Summary of Taiyang syndromes

Hello, everyone. What a fruitful week. Did you learn the signs and symptoms of Taiyang syndromes differentiation? When a patient suffers from an aversion to cold, floating pulse, and severe head pain, we diagnose that he contracted Taiyang syndromes. If the patient sweats, we consider that he lacks healthy Qi, which is an exterior-deficiency pattern caused by wind. If he doesn’t sweat, but suffers from head and body pain and stiffness, we assess him to have exterior-excess pattern of febrile disease caused by cold. This can also be judged by the tension of the arterial blood vessels. High tension may be evidence of the exterior-excess pattern, whereas an obvious, low elasticity of blood vessels may be a manifestation of exterior-deficiency pattern.

The treatment principles of exterior-deficiency pattern caused by wind of Taiyang syndromes are to relax the flesh and skin pores and to expel the pathogenic wind so as to harmonise the Yingqi and Weiqi. The treatment principles of exterior-excess pattern of febrile disease caused by cold require promoting sweating with pungent warm herbs, and calming down the patient’s panting. This will revitalise the patient’s lung function. We also discussed the differences

among the three types of Taiyang syndromes: the exterior-excess pattern of febrile disease caused by cold, the exterior-deficiency pattern caused by wind, and the acute febrile disease (Wenbing). First of all, the pathogens of these three types

of syndromes are different: the pathogenic cold or pathogenic heat. Secondly,

they are different in the nature of disease: cold pattern or hot pattern. Thirdly,

they have different symptoms: an aversion to cold or not; thirsty or not thirsty; different pulse types, for example, floating tight pulse, floating moderate pulse and floating rapid pulse. And the prognosis of disease development

is different: damaging to Yang Qi and Yin fluid, causing Yang deficiency or Yin deficiency. The acute febrile disease develops rapidly, and the condition is severe. Last but not least, we discussed that fever plays a key role in distinguishing Yin from Yang. Fever represents the exuberance of both healthy Qi and pathogenic Qi. There are several combinations of cold and fever. An aversion to cold with fever represents Taiyang syndromes, and alternating chills; fever is a characteristic of Shaoyang syndromes; and fever without chills is an indication of Yangming syndromes. Patients with three kinds of Yin syndromes lack healthy Qi, which is responsible for eliminating the pathogenic factors. Their constitution appears to be deficiency of cold or hot pattern.

In conclusion, the differentiation of Yin and Yang is very important to Chinese medicine diagnosis.