As the season autumn proceeds with the “White Dew” falling, the weather slowly turns colder. Edmonton is quietly approaching the cold season. Because of seasonal change, Bethune Oriental Medical Center recently received a lot of coughing patients. The symptoms vary from dry cough to a lot of phlegm.
Cough can be an independent disease. It can also be just a symptom of a lung disease. It is common in autumn and winter. Traditional Chinese Medicine believes that the lung is a very delicate organ. With the current seasonal change and big temperature difference between day and night, people with weak immunity are easily susceptible to coughing.
The etiology of coughing is complex. Clinical treatment must differentiate its pathogen so that it can be cured as soon as possible.
Traditional Chinese Medicine usually divides coughing into two types: externally affected coughing (coughing caused by coldness, heat or dryness that has an impact on the lungs) and internal injury coughing (coughing caused by infections in the lungs). Externally affected coughing is normally newly attracted acute coughing and is easier to cure. Internal injury coughing normally takes a long course of treatment and may recur and cause other organ damages. Orthodox treatment often use antibiotics and coughing control drugs. It sometimes takes months to cure. With patients who failed to recover after a long time, the doctor will consider it to be asthma or allergies and tend to use allergy medicine and trachea expansion drugs. Even so, sometimes it does take effect.
Treatment with Chinese herbal medicine has always been one of the main method used in Traditional Chinese Medicine. The pre-prepared herbal Medicines is often the most convenient for the patients. It is easy to take and is effective. The prescription varies with symptoms. If it is convenient for brewing the medicine, medicinal herbs are more targeted and the effect is more significant. Normally it takes only 3 to 6 doses to significantly reduce the symptoms for the patients visiting the Bethune Oriental Medical Centre.
Coughing caused by cold, cough is normally treated with Zhi Sou San. Coughing caused by heat is normally treated with Sang Ju Ying and fritillary cough syrup. Coughing with Phlegmis normally treated with Er Chen pills and Su Zi Jiang Qi pills. Dry cough due to Yin deficiency is normally treated with Yang Yin Qing Fei pills, Bai He Gu Jin pills, Qiu Li Run Fei Gao paste and so on.
Traditional Chinese medicine must be targeted to the cause of the disease to achieve significant effects and cure the disease. Otherwise, it will not be effective and may aggreviate the sickness.
In addition, we often use acupuncture as supplementary treatment for coughing. Acupuncture treatment for externally affected coughing is often applied at the hand YangMing point and hand TaiYin point through shallow puncture combined with scraping and cupping. Acupuncture treatment for internal injury coughing is often applied at the hand and foot TaiYin points in combination with moxibustion.
Moxibustion has obvious efficiency for coughing caused by coldness. In particular, it is very effective for children.
Other treatment includes Auricular acupuncture, skin acupuncture, massage therapy and so on. Traditional Chinese Medicine also has many folk recipes which are also very effective, easy to use and so are worth trying.
Coughing can be found in a variety of respiratory diseases. Therefore, treatment must be based on clear diagnosis so that appropriate treatment is taken for specific diseases. Of course, usual attention to keep warm and stay away from catching cold is always recommended. People must abstain from smoking and alcoholism. It is also important to avoid heavy greasy food.