Talk about Aristolochia in winter

"It is said that Chinese medicine has a secret recipe. Who knows that it will lead to kidney failure. "

Ms. Zhang from Guangxi never imagined that she originally wanted to keep in good health, but as a result, she "raised" herself into kidney failure.

A few years ago, Ms. Zhang stepped into the ranks of 60 years old and felt that her energy was not as good as before. She felt very tired after a little exercise, and it was difficult to relieve after a rest. I mentioned this one day when I was chatting with my neighbor. Neighbors introduced an "old Chinese doctor" to Ms. Zhang and told her that she felt particularly energetic after eating the Chinese medicine prescribed by the old Chinese doctor.

This made Ms. Zhang very moved, so she asked for the address of the old Chinese doctor and rushed over the next day. The old Chinese doctor prescribed some "magic drugs" to Ms. Zhang. These drugs are ground and brewed directly when taking medicine.

After taking Chinese medicine, Ms. Zhang went home for a week. Just two days after taking it, Ms. Zhang found that the symptoms had eased. However, after taking the medicine for one week, her body showed symptoms such as abnormal urination, nausea and abdominal pain. After the family found out, Ms. Zhang was rushed to the hospital for examination. After examination, it was found that Ms. Zhang's blood creatinine has reached 1.700 umol/L, which is more than 10 times higher than that of ordinary people. She was diagnosed with acute renal failure.

Asked about the medical history, the doctor was very sad, mostly because of acute renal failure caused by drug abuse. Examples like Ms. Zhang are common in clinic.

But Ms. Zhang does not agree with the doctor's diagnosis. She said that after eating for 2 days, the symptoms were obviously alleviated. How can it cause renal failure?

Many people think that Chinese medicine is pure natural and pollution-free and will not pose a threat to the body, so it is harmless to take it at will. As everyone knows, this idea is very wrong, and the abuse of Chinese medicine may bring some irreparable consequences.

Ms. Zhang's question is understandable. Yes, why did she have kidney failure after eating for two days?

There are two forms of TCM treatment of diseases. The first is slow conditioning, mainly for sub-healthy people, and the second is rapid relief of symptoms, mainly for critically ill patients.

Ms. Zhang is obviously the latter, but this kind of Chinese medicine often adds Chinese medicine with relatively strong efficacy, such as Chinese medicine containing heavy metals such as arsenic, mercury and lead, but this kind of Chinese medicine is often very toxic and the dosage added is very knowledgeable. Once overdosed or misused, it may cause renal failure.

In addition, some unscrupulous merchants will also add some hormone drugs to traditional Chinese medicine, which can play a certain anti-inflammatory role after entering the body. So when I first started taking medicine, I felt the symptoms improved obviously, but the symptoms were not cured. After stopping the drug, the symptoms will rebound, and the body will also have hormone dependence, causing some other complications.

This is why Ms. Zhang clearly felt that her symptoms had eased two days ago, but she finally suffered from renal failure.

For many years, traditional Chinese medicine has been regarded as a pure natural medicine with no toxic side effects, but as early as in Huangdi Neijing, it is said that drugs can't cure diseases without toxicity. In other words, all Chinese herbal medicines that can improve your symptoms are toxic.

The most basic treatment principle of TCM is syndrome differentiation and treatment. The same disease can show different symptoms, and different diseases will show the same syndrome. Before prescribing traditional Chinese medicine, it is necessary to make clear the etiology, symptoms and development degree of the patient's condition in order to match the drugs suitable for the patient. This is very similar to the examination in western medicine. The difference is that one is screening with instruments and the other is consulting. If you don't take it symptomatic, your condition will not get better, but will get worse.

In addition, Chinese medicine also pays attention to fighting poison with poison when treating certain diseases. Toxic ingredients contained in traditional Chinese medicine are often the most effective ingredients for treatment. Using the special toxicity contained in traditional Chinese medicine to "poison" it against the inducement in the body, the toxicity in traditional Chinese medicine will naturally not pose a threat to health after reacting with bacteria in the body, such as treating leukemia with arsenic and treating breast cancer with rhodiola.

All traditional Chinese medicines are toxic, and once they are abused or the drugs are not symptomatic, they will bring great harm to kidney health.

In fact, Chinese medicine has toxic side effects, so what do we need to know before using Chinese medicine?

1, uncertainty of clinical medication

As mentioned above, TCM treatment mainly pays attention to syndrome differentiation, but there is no uniform standard in the choice of specific prescriptions. Take our common Mahuang decoction as an example, there are only four kinds of Chinese medicines. Through different sources and processing methods of traditional Chinese medicine, the drugs and effects obtained are completely different. It is said that it is being treated with Mahuang decoction, but the specific concept is a bit vague.

Generally speaking, Chinese medicine has no fixed prescription and needs professional Chinese medicine to adjust according to the patient's condition, so don't trust anyone who hears Chinese medicine prescriptions such as "magic medicine" and "cure all diseases".

2. Traditional Chinese medicine also has toxic and side effects.

After using traditional Chinese medicine, there may be a series of side effects, such as digestive tract symptoms, nervous system symptoms, urinary system symptoms and so on. The patient may have one or more side effects. Before taking the medicine, it is necessary to make clear the possible side effects, and then decide whether to take the medicine, so as to achieve the optimal solution of the drug effect.

3, the use of traditional Chinese medicine should be flexible.

When using traditional Chinese medicine for treatment, we should keep enough flexibility. When the condition is complex and a single Chinese medicine can't meet the treatment of all diseases, we can choose to use a variety of Chinese patent medicines or combine with western medicine for combined treatment. In the treatment, we should fully consider the possible synergistic attenuation principle of multiple drugs to avoid repeated use of drugs with the same effect.

These three principles need to be paid great attention to when using Chinese medicine. In addition, there is another problem that everyone needs to understand. Pure natural Chinese medicine is actually very toxic.

Understand a wide range of knowledge points of Chinese medicine, let's talk about toxic Chinese medicine in detail, which is encountered in daily life. I advise you not to use it at will.

At present, Chinese traditional medicines with particularly high clinical toxicity generally contain a substance called aristolochic acid.

Aristolochic acid is a biological toxin, which generally exists in Aristolochiaceae plants such as Aristolochia and Asarum, and even has a proper term for the nephropathy caused by Chinese herbal medicine containing this substance, namely "Aristolochic acid nephropathy".

As early as the 1990s, foreign unscrupulous merchants added traditional Chinese medicines rich in aristolochic acid to "pure natural" Chinese herbal medicine weight-loss packages, which led to aristolochic acid poisoning and aristolochic acid nephropathy in many women.

At present, the clinical inducement of aristolochic acid nephropathy is not clear. Some studies have pointed out that aristolochic acid will damage renal tubular epithelial cells and lead to interstitial fibrosis, which will lead to kidney injury, kidney disease and even renal failure. Once the kidney disease caused by aristolochic acid occurs, it is irreversible, so what we need to do is to avoid eating Chinese medicine containing aristolochic acid as much as possible.

Commonly used Chinese medicines containing aristolochic acid include tripterygium wilfordii, Aristolochia manshuriensis, Trichosanthes root, Shā rotto Katakuri, Senecio scandens, Pulsatilla chinensis, Achyranthes bidentata and so on. These traditional Chinese medicines cannot be used blindly, and even if they need to be used, they need the guidance of professional doctors.

Traditional Chinese medicine has a long history in China. Although it is natural, it is also a kind of medicine after all, and there is some truth in the saying that medicine is divided into three parts. No matter what medicine is used, it needs to be carried out under the guidance of a doctor.

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