Disease and Diagnosis in Chinese Medicine

Chinese Medicine places utmost importance on maintaining a balance within our body. At its core, all Chinese Medicine theories such as Yin-Yang stipulate that we are healthy when we live in balance and we weaken our immune system and get ultimately ill when our body experiences imbalances.

Diagnosis in Chinese Medicine

Since Chinese Medicine places utmost importance on maintaining a balance within our body, the objective of any diagnosis is to determine the imbalances in our body. A change to our balance can be due to external factors such as a change to our living environment or our lifestyle. It can however also be due to internal factors like our emotional state. Unlike Western Medicine, Chinese Medicine diagnosis relies on both visible and invisible information to diagnose an illness. A doctor use his own eyes to see symptoms, or have to rely on asking questions to the patient or use his other sense to detect relevant information.

Categorization and Treatment

During your Chinese Medicine diagnosis our doctor will categorize relevant information according to four principles:

Interior and Exterior

Interior diseases are those affecting the organs or chronic diseases which require a longer term treatment, whereas exterior diseases are of a more benign nature.

Weak or Strong

An illness can be caused by a weak immune system. On the other hand it could also simply be caused by an overwhelming attack of a virus or bacteria that even the strongest immune system cannot withstand.

Hot and Cold

Chinese Medicine classifies symptoms into ‘Hot’ and ‘Cold’ symptoms. For example, a dry cough is classified as ‘Hot’ whereas a cough with a lot of phlegm is classified ‘Cold’.

Yin and Yang

Fundamentally all treatments are based on the Yin & Yang character of a disease with the aim to restore balance. A ‘Yin’ disease can be re-balanced by removing ‘Yin’ or adding ‘Yang’. E.g. a dry cough is ‘Hot’ and would be treated by applying ‘Cold’ in the form of e.g. a cooling tea. The headers of Yin and Yang are as follows:

Yin	Yang
Interior	Exterior
Weak	Strong
Cold	Heat

The added complication of a Chinese medicine treatment is to take the holistic view of a body into consideration. According to the Five Elements Theory treating a Zang-Fu organ can impact other parts of the body which in turn could have negative side effects. A successful treatment will address the symptom while not causing any negative side effects.