Disease is a state, either cold or hot. This kind of cold and heat can be combined with dampness, which makes the body appear cold and dampness, and the most obvious manifestations are cold and damp-heat colds. To understand cold-dampness and damp-heat cold, we must first understand dampness evil.

Where does the moisture come from? It comes from nature, from our bodies.

When the humidity of nature is high, 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 water in our bodies. Excessive drinking tea and eating too much will lead to poor transport of spleen and stomach and produce moisture. Sometimes, the lack of yang will also lead to moisture can not melt-not much water to drink, 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 opposites, so there is no combination.

Originally, it was said that "dampness is yin evil, neither warm nor melted", but with this 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 Chinese medicine.

If the combination of cold and dampness leads to human dysfunction, then the human body will have symptoms such as 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 and diarrhea. At this time, the cold virus will take advantage of it and 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 to regulate yin and yang. Since there is cold and dampness in the body, we just need to drive it out. Once the yin and yang of the body are balanced, the disease will naturally get better, and there is no need to find a way to kill the cold virus. In fact, today, western medicine can't kill. This cold tends to get worse with antibiotics. Many people have a fever after catching this 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. Traditional 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. More importantly, you will also suffer losses in the process of killing villains. Countless heroes in history did not die in battle, but eventually fell in front of villains. This is the way western medicine treats diseases. Western medicine may destroy its own body while killing the virus.

How does Chinese medicine treat villains? Chinese medicine believes that if a person's moral character is not good, there will be villains around him, such as vanity, greed, selfishness and jealousy. It's like his body is cold and wet, giving 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 correct your mistakes quickly and reconcile yin and yang. When yin and yang are adjusted, the body will work normally. When I saw it, it turned out that this was a gentleman. It's boring that he doesn't pester me. So the villain will leave disappointed and find someone else.

There are no villains around the wise man, because he doesn't give villains a chance. Sometimes the villain will deliberately attack and spread rumors, but the wise always turn a blind eye. After a long time, the rumor disappeared, so the rumor stopped at the wise man. By the same token, people who are good at keeping in good health will never give the virus an opportunity, because the yin and yang in their bodies are always in a state of balance and occasionally out of balance. With a little adjustment, they can regain their balance.

Take this cold and wet cold as an example. The idea of western medicine is to kill the virus, and the idea of Chinese medicine is to drive away the cold and dampness in the body and not to entangle with the virus. In the Song Dynasty's Taiping He Huimin Ji Fang Ju, 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 removing moisture, and Angelica dahurica also plays such a role; Perilla leaves and ginger are warm yang, which can drive away cold evil; Poria cocos and areola disperse dampness, which can excrete moisture; Pericarpium Citri Tangerinae and Cortex Magnolia Officinalis promote qi circulation and are used for invigorating qi. The whole prescription is to correct the cold and wet state of the body, and there is no medicine for cold virus. So is this prescription effective?

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, and she felt very uncomfortable. She was very scared and asked me what to do. Should I go to the hospital for an intravenous drip? I analyzed her situation on the phone and asked her if she could still act. She said yes, so I asked her to go downstairs and buy Huoxiang Zhengqi soft capsules to eat.

As a result, the next day, she told me that it was basically no problem.

It works very fast.

There is a trick to use Huoxiang Zhengqi: If this person has diarrhea, it is best to take Huoxiang Zhengqi Pill or soft capsule, 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 have vomiting and diarrhea, you can use both. This is my experience in application. This experience is very useful, and friends around me have benefited a lot. Later, I found that many friends can identify cold and wet colds by themselves and adjust them.

The other is damp-heat cold, which usually appears in summer sauna days. Symptoms are often fever, dizziness, heavy head like wearing a hat, and sometimes slight chills, wind, chest tightness, short and yellow urine. The most obvious indication is tongue coating, sometimes pale yellow.

At this time, our treatment principle is: removing dampness and clearing heat at the same time, but remember not to use detoxification drugs, because detoxification is not effective unless moisture is removed.

At this time, it is better to use Sanren Decoction of Wu Jutong, a famous doctor in Qing Dynasty. I wrote about the application of this prescription in this way of seeing a doctor. In fact, there is nothing in this recipe to kill cold virus at all, just almonds, cardamom, coix seed, plus Pinellia ternata, talc, bamboo leaves, magnolia officinalis and medulla tetrapanacis. If the tongue coating is yellow, Scutellaria baicalensis Georgi and Coptis chinensis can also be added less, but the amount must be less, 35 grams is enough.

The three grains in this prescription are all dampness-removing, among which almonds open lung qi, which Chinese medicine believes is the source of water; Cardamom opens the middle-jiao qi, while Coix lachryma-jobi purges the lower jiao and turns damp. When the water is wet, the body naturally recovers.

According to my experience, after the damp-heat cold is treated with Sanren decoction, it recovers very quickly, and the problem can often be solved in a day or two.

So, how to prevent cold-dampness cold and damp-heat cold?

First, don't catch a cold. Be careful not to let the cold evil attack you at night, get to know the changes of the weather and be prepared.

Second, pay attention to the influence of moisture. In places where it often rains or humidity is high, attention should be paid to eliminating dampness. How to get rid of it? You can buy some cardamom nuts in the seasoning shop, put a few in when the food is almost ready, and don't forget to put spices such as pepper, because these are all wet and dry medicines, which can improve our body's moisture-proof ability.

Third, pay attention to exercise. Exercise is the key to strengthen yang, sweating during exercise is also an important means to eliminate moisture, and during 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.

What should I do if I have a cold or a damp-heat cold?

At the beginning, this kind of cold is characterized by heavy nasal sound, runny nose, sneezing and heavy head. These are all manifestations of 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 Huoxiang Zhengqi water to drink together. Huoxiang Zhengqi Water can dispel dampness and relieve exterior syndrome, which has a good effect on people with moisture in the body and cold exterior. Generally speaking, drinking for one day should be effective. If not, you may have a cold or other syndrome.

If you don't pay attention at first, the sputum will turn yellow and have a fever, and the situation will be different, indicating that there is already heat in the body. At this time, the syndrome types are complex, including external cold, internal heat and dampness.

At this time, drugs such as Pogostemon rugosa, Eupatorium adenophorum and Coicis Semen should be used to eliminate dampness. At the same time, Hua Shuang, Fructus Forsythiae, Herba Taraxaci and Herba Violae are used to remove internal heat; Plus ginger, perilla leaves and other drugs to dispel the cold. In short, treatment should be divided into three directions in order to eliminate evil and restore the balance of yin and yang.