Should Chinese medicine decoction be drunk before or after meals?

Chinese medicine experts say this

Recently, there are always patients asking whether the Chinese medicine prescribed by the doctor should be taken before or after meals?

In fact, the method of taking Chinese medicine decoction is very particular. Correctly mastering the method of taking it can better exert its curative effect.

Although there are many new preparations of modern Chinese medicine, decoctions are the most commonly used when seeing a Chinese doctor.

How to take the decoction to ensure the best effect?

The following factors have a certain impact on taking decoctions and should be noted.

Generally speaking, there should be an interval of about half to an hour between taking decoctions and meals. General medicines can be taken before or after meals.

Take after meals: Take medicines that are irritating to the gastrointestinal tract, take on an empty stomach: Take tonic medicine before going to bed: Take tranquilizers 3-5 days before menstruation: Take medicines for treating dysmenorrhea, take them at 9-10pm in the evening: Take fever and cold medicines at any time without time limit: Acute and severe illness

After decoction of one dose of medicine twice, mix the medicine juice evenly and take it in 2-3 times. It can be taken once in the morning, noon and evening, or divided into morning and evening.

For serious cases, it can also be decoctioned and taken once. For example, if there is abdominal pain, dry stool, or vomiting due to acute intestinal obstruction, Dachengqi Decoction can be taken immediately.

For those who take it more than three times a day, if they have a cold and a high fever, they can be given anti-inflammatory drugs, taken once every 4 hours, day or night.

It is also possible to take 2 doses a day to enhance the potency.

Decoctions are generally taken warm, because taking them warm will not irritate the gastrointestinal tract and facilitate gastrointestinal absorption of the drug, especially when taking the drug on an empty stomach after getting up in the morning.

Some medicines emphasize taking them warmly or hotly, such as those caused by fever, chills, headaches, etc. after a cold. Taking the medicine for relieving the external symptoms or taking it warmly or hotly is conducive to sweating, relieving the external symptoms, and achieving the purpose of sweating out evil spirits.

Therefore, when taking external medicine, you often need to drink hot porridge to reconcile stomach qi, help induce sweating and disperse evil, and enhance the potency of the medicine.

In addition, patients with spleen and stomach deficiency or spleen and kidney deficiency should take hot medicine to prevent cold medicine from damaging Yang Qi.

For cold-dampness paralysis, hot clothes are helpful to warm and unblock the blood vessels, dissipate cold and remove dampness.

Some diseases can be taken cold, such as those who vomit after taking medicine. Cold taking can reduce vomiting; some heat-clearing and detoxifying drugs are more effective if taken cold.

In the process of complex pathological changes, only special medication methods can meet the needs of the disease.

To take a single dose is to take one dose of medicine at a time, mix the first decoction and the second decoction evenly or not, and take it all at once.

Sudden administration is often used for some critical illness syndromes, such as Yangming disease with obvious dryness, excess, pimples and fullness, so that the medicine can reach a higher concentration in the body in a short period of time, thus producing a therapeutic effect.

However, because the drug concentration drops quickly and the therapeutic effect is not long-lasting, it is generally not used.

Frequent taking refers to taking a small amount multiple times, with a short interval between two doses and a high frequency.

Frequent doses are often used to treat vomiting. For those patients with severe coughs that even cause vomiting, cough medicines can also be taken frequently.

Children often experience vomiting when taking the decoction, so they should take it frequently.

Stroke and coma patients can use cotton swabs dipped in the concoction to take multiple doses.

Frequent administration achieves therapeutic effects by continuously accumulating drug concentration in the body.

In general, no matter what the disease is, just take it as directed by your doctor.