The Diagnosis and Treatments in TCM  

Chinese doctors spend a lot of time in interviewing patients to find out their full medical history, diet and lifestyle. By feeling their pulse, observing their general appearance and expression, listening to their voice and smelling their breath, the doctor will form an initial opinion on where the problem is.

Chinese medicine believes most diseases progress from initial stage with obvious surface symptoms or external conformation to bigger problems with internal conformation. If problem can be treated at the initial stage with dispersing drugs, the progression can be stopped. But when surface symptoms and interior symptoms are both present, the disease should have gone internal and become chronic in nature and is more difficult to treat. The treatment then has to work on dispersing interior symptoms first. When the interior problem is fixed, the external symptoms will disappear automatically. 

Initially, doctors will find out 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 his/her 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.

After knowing the above, treatment will start with herbal remedies first. Herbs are classified as yin and yang, hot and cold, tonic and purgative, dry or damp, ascending or descending, accumulating or dispersing.

Yin herbs is cooling, calm hyperactivity, relieve inflammation and lower feverish temperature. 

Yang herbs provide a warming effect and treat chill conformation, warm the body and stimulate metabolism. 

Hot /warm herbs are to treat cold symptoms such as cold extremities.

Cold/cool herbs are for controlling fever, profuse perspiration and constipation. 

Tonics nourish and strengthen the body with a weak constitution and increase resistance to disease. 

Purgative herbs expel foreign or accumulated wastes from internal organ systems with a strong constitution. 

Dry herbs expel excess fluids from the body.

Damp or moistening herbs increase the vital fluids necessary for lubricating the whole body system. 

Ascending herbs 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 herbs control symptoms such as coughing, vomiting blood, abnormal perspiration and constipation.        

Accumulating herbs control the too strong dispersing symptoms and exert an inward effect.

Dispersing herbs ease congestion and stagnation, exert energy outward.

The diagnosis and treatment in Chinese medicine use the yin and yang theory to rebuild internal balance. Any problems will be looked at in whole and not in isolation. Treatment to other organs together with the deceased one is often necessary because balance can only be achieved when the over-active ones are under control and the under-active ones are being helped and promoted. 

Chinese Medicine uses both internal treatments and external treatments to help the body to recover quickly. Internal treatments include all natural food therapy and herbal remedies. External treatments include tai-chi, chi-gong, acupunture, moxibustion, suction cups, massage (tui na) therapy, acupressure, skin-scraping, blood-letting, ointments, exercise and meditation. Internal and external treatments go hand in hand, regardless of the type of ailment, and few cases are treated without using some form of both methods. It is because internal treatments are for changing the internal body conditions and to fulfill nutritional needs. External treatments are actually energy medicine working on the meridian systems and vital acupunture points to clear blockages and to get the vital qi energy moving again. All treatments are going deep into the root problem and to balance the body as a whole to achieve permanent cure. That explains why Chinese Medicine can be so effective and quick in treating acute and chronic health problems.