[Case study]A male patient in his 50’s who complains of 8 different types of illness

In modern times, people are used to seeing doctors according to the Western medical system, so that if you have a disease, you go to a specialist in the corresponding department. But what if you have eight medical conditions at the same time?

Let’s take a look at the following case.

The patient, a man in his 50s, complained of a cough. He feels that he has not recovered from a cold and cough since 2 years ago, and his breathing is accompanied by a coughing sound, with pus phlegm that cannot be coughed up. The patient feels very tight in the chest, but feels more comfortable when pressed. He usually has a dry throat and a dry mouth and likes to drink a lot of water. Urgent, frequent and incomplete urination. Poor sleep at night, does not feel sleepy, does not want to sleep. He has a poor digestive system, soft stools, acid reflux and no hunger. He has annual hay fever attacks in spring, sneezing, tearing and itchy nose. He has been dreamy and moody lately. Also, psoriasis on head for years, itching and crusting. Blood pressure is high (138mmHg).

These problems, if classified according to Western medicine, can be classified as respiratory (cough), ENT (foreign body sensation in the throat), cardiovascular (chest tightness, high blood pressure), dermatological (psoriasis), allergic reaction (hay fever), urological (frequent and urgent urination), psychiatric (abnormal sleep, poor mood) and gastroenterological (acid reflux, no appetite). This means that in order to solve these problems, one has to go to specialists in each of the eight departments.

The patient chose to have Chinese medicine treatment with us and the results were immediate. The cough and croup decreased significantly after the first week of medication, after which the tightness in the chest gradually disappeared, the feeling of a foreign body in the throat was reduced and, in the patient’s words, “I suddenly felt like I was singing much more clearly”. The frequency of urination has improved significantly and is no longer the first and last thing to go to the toilet when coming to the clinic. The psoriasis has improved significantly and is no longer crusty. The patient has gone from having no sleep at night to a return to normal sleep. The patient began to feel a distinct sense of hunger and the patient said: finally I feel like eating and no longer feel like eating just to eat. The hay fever, which was a regular problem every year, has not returned this year. Blood pressure is basically back to normal.

My treatment philosophy: the first stage was to broaden the chest and regulate qi to remove phlegm, gradually shifting to tonifying the liver and kidneys and regulating stagnant blood. The main formula is just three or four prescriptions of the classic formula, which are adapted to the patient’s constitution.

It took about 4 months to achieve this therapeutic effect, and the improvements were all chronic illnesses that the patient had suffered from for many years, and the recent coughs were all over 2 years old.

To summarise two points of inspiration for patients.

Firstly, the patient should reflect on this mainstream “blind man’s eye” approach to healing. Without a holistic approach, it is useless to go to any number of departments if you cannot grasp the core disease mechanism.

As long as it involves adjusting a person’s basic constitution, the body needs enough time to change and repair itself under the influence of drugs. Sometimes it really is a case of one point of persistence, one point of gain.