear and turbid colors on the patient's face, by listening to the voice you can tell which organ the disease is in, by checking the pulse you can tell where the disease comes from, and by combining the four diagnostic methods, you can determine which organ the disease is in and its deficiency and excess. .
The way Chinese medicine looks at diseases is to look at the outside and inside, and consider the diagnosis and treatment of diseases from a holistic perspective. Western medicine thinks about what disease the patient has, while Chinese medicine thinks about who has what disease, that is, who has the disease. Chinese medicine’s view of disease must be that the disease is added to the person, and what type and stage the disease is at.
For example, obesity, for traditional Chinese medicine, not only needs to know obesity, but also whether it is inflated or real. If you are overweight, you can just strengthen the spleen, resolve phlegm and remove dampness. However, if you are overweight, this treatment method will not work. You must replenish qi to be effective. That is to say, the same disease requires different treatment methods, that is, treating the same disease with different treatments.
In addition, different diseases can be treated together, such as gastritis and vascular and neurological headaches caused by eating too much raw and cold food, Evodia Fructus Decoction is used. The reason is that from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, the two diseases have the same syndrome after syndrome differentiation. They are both cold in the liver and stomach, the yin evil is not transformed, and the yin and cold evil qi are reversed. This is called "treating different diseases with the same treatment." This is the main reason why Chinese and Western medicine treat patients differently.
After Chinese medicine determines the disease through the "four diagnosis" method, how does it treat it? The treatment of traditional Chinese medicine is a dialectical treatment.
Syndrome differentiation and treatment is the clinical thinking mode of traditional Chinese medicine.
"Syndrome differentiation and treatment" first need to clarify the concepts of symptoms, syndromes and diseases:
Symptoms are individual points, such as headache, cold sensitivity, nausea, etc.;
Symptoms are the analysis, induction, and summary of internally related symptoms, and are summarized into syndromes, which are equivalent to line segments in mathematics and are composed of points.
The disease consists of different syndromes.
Different syndromes may appear at different stages of a disease; the same syndrome may appear in different diseases during their development.
The so-called ‘syndrome differentiation’ is to analyze, identify and understand the symptoms of a disease. ‘Treatment’ means establishing corresponding treatment rules based on the results of syndrome differentiation. The process of syndrome differentiation and treatment is actually the process of understanding and solving diseases.
Different syndromes of the same disease require different treatment methods. As long as different diseases have the same syndromes, the same treatment method can achieve good results.
Dialectics: It is the process of analyzing and summarizing the clinical data obtained from the four diagnostic examinations under the guidance of traditional Chinese medicine theory to determine what syndrome the patient suffers from. Many disease names and symptoms in traditional Chinese medicine are consistent. For example, if a patient's symptom is edema of the lower limbs, the disease diagnosis is edema.
Some diseases have different names and symptoms. For example, if a patient has symptoms such as fever, aversion to cold, no sweat, and soreness all over the body, the traditional Chinese medicine diagnosis is a cold.
First determine the name of the disease, and then analyze and summarize the clinical data obtained from the four diagnostic examinations to determine what syndrome the patient has. This is dialectics.
During the course of illness, symptoms will change. Such changes include both natural transformations of the disease and transformations with treatment. If edema begins, it may be a sign of excessive Feng Shui, and if it is not cured for a long time, it may become a sign of spleen deficiency or kidney deficiency.
Of course, clinically, there will also be cases where there is no symptom and no disease. For example, if a patient only finds stones in the urinary tract during physical examination without any symptoms or discomfort, Chinese medicine can achieve good results by using methods of warming yang and activating blood circulation, removing stones and diluting water.