Tongue Diagnosis in Chinese Medicine – A Swollen Tongue

Tongue Diagnosis

I frequently hear that a Swollen tongue indicates Qi deficiency. It is not so! In my experience, a Swollen tongue indicates Phlegm. But let us start by describing it first. A tongue is “Swollen” when the whole body is larger than normal. Crucially, a Swollen tongue is also somewhat rounder than a normal tongue. In … Read More

Chinese Medicine Treatment Principles for Geriatrics

Geriatrics

The thinking about geriatrics in Chinese medicine has been dominated by Kidney deficiency for centuries. As Kidney-Jing declines as we age, the clinical approach to the treatment of the elderly has been based largely on tonifying the Kidneys. However, modern diseases of the elderly that account for 90% of mortality (cancer, heart disease and stroke) … Read More

Chinese Medicine: The Tongue in the Elderly

Tongue Diagnosis

Tongue diagnosis plays a very important role in the prevention of disease especially in the elderly. Middle-aged and elderly patients often show abnormal signs on the tongue in the absence of any obvious disease. Elderly people often suffer from Internal Wind, Blood stasis, Phlegm, Heat or Yin deficiency or a combination of these. For example, … Read More