Diagnosing Illnesses

The importance of diagnosis is not to just look for the symptoms, but to find out why the patient is having the symptoms, i.e. what is the root of the problem? There are many different ways of discovering the root. The most common are sight, question and answer, smell, and touch (pulse).

• Sight- This is comprised of body posture, tongue, pulse (see below) and eye analysis, and much more.
• Feeling Qi- This technique entails feeling the patients qi by using the palm.
• Questions- such as how is your urine and bowel movement, enough sleep, stress levels, and any other questions the doctor may have. It is always best to answer honestly. However, since there are more ways than one to determine an illness, even if you are not honest, the doctor can still know.
• Smell-Illness’s usually have an unique body odor, also the breath can be a sign of what is happening inside the body.
• Touch- TCM doctors can use the pressing the organs to determine how they feel, but also what is unique to TCM is reading the pulse.
• This pulse is on the bone next to the wrist on both arms which determine the strength or weakness of organs such as the liver, kidney, spleen etc...

 

 

Right hand: lung, spleen, kidney

Left Hand: heart, liver, kidney