Treatment of common cold based on TCM syndrome differentiation

People in good health may not catch a cold once a year, but people in poor health may catch a cold many times a year, so catching a cold has become the most common disease.

From the point of view of western medicine, people who catch a cold may have problems with their resistance, and most of them will prescribe some drugs to help relieve their symptoms. But in fact, Chinese medicine is more effective in treating colds.

From the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, colds can be divided into four types, namely, wind-cold colds, wind-heat colds, summer-dampness colds and qi-deficiency colds. Ordinary people only know that colds are divided into wind-cold and wind-heat, but they don't know that there are two other attributes.

Traditional Chinese medicine believes that wind-cold colds are mainly caused by the invasion of wind-cold and wet-cold. The most common manifestations are nasal congestion, aversion to cold and cough. In severe cases, there will be typical symptoms of headache and low fever.

Patients with wind-heat cold will have some symptoms similar to those of wind-cold cold, but in addition to the above symptoms, there will be yellow phlegm and red throat.

Therefore, this kind of wind-heat cold should be distinguished from wind-cold cold in order to prescribe the right medicine. Chinese medicine will prescribe different prescriptions to treat these two types of cold after distinguishing.

Summer-dampness cold refers to a typical type of cold that occurs in summer, which is easy to be accompanied by diarrhea and headache. It usually happens together after heatstroke.

Qi deficiency and cold is a special situation, mainly a cold when the body is qi deficiency and the resistance is poor.

In addition to the above symptoms, there will be weakness of limbs, shortness of breath and laziness. We should not only treat cold symptoms, but also replenish qi and blood through some Chinese medicines, otherwise it will easily recur.