p>Being a doctor for so long, the word I hear the most is “wet”. Patients often open their mouths and say, “Doctor, I’m wet.”What exactly is wetness? How does TCM judge the presence of “dampness”? Let’s talk today. Does it have to be in a humid climate or environment to be called “wet”? Not necessarily! Although it is true that it is easier to get wet diseases in a humid climate or environment, easy access does not mean guaranteed access. Traditional Chinese medicine judges “dampness” mainly by looking at whether there are symptoms of “dampness” in the patient. In other words, “dampness” is abstract, and if the patient has an image of dampness, he has a syndrome of dampness. What are the pathogenic characteristics of dampness?
Dampness is Yin Evil
Yin evil refers to the nature of dampness, which belongs to yin in the comparison of yin and yang. The reason is very simple, because the wetness is like water, the water is cold, and the yin is obvious, so the dampness is also a yin evil.
Moisture easily inhibits the gas machine
Dampness is easy to block the Qi machine, in short, it is easy to impede the flow of human Qi. What is the relationship between water and qi in the human body? ——The relationship is: when air moves, water moves! The water is smooth! But don’t interpret it as a stream of air pushing a stream of water away, it’s actually not that specific. The relationship between water and gas in the human body is actually a bit like fog, or it can be understood as a dense semi-gaseous and semi-liquid state. In this way, we can imagine that the so-called wet, according to the thinking and imagination of modern people, is a bit like having too many water molecules in the body, which is dense, diffused and foggy. exposed state. Let’s take a look at the character “wet” in this seal script. The left side is water, the upper part of the right is a Japanese character, and the lower part is a silk character (see the picture below). What does the whole word mean? That is, when the sun goes down, the water vapor evaporates into a dense state, which is wet.
So, we can understand why The south is humid, because the climate in the south is hotter, the sunshine time is long, and the sun is shining, and the water in the rivers, rivers, lakes, seas, ponds, and streams will evaporate upwards. Then “it’s raining” again. In this way, the yin and yang of heaven and earth rise and fall sympathetically, and the clouds and rains change alternately, forming a large wet environment. Let’s look at Qi. Qi has no shape and is a very subtle (invisible) substance with strong movement. When there are too many wet-fog-like things in the body, it is similar to that there are too many water molecules in the body. Then, the smoothness of the invisible qi must be slowed down. This is called in Chinese medicine. Air stagnation. What does qi stagnation show? In one word, it is: bloat;in two words: It is swelling, or sores. The only difference is that the former is lighter and the latter is heavier. Why “bloat”? In fact, the reason is very simple. Too much air, just like pumping a bicycle tire, if the tire is out of air, we pump it until it is full, and when it is full, it swells. Therefore, there is a sense of swelling in the human body, which is often a manifestation of qi stagnation. Dampness tends to block the qi movement, that is to say: where there is dampness, in addition to the original symptoms of dampness, it is also prone to local swelling and stuffiness. This in turn reminds us to add qi medicines when treating wet diseases. There are two reasons: one is that dampness is easy to block qi; the other is that qi can help dampness and disperse, thus helping to improve dampness strong>. However, when adding qi-moving medicines, you don’t need to add them so stupidly. You don’t need to add several qi-moving medicines on top of a few damp-removing medicines, because some qi-moving medicines can remove dampness in the first place. Some herbs for expelling dampness can activate Qi in the first place. Medicines like dried tangerine peel, white cardamom, Amomum, Magnolia officinalis are both used to remove dampness and invigorate qi.
Dampness easily damages the yang qi
Cold pathogens can easily damage the yang , Dampness is also easy to damage Yang, what is the difference between the two? It can be understood in this way: the yin of cold evil is greater than that of dampness, “when yin prevails, yang disease”, so cold evil hurts yang, which will hurt more seriously, while not too much It can be hurt anywhere. Dampness injures the yang, which has a certain selectivity. The most easily damaged viscera is the spleen.Why? Because the physiological properties of the spleen are similar to yin soil, yin soil, that is, moist and low-lying soil. For earth to transform into all things, it must be moderately dry and wet, so yin earth likes dryness and hates dampness. Another way of expressing it is that the spleen is particularly sensitive to dampness and is particularly afraid, so dampness can easily damage the spleen and yang. Yang qi represents the function. Once the spleen yang is damaged, the function of the spleen will decline, and symptoms such as abdominal distention, light mouth, not wanting to eat, and loose and sticky stools are likely to occur.
