I Can Hear the Heart's Voice of Traditional Chinese Medicine-Chapter 305 - 135: Nothing Good Ever Happens When Dean Hu Shows Up
Flowing water doesn’t rot, a door hinge that is often turned doesn’t get worm-eaten.
What’s the meaning?
Flowing water doesn’t get stinky, a door hinge that is turned often doesn’t get worm-eaten, which metaphorically means that things that frequently move are not easily corroded by external forces.
Applied to gout, it refers to people who sit around all day without much movement being more prone to getting gout.
Lu Xuan turned to look at Chen Xinghua: "It can be treated, but the premise for treatment is that you have to cooperate. If you indulge in eating and drinking without restraint, with a gout-inducing seafood and beer combo every day, no amount of medicine will help."
"This time I’ll definitely stop eating indiscriminately." Chen Xinghua quickly vowed.
"Last night was pure agony for me until now. Before, I’d only heard people say how unbearable gout was, but since it hadn’t happened to me, I felt everyone was exaggerating."
"So, how do you feel now after experiencing it yourself?"
"Worse than death."
Chen Xinghua sighed and said, "Dr. Lu, you have no idea how long it took me to get here from my rental community, which is at most a ten-minute walk. I ended up taking half an hour, and that was with young guys seeing I was struggling and coming over to help me along. Otherwise, I might not have made it in an hour.
It was so painful, I couldn’t even put my foot on the ground, and just a light touch brought a sharp pain that I’d never felt in my entire life."
"Now that you know the pain, be more mindful in the future, especially in terms of your diet."
"I got it."
"However, Dr. Lu, isn’t this disease incurable?"
"Who said it’s incurable?"
"That’s what people who went to big hospitals say; they claim only taking medicine can help, and even then only while you’re on it. If you stop for even a couple of days, the disease acts up again, and that’s even when abstaining from certain foods. If you don’t abstain, medicine alone is totally useless."
Lu Xuan thought for a moment and explained: "Western medicine often treats symptoms rather than the root cause; taking medicine of course has effects, but relapse is normal when you stop. However, that doesn’t mean that taking traditional Chinese medicine will definitely cure the root cause. To address the root cause, patients must also cooperate in their daily lives. Without changing your usual dietary habits, even if you carry the doctor around your waist, it won’t help."
"Uh-huh."
Chen Xinghua nodded repeatedly, even though it had only been one night, he was indeed scared by the pain. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖
"I had actually never heard before that gout was this severe, and since I didn’t have any friends with gout, the only exposure was in the hospital. Since there wasn’t much interaction there, naturally there wasn’t much said. Who would’ve known gout could be so excruciating!"
Hearing this, Lu Xuan didn’t say much. It didn’t sound like a lie, actually. Even now, there are still a lot of people who haven’t heard much about this disease.
But it’s undeniable that the average age of gout patients is getting younger and younger.
When they first discover gout, many people have an attitude similar to Chen Xinghua’s, not thinking much of it.
Even when someone reminds them, they don’t restrain themselves at all, indulging in rich meals and beer and lobster.
They think anyway there isn’t really anything wrong with their bodies, and it doesn’t matter if they see a doctor or not, or they order some medicine online themselves, take some diclofenac to ease the pain, take sodium bicarbonate tablets at night to alkalize urine, and drink more water. With all this, they may get better in about a week.
In this way, patients naturally let their guard down.
Forget the pain once the scar heals, until it becomes severe, forming tophi, forcing them to undergo surgery.
By this time, they’ve endured considerable hardship.
Moreover, once it reaches the stage of tophi, even Chinese medicine isn’t something that can resolve it in a short period.
At this thought, Lu Xuan looked at the other person and explained, "Your situation is due to excessive obesity and frequent social engagements, overconsumption of alcoholic and meaty foods, resulting in metabolic disturbance and internal invasion of damp-heat reaching toxicity, causing unending swelling and pain in the joints of fingers and wrists."
Hearing this, Chen Xinghua didn’t say anything; he knew Lu Xuan was speaking the truth.
But it was Ji Xiuwen who frowned, "I think there’s some record of this in the Inner Canon."
"Of course."
Lu Xuan smiled and said: "I wonder if you remember, in the ’Inner Canon Shengqi Tongtian Lun’ it contains a passage, ’When damp-heat is not expelled, the major sinews become soft and short, the minor sinews slack and elongated, softness and shortness lead to contraction, slackness and elongation lead to flaccidity.’"
"I vaguely remember."
"Having merely a vague memory is useless. Even if you can’t remember all of it, you at least need to grasp the general idea, understand what’s actually said. Otherwise, you can’t always be looking up the books whenever you encounter a patient, can you?" Lu Xuan retorted.
Ji Xiuwen was terribly frustrated; he didn’t have a photographic memory, so how could he remember it so clearly?
However, he also knew that Lu Xuan’s statement was an undeniable fact.
If these contents aren’t memorized, there’s no talking about understanding their meanings, let alone treating diseases and saving people.
In traditional Chinese medicine, clinical experience is important, but the foundation is equally crucial. Without a solid foundation, it’s impossible to build a skyscraper.
"Give me a year, and I guarantee I’ll memorize the Inner Canon inside out." Ji Xiuwen said earnestly, this time, he was truly planning to go all out.
From now on, gatherings and such have nothing to do with him.
With Lu Xuan guiding him now, he naturally has a huge advantage over others. If he doesn’t put in a bit more effort, this advantage will soon be caught up by others.
Moreover, he was also present during the previous meetings.
Once the big building behind the Health Center opens, the Traditional Chinese Medicine Department will need to hire a lot of people. Who knows if people like Gu Huahua will come here? By then, everyone’s classmates; Lu Xuan can’t just teach him and not the others, can he?
