I Can Talk to the Internal Organs-Chapter 140 - 114: Is Rheumatoid Arthritis Not Difficult to Treat?
"Feng Yuan."
Feng Yuan tried his best to act like a patient.
"Give me your hand." Lu Jiu said.
To save time, Lu Jiu now conducted visual inspection, smelling, inquiry, and pulse diagnosis simultaneously, combining pulse checking with the consultation, speeding up the process.
Feng Yuan immediately extended his right hand and saw Lu Jiu glance at his left hand as well, then curiously offered both hands.
He saw Lu Jiu hold both his wrists and stared intently at his face.
"Where do you feel uncomfortable?" Lu Jiu asked.
"It’s mainly joint pain, the doctor said it’s rheumatoid arthritis." Feng Yuan replied.
"Hmm, do you usually feel your mouth has a taste or no taste?" Lu Jiu asked.
Huh?
What kind of question is this?
Feng Yuan was puzzled, but he still honestly answered Lu Jiu’s question, "Well... it seems like my mouth has no taste."
"Do you often feel thirsty?" Lu Jiu asked.
"Not particularly, just sometimes I get so busy with work that I forget to drink water and feel thirsty, does that count?" Feng Yuan said.
"That doesn’t count, do you usually feel hot or cold?" Lu Jiu asked.
Feng Yuan replied, "I guess I’m afraid of the cold."
Lu Jiu said, "Besides joints, do any specific parts of the skin or body hurt more after being exposed to cold, but the pain lessens significantly once it’s warmed up?"
?
A fleeting look of surprise crossed Feng Yuan’s eyes but quickly vanished, "Seems like it."
"So, is it difficult for your joints to bend and stretch, or is it difficult to move them?" Lu Jiu asked.
Feng Yuan asked curiously, "Is there a difference?"
Lu Jiu explained, "Difficulty in bending and stretching means the muscles and veins of the limbs are tight and uncomfortable, limiting the extension function of the joints, preventing complete movement. For example, in the hand, it could manifest as wrist flexion and finger rigidity."
"Difficulty in moving means overall restricted movement and slowness, expressing different symptoms."
Oh.
It’s categorized so finely.
It seems traditional Chinese medicine isn’t as rough as he thought; it’s actually more detailed.
Feng Yuan said, "Then I have difficulty in bending and stretching."
Lu Jiu continued, "Is the pain wandering throughout the body, or does it have a fixed location, like only the small joints of the limbs?"
Feng Yuan said, "Fixed, just the small joints you mentioned."
Lu Jiu nodded and asked, "Do you experience insomnia?"
Feng Yuan shook his head, "Not really, just sometimes the pain gets so unbearable that I sleep poorly, it’s really painful, I feel like dying, but I always persist in taking medication, so it hasn’t happened much, occasional flare-ups are bearable."
Lu Jiu asked, "How long have you been on medication?"
Feng Yuan replied, "Nearly seven or eight years, I guess."
It’s alright; this disease won’t have severe withdrawal effects if the medication is stopped.
Because this medication suppresses wind, cold, and dampness, it doesn’t replace any organ function disruption.
So, if the medication is stopped while removing wind, cold, and dampness from the patient’s body, the disease can gradually recover.
However, before that, Lu Jiu needed to clarify Feng Yuan’s symptoms.
Rheumatoid arthritis is a term from Western medicine, and cannot be fully remedied with Chinese herbal prescriptions.
This type of disease is called "Bi Syndrome" in traditional Chinese medicine.
Bi Syndrome mainly manifests as pain, soreness, heaviness, numbness, or joint dysfunction, stiffness, swelling, deformation, and mobility impairment in limbs, muscles, bones, and joints.
The onset is often related to wind, cold, dampness, and heat evils, therefore the condition is recurrent and the disease course is sticky and progressive.
