Seasonal Allergy Case
I have been out of the office for a few weeks on a trip overseas and thought I update with a case regarding seasonal allergies.
This is actually a previous patient who came in for other problems. As the temperature is currently changing at the moment her seasonal allergies have flared up again. Based on her history her allergies occurred a bit later last year and are anticipated just like last year to continue for at least three months until fall when the temperature starts to fall again.
Allergies come in many forms, but primarily it affects the skin and mucous membranes. It is often an upper body problem. With this patient her symptoms were nasal issues. I've recently started to see patients a bit differently in that I tend to ask less and less questions as I've found them to be unreliable often. So for this patient I didn't ask too much other than the fact that she had nasal allergies. Instead I've tended to assess patients based on my tactile procedures, one of the most important of which is palpation of the wrist pulses on the radial artery.
To most people the pulse and artery are simply a measure of blood pressure but in Chinese Medicine it is a holographic projection of the current state of the body's function in the real-time. It is such an important piece of diagnostic tool in Chinese Medicine that the most experienced practitioners ask little to no questions about their patients and prescribe treatment purely based on the pulse. Is it actually accurate? There is a saying in Chinese Medicine circles---clinical efficacy is the true measure of a theory or style of practice. It all depends on the skill of the practitioner in terms of how well they can assess and read the pulse.
I palpated her pulse and discovered that her allergies are due to an accumulation of toxins in the body which has overloaded the system. This causes the immune system to become dysfunction and overact to everything, such as changes in temperature, humidity, environmental particles such as pollen and the such.
We treated with herbal medicine for about 2 weeks and the allergies apparently completed subsided. I was a bit shocked by the speed but sometimes that has happens in certain patients.