In fact, this kind of cough is not simple. Chinese medicine calls it "summer cough", because the disease has the pathogenic characteristics of summer evil and dampness evil. Summer dampness evil and heat are easy to accumulate in the lungs and stomach, leading to lung qi consumption injury. If it is not fundamentally regulated and blindly used, it will easily lead to lung yin injury, aggravate the condition and become a chronic cough.
"On Seasonal Diseases and Summer Cough" says: "Summer Cough is a disease, and it is only in the summer moon". According to Chinese medicine, in the four seasons of the year, summer evil is more abundant, and if you feel the cough caused by summer evil, it is summer cough.
The occurrence of summer cough mostly took about 4 months from long summer to beginning of autumn. Physicians of past dynasties concluded that summer heat, because of its fiery and exuberant characteristics, is highly pathogenic, wet and sticky, and can consume qi, force body fluid to leak out, and suppress yang qi. The evil of summer-heat and dampness first attacks the lung defense, affecting the function of lung to declare and suppress the descending, thus leading to cough. If you don't pay attention to it, the prolonged summer cough will consume qi and yin, and the spleen and stomach will be involved in the liver and kidney along the meridian, resulting in prolonged cough.
Simply put, we can understand the evil of summer-heat and dampness as a pathogenic factor. When they invade the human body, they will first affect the function of the lungs, thus causing cough.
As recorded in the Three-Character Classic of Medicine: "The choking of qi leads to cough, the lung is the heaviest, the stomach is not light, and the lung is like a bell. When it hits, it will sound, and the cold will enter, and the external impact will sound, and the tuberculosis will accumulate, and the internal impact will sound." It is clearly pointed out that cough occurs in the lung, but it is closely related to the spleen and stomach, liver and kidney and other viscera.
Traditional Chinese medicine believes that summer is hot, and the evil of summer heat is abundant, but in the five internal organs, the lungs are delicate and dirty, so summer heat first attacks the lungs, leading to the dysfunction of the lungs, reducing the loss of degree, and coughing up qi. In addition, the summer season is wet and rainy, and the summer heat is often accompanied by dampness evil, which is sticky and sticky, such as oil entering the face, which is also an important reason for frequent cough due to unclear lung qi.
Summer cough is in the lungs, and patients generally show poor cough, less white sputum, sticky sputum, sore throat, aversion to cold, or thirst. Symptoms such as thirst due to internal heat, irritability, yellow urine, dry stool, red tongue and thin yellow or greasy fur.
Generally speaking, if you don't pay attention to cough, or use cold drugs too much, it will lead to lung yin injury, so that the evil of summer heat and dampness will invade the spleen and stomach, affecting the transport function of the spleen and stomach. Because "the spleen is the source of phlegm", if you cough in summer heat in the spleen and stomach, you will usually have a heavy cough, a large amount of sputum, and the sputum color is white or yellow or yellow-white, accompanied by chest tightness, head sweating, heavy fatigue and thirst.
Traditional Chinese medicine believes that the lung is in the upper position, and its qi is descending; When the liver is in the lower position, its qi rises. Liver ascending and lung descending, coordinating with each other, is an important link to maintain the normal rise and fall of human qi. If the lung function is out of order, it will also involve the liver, and the liver yin deficiency and excessive fire will invade the lung along the meridian, aggravate the cough and form a vicious circle. In addition, the lung is responsible for breathing and the kidney is responsible for receiving qi. Long-term cough consumes qi, which will reach the kidney for a long time. If the lung qi cannot be absorbed into the kidney, the lung and kidney will be deficient, and the cough will continue.
People with summer cough in liver and kidney are usually manifested as dry cough or cough with little phlegm, phlegm in throat or dry throat with short breath, sticky and difficult to cough up, salty in throat or expectoration, and often accompanied by symptoms such as upset, poor physical strength, easy fatigue, thirst, poor appetite and so on.
For summer cough in the lung, San 'ao Decoction is commonly used in clinic to promote lung and relieve cough, and Ephedra is combined with almond, and once it is promoted and lowered, the function of promoting lung and lowering blood pressure is restored. Mulberry bark is used to clear lung heat, induce diuresis and reduce swelling, and Ephedra is combined to restore lung and regulate water channels. Perilla frutescens, Raphani seeds and Lepidium seeds are used to eliminate phlegm and lower qi for those with excessive phlegm, and two drugs are used to treat Paeonia lactiflora and Paeonia lactiflora.
Summer cough in the spleen and stomach is often treated with Erchen decoction as the basic prescription. For those with excessive phlegm, drugs are combined to treat Atractylodes lancea and Atractylodes macrocephala. Atractylodes macrocephala is bitter, warm and pungent, with strong dampness-drying power, and dispersing more than tonifying, which tends to calm the stomach and dry dampness. Atractylodes macrocephala is slow in warming, strengthening the spleen and tonifying more than dispersing, and is good at invigorating the spleen and benefiting qi. Both of them are compatible, dispersing and collecting, calming the stomach and strengthening the spleen, so that the middle energizer is healthy and the spleen and stomach are transported as
When summer cough is in the liver, Sinisan or Xiaochaihu decoction is often used to soothe the liver and regulate qi to help lung qi suppress cough. Summer cough in the kidney, in addition to antitussive and lung-dispersing drugs, often combined with Cornus officinalis, Radix Rehmanniae Preparata, Schisandra chinensis isothermal kidney-yang products, in order to tonify the kidney and relieve cough.
It should be noted that the treatment of summer cough should not only distinguish the degree of deficiency of lung, spleen and stomach, liver, kidney and viscera, but also be treated according to the presence, color and amount of phlegm, and must not blindly use cough medicine.
Among the patients who consulted recently, we found that some people have the wrong idea that "white phlegm means cold, and yellow phlegm means heat", and use drugs on their own as a standard.
In fact, a large amount of white phlegm may also be caused by heat. When summer cough occurs in the lungs and spleen and stomach, it is often manifested as severe cough, frequent expectoration, large amount of expectoration and urgency. At this time, many patients will spit out a lot of white sputum. But we can't think that white phlegm is cold. On the contrary, for patients with summer cough, this is mostly caused by heat, as "Su Wen Zhi Zhen Da Lun pian" said: "All vomiting and acid, excessive injection and downward pressure, all belong to heat." This kind of white phlegm is mostly the combination of external summer heat and internal heat, and the two heats are added together, so the heat is abundant and urgent, and the phlegm cannot stay in the body for a long time. This kind of situation mostly occurs in people who are physically strong or usually like alcohol and tobacco or yin deficiency and internal heat.
It can be seen that the etiology and pathogenesis of cough are very complicated, and the cough symptoms of different diseases have different manifestations. Only by delving into them and treating them according to syndrome differentiation as a whole can they be effective.
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