Where does the moisture come from? It comes from nature, from our bodies.
When the humidity of nature is heavy, such as sauna days and Jiangnan water towns, the whole environment is heavy, which will make the human body change accordingly.
There are also many sources of moisture in our bodies. Drinking tea excessively and eating too fat will cause the spleen and stomach to fail to transport, which will produce moisture. Sometimes, the lack of yang will also lead to the inability of moisture to melt-there is not much water to drink and less metabolism.
However, moisture itself is not the pathogen of colds. We call moisture evil, but moisture itself does not directly cause a cold. The biggest harm of moisture is to make the body work abnormally. When the body works abnormally, the cold virus will take advantage of it and eventually make you catch a cold.
You should understand that dampness is the only tangible evil among the six evils, and others can be combined with dampness, such as summer dampness, cold dampness, damp heat and rheumatism. Only dryness and dampness are opposite, so there is no combination.
Originally, it was said that "dampness is a yin evil, but it is not warm and does not melt", but with such a combination, dampness will come out with cold and heat. Therefore, when treating colds caused by moisture, we should also distinguish between yin and yang. We should remember that this is the principle of traditional Chinese medicine.
If the combination of cold and moisture leads to human dysfunction, then the human body will have a white tongue coating, chills, dizziness and chest tightness. The most obvious thing is that the spleen and stomach often have problems, such as abdominal pain, nausea, diarrhea, etc. At this time, the cold virus will take advantage of it, which will form what we usually call a cold-dampness cold (if the spleen and stomach symptoms are serious, we also call it a gastrointestinal cold).
How to adjust at this time?
The idea of Chinese medicine is still to regulate yin and yang. Since there is cold and dampness in the body, we only need to drive out the cold and dampness, and once the yin and yang of the body are balanced, the disease will naturally recover, and there is no need to find ways to kill the cold virus. In fact, up to today, western medicine can't kill it. This kind of cold often gets worse with antibiotics. Many people have a fever after suffering from this kind of cold, so they go to the hospital for intravenous drip. As a result, not only does the high fever persist, but people are getting weaker and weaker.
From this, we can see the difference between Chinese medicine and western medicine. Chinese medicine pays attention to conditioning its own state, while western medicine pays attention to killing cold viruses. In order to explain this problem more vividly, we might as well compare the virus to a villain. The way western medicine treats villains is to kill them all, leaving no future trouble, but can villains be killed? I can't. Throughout the ages, villains have always emerged in an endless stream, and more importantly, in the process of killing villains, you will also suffer losses. Countless heroes in history have not died in battle, but eventually fell in front of villains. This is the way western medicine treats diseases. While killing viruses, western medicine may also destroy its own body.
How does Chinese medicine treat villains? Traditional Chinese medicine believes that there are villains around a person because of his bad moral character, such as vanity, greed, selfishness and strong jealousy. This is just like his body is cold and wet, which gives the villain an opportunity. So, how to deal with these little people? The method is simple: first, ignore it, don't entangle with it, and don't want to destroy it; The second is to quickly correct their own mistakes and reconcile yin and yang. When the yin and yang are adjusted, the body works normally. When I look at it, it turns out that this is a gentleman. He is not entangled with me, which is too boring. Therefore, the villain will be disappointed to leave and look for someone else.
There are no villains around the wise man, because he doesn't give villains an opportunity. Sometimes villains will deliberately attack and make rumors, but the wise man always ignores them. After a long time, the rumors disappear, so the rumors stop with the wise man. By the same token, people who are good at keeping in good health never give the virus an opportunity, because the yin and yang in their bodies are always in a state of balance, and occasionally they are out of balance. With a little adjustment, they can restore their balance.
Take this cold and dampness cold as an example. The idea of western medicine is to kill the virus, while the idea of Chinese medicine is to get rid of the cold and dampness in the body and not to entangle with the virus. In the Song Dynasty's "Tai Ping Hui Min He Ji Ju Fang", our ancestors provided us with a very wise prescription called Huoxiang Zhengqi Powder. Huoxiang Zhengqi Powder contains Pogostemon cablin, Folium Perillae, Radix Angelicae Dahuricae, Rhizoma Atractylodis Macrocephalae, Pericarpium Citri Tangerinae, Rhizoma Pinelliae Qu, Cortex Magnolia Officinalis, Poria, Radix Platycodi, Radix Glycyrrhizae, Pericarpium Arecae, Fructus Jujubae and Rhizoma Zingiberis Recens. In this prescription, Pogostemon cablin is dampness-removing, which stimulates the yang in the body through aroma, thus dispelling moisture, and Angelica dahurica also plays such a role; Folium Perillae and ginger are warm-yang, which can drive out cold evil; Poria cocos and areola are moisture-releasing, which can excrete moisture; Pericarpium Citri Reticulatae and Cortex Magnolia Officinalis are qi-moving, which are used to invigorate qi. The whole prescription is to correct the cold and wet state of the body, and there is no medicine aimed at the cold virus. So does this prescription work?
