Rebirth 1977 Great Era

Chapter 999 The Medical Consultation Before the Banquet, Dialect's Washboard (Bonus Chapter for Monthly Tickets: 3K Chapters)

Fang Yan observed the man before him; his complexion was somewhat sallow, his voice was heavy and hoarse, like a broken subwoofer, and he had bad breath.

Upon hearing the dialect spoken, the other person thought for a moment and said:

"I've had this bloating problem for over two years, and it comes and goes. It's especially bad on cloudy days, and it gets even worse if I catch a chill or drink cold drinks. I only feel a little better after my stomach starts gurgling and I pass gas; I also feel a bit better if I can urinate easily. When my stomach is bloated, I always want to loosen my belt, otherwise I feel suffocated, short of breath, and can't lie flat, and it also causes back pain."

"When it gets really bad, my stomach will hurt too, but it's not particularly severe."

“I don’t eat much. If I eat a little more, I feel even more bloated, and I also have constipation.”

"To be honest, I got this illness after I finished eating. I was too tired from working and took off my clothes, so I caught a cold."

"I've taken a lot of Western medicine over the past two years, and it has only had a slight effect occasionally, but my bloating has never completely gone away. Recently, I caught a chill in the mornings for several days in a row because of the low temperature, and my symptoms have worsened. My stomach is bloated and painful, and it's really uncomfortable."

"I had tests done abroad before, including for my liver, stomach, intestines, etc., and everything was fine. Later, I was also tested for infectious diseases, such as schistosomiasis and peritoneal tuberculosis, but nothing was found."

"The doctor said it should be a minor problem, but it's still uncomfortable to keep doing this."

After saying that, he asked in dialect:

"What's wrong with me?"

Fang Yan nodded and asked him:
"Could you lift up your clothes so I can press it?"

The man looked around; everyone present was someone of importance, but there were no women. He said:

"Um...we're all men, come on!"

Next, he lifted his shirt, revealing his belly to everyone.

She has some excess fat, but not much, and her waistline looks to be within a healthy range.

Fang Yan touched several spots, using the Luo's bone-setting palpation technique to try to confirm if there were any lumps.

It turned out that there was nothing wrong; his skin was just a little cool and moist.

It looks like there's a layer of moisture on top.

Fang Yan asked the middle-aged man:
"Did you feel anything special when I pressed it?"

"It doesn't hurt." The other person shook their head.

Fang Yan asked again:
"Do you feel comfortable?"

He smiled and said:
"Haha, no, not at all."

Fang Yan nodded, showing no obvious sign of liking or refusing the massage.

Then he said to the patient:
"Please open your tongue and stick it out so I can see."

The other person opened their mouth and stuck out their tongue. Fang Yan noticed that the tongue coating was greasy and covered with a layer of gray. The tongue itself was pale and looked slightly swollen.

By this time, some people could already smell the man's bad breath.

They covered their mouths and took several steps back.

They wouldn't believe it if he wasn't sick.

The sheer level of bad breath alone is enough to drive anyone crazy.

When it comes to business negotiations, this smell is a killer weapon.

Anyone who smells it will turn their head away.

Only the dialect group remained relatively calm, and then said:

"Put your hand on the table, and I'll take your pulse."

The man did as instructed, then noticed the odd behavior of the others and exclaimed in surprise:

"Oh dear, I'm sorry, I forgot to mention that when my stomach is upset, my breath smells bad. Sorry everyone!"

A person who knew him well stepped forward to help him out:

"It's alright, it's alright. Dr. Fang is examining you right now. Once he's done with it, everything should be fine."

Everyone else nodded with smiles.

Interestingly, those who hadn't yet smelled the bad breath also moved away a bit.

The man's smile was frozen on his face, which was very awkward.

But now there's no turning back.

After diagnosing his left hand, Fang Yan began diagnosing his right hand.

Finally, I was able to feel his pulse. It was wiry and felt rough and sluggish when I pressed it.

Then Fang Yan took out his notebook and began to write medical records while thinking.

First, the patient's abdominal distension worsened after exposure to cold or drinking cold drinks, indicating that cold or dampness had invaded the body.

