Traditional Chinese medicine health knowledge

Timely, fit, and obedient.

I have been working as a general practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine in a community hospital for almost ten years. I have met too many people who regard health care as "following the trend" and have fallen into all kinds of pitfalls. In fact, if I break it down, they all violate these six words. Last spring, I treated a 26-year-old Internet operation girl. She read about a blogger who said "spring should detoxify the liver." She soaked chrysanthemums, cassia seeds and dandelions every day. After drinking it for half a month, her aunt postponed it for ten days. She also ran every day and had diarrhea. When she came to see me, her hands and feet were cold, and her tongue was so pale that the blood was almost invisible. She had fallen into two pitfalls: "out of season" and "out of body" at the same time: the general trend in spring is for Yang Qi to rise, and she has a weak spleen and stomach. She does not have any internal heat symptoms such as dry mouth, bitter mouth, and excessive eye mucus. If she blindly uses cold herbs to suppress Yang Qi, there will be problems. To be fair here, there is actually no right or wrong in the views of different schools: the febrile disease school does advocate that we should prevent the invasion of warm evil in spring, and use pungent and cool ingredients to dispel wind and clear away heat. However, this is aimed at people who have severe internal heat, or who are prone to wind-heat and cold due to sudden rise in temperature in spring. The essence of "protecting the sun in spring" advocated by the typhoid school is the same. The core is to adapt to their own physical condition, rather than rigid theories.

Speaking of fitness is even more interesting. Almost every day, people ask me whether eating donkey-hide gelatin can replenish qi and blood or whether drinking red bean and barley water can remove dampness. In fact, there are no health-preserving ingredients that are suitable for everyone. Not long ago, a 62-year-old aunt came to me for treatment. She said that her daughter had bought donkey-hide gelatin cake worth thousands of dollars for her daughter, and she could not stop eating two pieces of it every day. Within three weeks of eating, her chest felt tight, her tongue coating was so thick that she could scrape off a layer of it, and she also developed several large, red and swollen pimples. This is a typical phlegm-damp constitution that takes nourishing tonic, just like pouring half a bottle of glue into a sewer that was already clogged. It would be strange if it is not clogged. There are currently nine mainstream classifications of physical constitutions, and some schools are accustomed to differentiate based on the deficiency and excess of the organs. The opinions are different, but the underlying logic is exactly the same: what you lack is the supplement, and if you are not lacking, no matter how good the thing is, it is also a burden. Just like someone whose skin is dry and has cracks needs to be watered, and someone who is so waterlogged that his tongue coating is greasy and needs to be drained, watering someone who is waterlogged is not called helping, it is called causing trouble.

Many people tend to go to extremes when it comes to health care, but they forget the most critical word "keeping one's health". A while ago, an old patient came to me to complain, saying that he heard that Baduanjin is good for the cervical spine. He practiced following the video three times a day, but he couldn’t lift his arms and his shoulders only hurt more. There was also a little girl who soaked her feet in water boiled with ginger and peppercorns every day in order to remove dampness. She soaked her feet for forty minutes at a time and had to soak until she was sweating profusely. After soaking for a month, she tossed and turned at night and could not sleep. Her mouth was so dry that she had to get up to drink water two or three times in the middle of the night. Later, she stopped soaking her feet and drank lily and Ophiopogon japonicus water for a week before she recovered. You see, no matter how good the method is, overdoing it will cause injury. Traditional Chinese medicine teaches that "the disease will stop immediately." It is enough to remove dampness and soak until the back is slightly warm. It is enough to exercise until the body sweats a little. If you insist on pursuing the "full effect", it will be too much.

It snowed a few days ago, and my neighbor's couple had a quarrel about health care: my 5-year-old son had a bad cough, and my mother wanted to give boiled pears water to moisten his lungs. Grandma said that the pears were too cold for fear of hurting the child's spleen and stomach. They each had their own reasons, and they blocked the door of my house to comment. In fact, how can it be so absolute? Dig out the core of the pear, put 3 Sichuan peppercorns and two rock sugars and steam it for 20 minutes. The coolness of the pear is neutralized by the Sichuan peppercorns, which moistens the dryness and dissipates cold at the same time. After eating it twice, the child's cough is much better. You see, many contradictions in health care are actually due to the lack of understanding of the four words "flexible adjustment".

The often-heard saying "eat carrots in winter and ginger in summer" is not an iron rule. Last summer, I met many patients with oral ulcers and constipation. I followed the blogger and drank ginger and jujube tea every day. As a result, the more I drank, the more angry I became. This sentence is originally aimed at the situation that most people like to cool down in summer, blow air conditioners, eat iced drinks, and have a weak and cold spleen and stomach. If you have internal heat and a dry mouth at all times, then ginger will "add fuel to the fire" for you.

I have been in this business for almost ten years, and I have seen too many people make health care a KPI: drink eight glasses of water today, walk 10,000 steps tomorrow, and eat 12 kinds of grains the day after tomorrow. Instead, they make themselves extremely anxious. In fact, it is really not necessary. The most simple criterion for health care is very simple: you feel comfortable after eating and doing it, you wake up refreshed the next day, and your bowel movements are smooth. It is more effective than any expensive supplements or Internet celebrity prescriptions. Don't complicate simple things, that's enough.