The Four Diagnostic Methods

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is intriguing to me because I have learned an important concept about how every thing about nature and us is connected and plays an important role in our health. After reading a book on TCM, I have learned things I already knew about the human body and organs. However, I grasped a better understanding on how each organ is divided into two parts: Yin and Yang and how organs work in pairs.

TCM doctors use the four diagnostic methods to examine disease and collect data from different angles. When an imbalance occurs, diagnosis and treatment is based on an overall analysis of signs and symptoms. The first thing to do is to observe the patient. This means observing their facial complexion and tongue. The tongue can be divided into different parts and each part corresponds to a different organ. A tongue with white fur shows signs of dampness and may correspond to a problem with the spleen. A TCM doctor can observe various parts of the tongue and determine which organ may be going through imbalance. The next thing to do is to listen and smell. This means paying attention to the patient’s voice, breath, and cough. The next thing is to inquire and ask questions about various topics such as appetite, food and drink consumption, taste, defecation and urination, etc., to better understand the patient. Lastly, a TCM doctor observes the pulse with their wrist. TCM uses different points on the wrist to check a pulse. There are three points on each wrist and each point corresponds to an organ. Also, one can describe the pulse of someone in eight different ways: floating and sinking, slow and fast, smooth and rough, weak and strong. One type of pulse corresponds to Yin and the other to Yang. A doctor can know if someone has a Yin or Yang pulse and can therefore better diagnose a patient with the correct herbal remedies or Western medicine. When all these analyses described above are taken into consideration, a TCM doctor can narrow down and treat the specific problem. We were able to see a TCM doctor diagnosing a patient. A TCM doctor, based on these four diagnostic methods, also diagnosed us individually. It was intriguing! The TCM doctor said I was healthy.

What I took from this understanding in TCM is to never focus on one side of the problem. Be curious. Be open-minded. Because things aren’t always what they seem to be and one must understand the overall picture first.