The patient mentioned that the illness occurred two years ago after overexertion and exposure to cold. Based on the local dialect, it was speculated that this might have damaged the spleen and stomach's yang energy, leading to impaired digestion and absorption. The spleen and stomach are responsible for the transformation and transportation of fluids; if yang energy is insufficient, fluids cannot be transformed, easily leading to internal retention of dampness and turbidity. This dampness and turbidity obstructs the qi mechanism in the middle jiao, causing qi stagnation, which in turn results in abdominal distension.

In addition, the relief he experienced after passing gas or urinating indicates that his Qi flow was temporarily unblocked, some dampness and turbidity were expelled, and his symptoms were alleviated.

A thick, greasy, grayish-white tongue coating and a pale, swollen tongue body usually indicate an excess of dampness and turbidity and a deficiency of Yang energy.

When dampness and turbidity rise upwards, the tongue coating becomes thick and greasy, and its color is grayish-white, which may also indicate cold symptoms.

A pale, swollen tongue indicates insufficient Qi and blood, and a deficiency of Yang Qi. A wiry pulse indicates Qi stagnation or pain, while a choppy pulse suggests poor circulation of Qi and blood, possibly due to dampness or cold.

The patient's pulse was wiry and hesitant, and combined with the symptoms, it was indeed consistent with dampness and turbidity obstructing the middle jiao, leading to stagnation of qi.

The obstruction of Yang Qi may be related to cold and dampness, as the symptoms worsen after exposure to cold, and the grayish-white tongue coating indicates the presence of internal cold and dampness.

The next step is to determine whether the swelling is due to dampness or cold.

Common syndromes of abdominal distension (fullness) include damp-heat obstructing the stomach, food stagnation, liver-stomach disharmony, spleen-stomach weakness, and stomach yin deficiency.

However, this patient exhibited obvious symptoms of cold-dampness and dampness turbidity, which, according to the local dialect, may be due to cold-dampness trapping the spleen or dampness turbidity obstructing the middle jiao. Dampness turbidity obstructs the middle jiao, hindering the flow of qi and causing abnormal ascending and descending functions, hence the abdominal distension. Cold-dampness injures yang, leading to insufficient yang qi in the spleen and stomach, impairing their digestive function, and making dampness turbidity more prone to stagnation.

Therefore, the dialect believes that the patient's condition is due to dampness and turbidity obstructing the middle jiao, stagnation of yang qi, and stagnation of qi, leading to abdominal distension and pain, which are classified as damp distension or cold distension.

"Dr. Fang, can you figure out what's wrong with me?" the patient asked Fang Yan.

He said in dialect:

"In the words of traditional Chinese medicine, your condition is caused by the accumulation of dampness and turbidity in your body. The root cause lies in the dysfunction of the bladder's qi transformation function, which prevents the pathogenic factors from being expelled from the body."

"Just like the sky is shrouded in haze, the sunlight (yang energy) cannot dispel the cold and dampness. The yang energy is insufficient to overcome the evil, which eventually leads to an excess of cold and dampness and a deficiency of yang energy. This causes the damp and turbid qi to accumulate and not disperse, resulting in persistent abdominal distension and pain."

"The key to treatment lies in using methods to promote Yang and eliminate turbidity, breaking through the obstruction of Qi, and guiding the body's fluids downwards, so that Yang Qi can dispel Yin evil and restore the normal flow of Qi and fluids. Only in this way can the condition turn around."

The patient blinked, seemingly understanding but not quite.

At this moment, someone nearby muttered:

"Traditional Chinese medicine is so mysterious; I didn't understand a single complete sentence..."

Then someone whispered:

"That's how they are..."

Speechless due to the dialect, I had to think for a moment and then repeat it in a way that ordinary people could understand.

Fang Yan put down his pen, turned his notebook towards the patient, and tapped the table with his knuckles:

"Your illness is like a clogged drain in your house. The cold wind two years ago was like pouring a bucket of lard down the drain."

He suddenly grabbed the teapot from the table and gestured with it:

"Look at this teapot spout. If the teapot body is covered with limescale, won't it drip a lot when you pour water?"

The patient stared at the teapot with a look of sudden realization.

“Your stomach is now full of wet, sticky mud,” Fang Yan said, rubbing the patient’s damp belly with his thumb.

“This dirty water should have been drained away through urine and feces, but you caught a cold and froze the drainpipe.”

