Traditional Chinese medical treatment cannot simply be based on the disease. Of course, we have been emphasizing the two basic characteristics of Chinese medicine from the very beginning: the holistic concept and the treatment based on syndrome differentiation. In the past few decades, we have emphasized the importance of syndrome differentiation and treatment, which is the essence of traditional Chinese medicine. However, it is not enough to simply treat based on syndrome differentiation, and it is difficult to reflect the whole picture of the TCM diagnosis and treatment system. In fact, while emphasizing syndrome differentiation, Chinese medicine also needs to differentiate and treat diseases based on symptomatic treatment.
In ancient times, there were not as many instruments and equipment as there are now, and it was impossible to rely on detection methods for diagnosis. Patients often came to see a doctor because of a certain symptom or aggravation of the original symptom. , hope to get treatment is for this one main symptom. For example, a patient with stomach pain comes to see a doctor. After treatment, if he feels that his stomach pain is cured, both the patient and the doctor believe that the disease has been cured. When a patient with edema comes to see a doctor, the doctor and the patient also think that after the edema disappears, the disease will be cured. Therefore, the ancients often used symptoms as the name of the disease, which is the reason. The current internal medicine of traditional Chinese medicine includes some disease names named after symptoms such as cough, palpitations, epigastric pain, abdominal pain, and diarrhea.
It is undeniable that for some diseases, after treatment, although the symptoms disappear, the disease is not really cured. For example, after treatment of chronic nephritis patients, the edema has subsided, but the urine protein still remains. Positive; some diseases may not be detected in the early stage because there are no symptoms, such as the early stage of cancer, which is the limitation of traditional Chinese medicine. But there are also some diseases, such as “internal injury” and neurasthenia, which cannot be detected by western medicine, while Chinese medicine can grasp the main contradiction and solve the problem.
Traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine have different perspectives on the understanding of diseases, and the presentation of diagnosis conclusions is also different. So far, the basis of TCM diagnosis of diseases is still mainly based on the data of the four diagnoses. Although some research reports believe that there is a correlation between certain Western medicine indicators and TCM syndromes, which can be used as one of the basis for TCM syndrome differentiation, this is only an exploration and there is still a gap between the clinical practice of TCM. Due to different theoretical systems, TCM The name of the disease is different from that of Western medicine. In clinical or scientific research, there is a phenomenon that the name of Western medicine is used with the name of Chinese medicine, which may be the main reason for confusion.
For example, the “diabetes disease” that everyone is very familiar with now is recognized as its basic pathogenesis and syndrome characteristics. Although there are upper elimination, middle elimination and lower elimination, the basic treatment principle is to nourish yin, clear heat and moisten dryness. Nowadays, many people equate diabetes with diabetes, and those who know some Chinese medicine know that diabetes is not the same as diabetes, whether it is clinical manifestations or pathogenesis. For example, some patients with type 2 diabetes are obese. At the beginning, they did not show the basic clinical characteristics of thirst, polydipsia, polyphagia, polyuria, and weight loss. Therefore, the basic pathological characteristics of type 2 diabetes are not all. Yin deficiency and heat. On the contrary, according to the patient’s geographical and climatic conditions, eating habits, physical characteristics or body fat and other information, such patients should be identified as phlegm dampness block.