For example, I have a friend whose wife is an actress. One day, she suddenly called me and said that the husband and wife were traveling to the south together. As a result, as soon as she got home, she began to have diarrhea and fever, which made her feel very uncomfortable. She was so scared that she asked me what to do. Should I go to the hospital for intravenous drip? I analyzed her situation on the phone and asked her if she could still act. She said it was ok, so I asked her to go downstairs and buy Huoxiang Zhengqi soft capsules to take.
As a result, the next day, she told me that there was basically no problem.
It works so fast.
There is a trick to using Huoxiang Zhengqi: if this person has diarrhea, then it is best to take Huoxiang Zhengqi pills or soft capsules, because this medicine can be lower; If it is vomiting, it is best to take Huoxiang Zhengqi Water, because this medicine is on the high side; If you vomit and diarrhea, you can use both, which is my experience in application. This experience is very useful, and my friends around me have benefited a lot. Later, I found that many friends can identify cold and wet colds by themselves and adjust them.
Another kind is damp-heat cold, which usually appears in summer sauna days. Symptoms are often fever, dizziness, heavy head as if wearing a hat, and sometimes slight chills, fear of wind, chest tightness, scanty and yellow urine. The most obvious indication is that the tongue is covered with fur, and sometimes it appears pale yellow.
At this time, our treatment principle is: eliminating dampness and clearing heat at the same time, but remember not to use detoxification drugs, because detoxification is of little effect unless moisture is removed.
At this time, it is better to use Sanren Decoction of Wu Jutong, a famous doctor in the Qing Dynasty. I wrote about the application of this prescription in "Seeing a doctor like this". In fact, there is nothing in this recipe to kill the cold virus at all, that is, almond, cardamom seed and coix seed, plus Pinellia ternata, talc, bamboo leaves, magnolia bark and medulla tetrapanacis. If the tongue coating is yellow, Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi and Coptidis Rhizoma can also be added less, but the amount must be less, 35 grams is enough.
The three kernels in this prescription are all dampness-removing, among which almonds open lung qi, and Chinese medicine believes that lung is the source of Mizunokami; Semen Amomi rotundus opens the qi of middle energizer, while Semen Coicis purges the lower energizer and gets wet. As soon as the water gets wet, the body will naturally recover.
According to my experience, after using Sanren decoction for damp-heat colds, they recover extremely quickly, and often the problem can be solved in a day or two.
So, how to prevent cold-dampness cold and damp-heat cold?
First, don't catch cold. Be careful not to let the cold evil invade you at night, have an understanding of the change of the weather and be prepared.
Second, pay attention to the influence of moisture. In places where it often rains or humidity is heavy, we should pay attention to getting rid of dampness. How to get rid of it? You can go to the seasoning store to buy some cardamom kernels, put a few in when the dish is about to be done, and don't forget to put spices such as pepper, because these are all dry and wet drugs, which can improve our body's moisture resistance.
Third, pay attention to exercise. Exercise is the key to enhance yang, sweating during exercise is also an important means to eliminate moisture, and in the process of exercise, the blood circulation of the body is accelerated, which is also a good opportunity to improve the functions of various systems of the body.
If you have a cold or damp-heat cold, what should you do?
At the beginning, this kind of cold is mostly characterized by heavy nose sound, runny nose, sneezing and heavy head. These are all manifestations of heavy cold and dampness. Therefore, it can be treated with Huoxiang Zhengqi water. I usually let patients cook a little ginger soup by themselves. The specific method is to cut a few slices of ginger, boil a bowl of water for two or three minutes, and then add the water of Huoxiang Zhengqi to drink together. Huoxiang Zhengqi Water can dispel dampness and relieve exterior symptoms, and it has a good effect on people who have moisture in their bodies and are cold in appearance. Generally speaking, drinking it for one day should have an effect. If not, you probably have a cold of other syndromes.
If you don't pay attention at the beginning, the sputum begins to turn yellow and have a fever, the situation is different, which shows that there is already heat in the body. At this time, the syndrome type is complicated, with external cold, internal heat and moisture.
At this time, drugs such as Pogostemon, Eupatorium and Coicis Semen should be used to eliminate dampness; At the same time, Shuanghua, Fructus Forsythiae, Dandelion and Herba Violae are used to dispel internal heat; Plus ginger, perilla leaves and other drugs to dispel the cold. In a word, it should be treated in three directions, so as to dispel evil spirits and restore the balance of yin and yang.