"Just like water pipes burst when they freeze in winter, your stomach is always bloated, isn't it?"

Someone nearby chuckled, "I understand that analogy!"

“And look at your tongue,” Fang Yan said, pulling out a small mirror and shoving it in front of the patient. “See? It looks like moldy tofu. That’s because dirty water has overflowed from your stomach.”

The patient opened his mouth and saw his tongue coating. It was already evening; it had been worse in the morning.

Fang Yan continued:

"The Western medicines you took before were occasionally effective because they acted like a plunger to force a smooth flow."

The speaker made a pulling motion in the dialect: "It was clear then, but it got blocked again a couple of days later."

The patient touched his stomach and suddenly realized:

"No wonder I felt better after farting! It turns out it temporarily cleared my blockage!"

“That makes perfect sense!” Fang Yan put down the small mirror in her hand and said:
"So this time, if we want to solve it completely, we have to clean the entire pipe thoroughly."

"From now on, you have to watch your diet. Cold drinks are like pouring ice into your pipes, and greasy food is like dumping sludge. The medicine I'm prescribing is like putting a small furnace in your stomach to bake this accumulated sludge into a hard lump..."

The patient clutched his stomach nervously: "Won't that make it even more congested?"

"Good question!" Fang Yan then lifted his shirt to reveal his abs and said:
"You have to exercise every day, carrying these hardened mud out one by one like bricks!"

"It would be best to return to a state like mine."

When the group saw Fang Yan's washboard, they all looked on with envy. A doctor's good health is what makes him convincing!
The patient immediately nodded repeatedly.

"Then please prescribe me some medicine quickly!"

Fang Yan picked up his pen again and began to write:
10g of ginger-processed Pinellia ternata, 10g of ginger-processed Magnolia officinalis, 10g of stir-fried Citrus aurantium, 5g of stir-fried Sichuan pepper, 7g of dried ginger, 15g of Cinnamomum cassia, 15g of Poria cocos, 10g of Acorus tatarinowii, 10g of Areca catechu peel, and 5 slices of fresh ginger.

Dried ginger, cinnamon twigs, and stir-fried Sichuan pepper warm the yang and dispel cold, targeting the yang deficiency that is caused by cold and dampness trapping the spleen;

Ginger-processed Pinellia ternata, ginger-processed Magnolia officinalis, Poria cocos, and Acorus tatarinowii are used to dry dampness and resolve turbidity, addressing the root cause of dampness and turbidity obstruction. This embodies the principle of "treating dampness by first warming the yang."

Fructus Aurantii Immaturus, Cortex Magnoliae Officinalis, and Pericarpium Arecae promote qi circulation, relieve bloating, and restore the ascending and descending of qi in the middle jiao.
Cinnamon twig and Poria cocos promote yang, regulate qi, and facilitate water metabolism, allowing dampness and turbidity to be excreted through urination and defecation. This embodies the clinical principle of "treating bloating by clearing the bowels."

When ginger-processed medicines (such as ginger-processed Pinellia ternata and ginger-processed Magnolia officinalis) are combined with fresh ginger, the effect of warming the middle and stopping vomiting is enhanced, while avoiding simply drying dampness and damaging yin. This is the principle of "warming without harming the body's vital energy" in the combination.

However, after checking, Fang Yan found that the amount of stir-fried Sichuan pepper was only 5g, which was relatively weak in dispelling cold. Considering that the patient had been suffering from cold symptoms for two years, Fang Yan changed the amount to 9g.

After finishing writing, Fang Yan checked it again before he was satisfied.

He handed the prescription to the patient.

The other person quickly took it, as if he could see a figure with the same washboard build as Fang Yan beckoning to him.

After taking it and looking at it, I saw that it also listed the contraindications and the method of decocting the medicine.

That's incredibly thoughtful.

Seeing this, he thought for a moment, then took a red bracelet off his wrist and stuffed it into Fang Yan's hand.

He smiled and said to Fang Yan:

"Dr. Fang, I don't have anything else on me, so please consider this as payment for the consultation. I hope you won't mind."

P.S.: I've gained another 500 monthly votes, so I owe you all another 10000 words.

After finishing this chapter, I still owe everyone 82000 words.

There will be more this afternoon.

(End of this chapter)