wet turbidity
heavy: means heavy. As long as there is a feeling of heaviness on the whole body or part of the body, it is considered wet. Because of the wetness of water, the specific gravity of water is relatively large. For example, joint pain, if it is migratory, we call it Feng Bi; if the joint pain is not migratory, but heavy, and aggravated on rainy days, we call it wet Bi. Sometimes the patient’s statement is ambiguous. For example, he said that the doctor is very tired. Many people may misunderstand and directly regard fatigue as Qi deficiency. This is not necessarily true! Because there are actually two types of tiredness, one is powerlessness and the other is heaviness. If tiredness is a feeling of weakness, it is generally a deficiency of qi. If tiredness is a feeling of heaviness, it is generally wet. Some people may say, I can’t tell the difference, it seems that I feel a little powerless and a little heavy, what is that? In fact, it is very simple, it can be judged as Qi deficiency and dampness. With regard to “heavy”, there is a word that often appears in medical books – tenesmus: it refers to the feeling that the bowel movement is at the end of the bowel movement, and it feels a little unclean. sense. The anus has a heavy feeling in line with the word “heavy”, so it is also considered wet. At the same time, the pull is not clean and the stickiness is in line with the wet stickiness. turbidity: refers to the turbidity of secretions and excrement. Such as cloudy urine, female vaginal discharge, etc. The symptoms of “turbidity” are often seen in common with the “stickiness” below.
Wet Viscous
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sticky:sticky Greasy refers to the stickiness of symptoms. Women have a lot of vaginal discharge, and the vaginal discharge is usually sticky and turbid, which is consistent with turbidity and stickiness. Men with chronic prostatitis, at the end of urination, there will be a little mucus, and the stickiness of this mucus is wet. The stool is not clean, the waste paper is sticky and wet, and what is more serious is the tenesmus. There is a lot of eye mucus in the morning. The mucus is sticky and wet. Exudative skin conditions, such as eczema or certain ringworms, are wet. The face has a greasy feeling, and the greasy feeling is sticky and wet. Hair is oily and wet. and so on. What is easier to judge is the appearance of sticky tongue coating, as shown in the figure below.
span>We can compare it for ourselves. Any secretion or excrement that is cloudy or sticky can be named or summarized by wet. Stagnation: refers to the lingering nature of the course of the disease. As long as the disease has the word “wet”, the cycle of the disease will feel sticky and will be longer. This can be understood as both stagnation and stickiness. Therefore, stickiness does not just mean sticky symptoms, but the entire course of the disease may be sticky and lingering.
moisture decline, easy to attack the negative position< /strong>
prone to vaginal position strong>:The simple understanding is that water flows down. Many of the symptoms listed above are either urination, stool, external genitalia, or appear in some hidden parts. These are the Yin position, so dampness is a Yin evil, and it is easy to attack the Yin position. moisture down: means that the disease has the characteristics of going down, which can be distinguished from the wind evil. “If the wind is injured, the upper will receive it first”, because the wind is easy to attack the yang position; and “the person injured by the dampness, the lower will receive it first”, because the damp evil is easy to attack the yin position. Attention! The dampness mentioned above is the external dampness of the six external factors (wind, cold, summer heat, dampness, dryness, and fire), which are external. There is another type of dampness in the human body called internal dampness—that is, Spleen deficiency generates dampness. One of the functions of the spleen is to run dampness. When the spleen is deficient, the function of the spleen decreasesWhen it is not able to move water-dampness, it can also produce water-dampness and phlegm-drinking, which is endogenous. Its performance is the performance of spleen deficiency + heavy turbidity, stickiness, descending, inhibition of qi and other symptoms. ■[Source: TCM teacher Pan Yi, Author: Prof. Pan Yi, MD, PhD supervisor, Director of the Teaching and Research Section of TCM Basic Theory, Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Guangdong Vice-Chairman of the Basic Theory Research Professional Committee of the Provincial Society of Traditional Chinese Medicine】
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This article is from: Public Account—Guangdong Traditional Chinese Medicine
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