I Can Hear the Heart's Voice of Traditional Chinese Medicine-Chapter 311 - 138: Illness Begins in the Lungs, Lingers in the Kidneys

The pulse is deep, thin, and weak, and the tongue is pale and lacking luster.

The pulse being deep, thin, and weak indicates a deficiency in the body’s qi and blood.

The deep pulse refers to a low pulse position that cannot be felt with light pressure and only felt with heavy pressure.

The thin pulse is as slender as a thread but is clearly felt.

The weak pulse is characterized by being deep, thin, soft, and lacking strength.

Whether it is a deep pulse, a thin pulse, or a weak pulse, all three indicate that the patient has a deficiency in qi and blood.

If the patient has a deficiency in qi and blood, especially after the spleen qi is weak, it will lead to insufficient generation of the qi and blood, causing the blood to be unable to fill the vessels, resulting in a deep, thin, and weak pulse.

Patients with such a pulse may experience general fatigue in daily life or have inherently weak and many diseases.

Old Zhou’s situation undoubtedly confirms this point.

However, it was the first time Lu Xuan encountered a patient with allergic rhinitis, and he chose not to diagnose and treat based on his own understanding, but rather to listen to the opinions of the experts.

As soon as Lu Xuan focused on the Heart’s Voice, he already heard dry ginger’s shouting:

[Oh ho! This should be Dr. Lu’s first encounter with an allergic rhinitis patient.]

[It seems indeed there hasn’t been such a patient before. I wonder if Dr. Lu has any in-depth research on this type of condition. Rhinitis doesn’t sound like a big problem, but it’s also not easy to cure.]

[Dr. Lu is so talented, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem, right!]

[That’s hard to say oh!]

[The key issue is the patient named Zhou is not just rhinitis, his body is already very poor, treatment might need to use manganese medication.]

[Speaking of manganese medication, it’s up to Aconite.]

[By the way, Aconite hasn’t been out for a long time, the first time was with a patient named Zhang Song.]

[Aconite is still too low-key. If it were dry ginger, it would have jumped out by now.]

[Isn’t this comment just now a bit too much, am I the kind of medicine, dry ginger?]

[Hmm hmm!]

[Aconite?]

[I’m here, also wondering where you guys get all your energy from.]

[Let’s talk about it.]

[Since everyone is saying so, I’ll talk about it.]

[Everyone applauds to welcome.]

After what seemed like cheers from dry ginger, Aconite’s voice rang in Lu Xuan’s ear:

[Aconite]: [Let’s first talk about the treatment from Western medicine on this aspect, having seen quite a few over the years.]

[Sitting and waiting for the expert lecture.]

[Newbie attentively taking notes in class.]

[Aconite]: [Western medicine treatment for allergic rhinitis generally involves cell membrane stabilizers or inflammatory mediator-release inhibitors, like sodium cromoglicate, ketotifen, topast, or antihistamine drugs, such as chlorpheniramine, astemizole, desloratadine, loratadine (Claritin); leukotriene receptor antagonists, like zafirlukast, montelukast; and also intranasal corticosteroids and non-specific desensitization therapy;

Non-specific desensitization therapy enhances the body’s tolerance to allergens, with a more solid effect, though treatment is longer; specific desensitization therapy is a new method popularized in recent years, but its indications are too narrow, the course of treatment is about a year and a half or longer, making it very difficult to act on all types of allergens, and its effects are still awaiting further clinical evaluation.

However, Western medicine methods mostly treat the symptoms rather than the root cause, merely desensitizing and neglecting the patient’s physical condition, which has a high possibility of recurrence. This point I think everyone already knows without me saying it.]

[What about traditional Chinese medicine?]

[Aconite Xiao]: [The advantage of traditional Chinese medicine in treating this disease lies primarily in achieving a balance of Yin and Yang in the body through syndrome differentiation and treatment, focusing on curing the root and preventing recurrence; modern pharmacological research in TCM indicates that many herbs can interfere with multiple pathological stages of allergic reactions, having a certain effect in controlling the outbreak, though overall, it is not as targeted and fast-acting as Western medicine.

Based on the combined pathological understanding of both Chinese and Western medicine, allergic rhinitis is mainly due to Yang Qi deficiency in the lung, spleen, and kidney, likely related to the dysfunction in the body’s endocrine system, autonomic nervous system, and immune system, as well as genetic factors, i.e., insufficient self-regulation and self-stabilization functions.

Although Western medicine’s pharmaceutical approach is effective in controlling allergic reactions clinically, it cannot regulate and adjust the self-stabilization of the endocrine, autonomic nervous, and immune systems, which might be an important reason why Western medicine treatment of allergic rhinitis fails to achieve lasting efficacy.

Whereas TCM’s syndrome differentiation and treatment, acupuncture therapy, etc., have a prominent effect in regulating the functions of these systems in such patients.

The main approach and basic method for treating allergic rhinitis are to use TCM syndrome differentiation treatment or acupuncture therapy to improve the patient’s body functions persistently while combining Western medication to control the outbreak symptoms as soon as possible.

However, traditional Chinese herbal medicine also contains medications that can control the outbreak of rhinitis, and ’Golden Mirror Biyun Powder’ is something you might have heard of.

The occurrence of this disease is mainly related to the Yang Qi deficiency in the lung, spleen, and kidney, specific body constitution, and inability to protect against the external environment, thereby allowing the invasion of wind-cold, pollen, or other unclean qi, or certain dietary triggers, causing paroxysmal nasal itching, sneezing, and a continuous flow of clear nasal mucus, with recurrent episodes. Or it might be due to internal damp-heat accumulation, Yin-Yang imbalance, and cold-heat complexity.

The types are divided into six, including cold excess in the lung meridian, lung qi deficiency, spleen qi deficiency, kidney Yang deficiency, internal damp-heat accumulation, and cold-heat complexity.

Patients with cold excess in the lung meridian typically have a history of chronic asthma, with insufficient Yang Qi in organs, allowing cold pathogens to lodge in the lung meridian, obstructing the nasal orifices, and causing the loss of regulatory balance, resulting in incessant nasal itchiness and sneezing.