Western conditions like gout, rheumatic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, osteoarthritis all fall under this category. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞
The "Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor" Su Wen Bi Lun Chapter states: "When wind prevails, it’s wandering Bi, when cold prevails, it’s painful Bi, when dampness prevails, it’s fixed Bi."
"In winter, encountering this causes bone Bi, in spring, it causes tendon Bi, in summer, it causes vessel Bi, in extreme yin, it causes muscle Bi, in autumn, it causes skin Bi."
In categorizing Bi Syndrome, it can be divided into wandering Bi, painful Bi, and fixed Bi, depending on the predominance of wind, cold, or dampness, and into skin, vessel, muscle, tendon, or bone Bi depending on the affected area and season.
Just now, through interrogation and pulse diagnosis, Lu Jiu had basically determined that Feng Yuan had painful Bi Syndrome.
From a holistic perspective, painful Bi was Feng Yuan’s main condition, resolving it would eliminate his other minor ailments as well.
Treating painful Bi isn’t complicated, as recorded in "Jinkuiyi Bisheng Tong Lun": "Painful Bi results from prevailing cold Qi, with deficient Yang Qi and excess Yin Qi. If it should be unblocked but is blocked, causing pain, it’s because cold Qi enters the meridians, which unblocks slowly, gathers and doesn’t move."
Simply put, the Yang Qi is insufficient, lacking energy, and cold continuously invades the meridians, so what to do?
Naturally, warm up the meridians.
As Yang Qi rises, the temperature follows, and Qi becomes abundant, this then neutralizes some coldness with heat energy, and abundant Qi has the force to push through the blood stagnated due to cold in the meridians, thus allowing blood to pass smoothly, relieving pain.
Therefore, painful Bi requires warming the meridians and dispelling cold.
Still, painful Bi is not just cold, but includes wind and dampness, just that cold is more dominant in painful Bi.
So, treatment focuses on warming and dispelling cold, with supplementary strategies to remove wind and dampness.
For this condition, the first remedy that came to Lu Jiu was a famous prescription from the Essential Prescriptions of the Golden Cabinet.
Aconite Decoction!
This formula consists of Aconite, ephedra, peony, baked licorice, and Astragalus.
However, Lu Jiu didn’t dare let the patient brew it at home, because Aconite’s properties are too extreme, although most know Aconite, it actually has two brothers.
One is called Aconite, another is Tian Xiong, these three are blood brothers, all highly toxic.
Still, with the right boiling techniques and harmonizing with other herbs, the toxicity of a single herb can be neutralized.
For instance, in preparing Aconite Decoction, Aconite needs to be boiled in two liters of water until it reduces to one, then discard the Aconite, then add one liter of honey to the water, thus making Aconite Honey, and honey itself neutralizes strong toxins, resulting in nearly no toxicity, plus there’s baked licorice in the decoction.
With such meticulous brewing, Aconite Decoction retains Aconite’s properties but eliminates its toxicity, so patients consuming it need not worry about side effects.
"Your condition isn’t hard to treat, but I need to brew the medicine for you, if you’re not too busy, you can wait here, how about it?" Lu Jiu said.
He’ll make the medicine for me?
Wait a moment...
This condition isn’t hard to treat!?
What do you mean?
Do you have a solution?
Feng Yuan’s pupils were finally held captive by shock.
He was thoroughly bewildered.
A Chinese doctor, in his presence, claimed rheumatoid arthritis, an incurable disease, was simple!
Is that absurd?
It’s utterly absurd, isn’t it!?
Feng Yuan truly couldn’t believe it, accepting it would betray his over two decades in medicine.
But seeing Lu Jiu busy preparing herbs, Feng Yuan swallowed his skepticism before voicing it.
After all, the doctor was earnestly treating him, questioning him in a public place would indeed seem like biting the hand that feeds him.
Being older now, there’s no need to be as impulsive as the young, if he says it’s easy, fine, he’ll just give it a try.
After calming down, Feng Yuan’s half-raised seat returned to the chair.
Now he had one thought.
Time to see if this horse or mule is for real!
