How to judge health by looking at the tongue

Healthy tongue: its color should be pink or reddish, its shape should be rectangular, it should be moderately fat and thin, its tongue coating should be thin and white, shiny and moist, and finally its tongue should be flexible and powerful. Pale tongue: blood deficiency, yang deficiency or cold syndrome. This pale tongue indicates that it may suffer from malnutrition, anemia and some endocrine diseases. Tongue color is too red: it is yin deficiency and heat excess. At this time, the body is hot, easy to breathe, and irritable. This situation indicates that there is something wrong with thyroid function or diabetes. Fat and tender tongue: there are teeth marks on the edge of the tongue, mostly due to deficiency and cold, and may suffer from hypothyroidism or acromegaly. Pricking on the tongue: indicates stagnation of heat, which may lead to pneumonia and scarlet fever, as well as high fever in other diseases. Yellow and greasy tongue coating: it is hot, and the deeper the yellow, the heavier the heat. Mainly reflects gastrointestinal stagnation, digestive tract corruption organic matter increased. Tremor when the tongue is extended: it means neurasthenia and physical weakness after a long illness. Immortality: Immortality or askew of the tongue is often a precursor to cerebrovascular disease. Symptomatic treatment of white tongue coating is mostly cold, yellow and white. White tongue coating is often accompanied by cold limbs and cold hands and feet, which is a deficiency-cold constitution caused by insufficient yang. Patients with heart yang deficiency will have palpitation, shortness of breath and increased fatigue. Patients can take some red ginseng and astragalus soup as tea, and usually eat some ginger that warms the yang and dispels the cold in the diet. Professor Guo said that patients with yang deficiency should pay special attention to keep warm in winter, and they can eat more hot porridge or wear a cotton-padded jacket. The method is to soak cotton with fried ginger and then dry it to make a cotton vest. Patients with spleen-stomach yang deficiency often have stomachache and are afraid of cold, do not think about diet, especially afraid of eating cold food, and some are accompanied by diarrhea. Patients with stomachache can drink dried ginger (or Alpinia officinarum) and water after decoction, which has the effect of warming stomach and dispelling cold. Ginger and white pepper can also be mashed into mud, and the umbilical cord can be slightly hot and changed every day. Old people with dry stools due to yang deficiency can drink cistanche deserticola, aconite, dried ginger and scallion with water. Traditional Chinese medicine believes that the tongue is directly or indirectly connected with the essence of many zang-fu organs through meridians, making it flexible, so the pathological changes of zang-fu organs can often be reflected from the tongue image. Observing tongue quality and tongue coating is one of the main methods of TCM diagnosis. When the following changes occur, you should adjust your diet in time and carefully observe whether you are sick or not and whether you want to go to the hospital for treatment. ⑴ Pale tongue with thin white fur: mostly cold syndrome, which can be seen in the early stage of cold. You can choose a warmer diet, such as red dates, glutinous rice porridge, etc., and soft foods and soup foods are appropriate. Non-staple food is light and warm beef soup, mutton soup, egg drop soup, carrots, onions, brown sugar and so on. Vinegar and ginger are used as flavoring agents. Fruits can be apples, oranges, etc. Eat less cold food, such as cold salad, cucumber, wax gourd, mung bean sprouts, crabs, snails and duck eggs. Avoid cold drinks. ⑵ The tongue coating is white and greasy, or white and thick and greasy: it is mostly cold and wet, so it is advisable to choose foods that warm the stomach and strengthen the spleen, dispel cold and eliminate dampness. Same variety as above. Use less sweet and greasy food, otherwise it will lead to bloating and loss of appetite. ⑶ Slight yellow or yellow greasy tongue coating: It is caused by damp-heat of spleen and stomach or gastrointestinal stagnation, which is seen in infection, fever or digestive dysfunction, often accompanied by dry mouth, irritability, dry stool and other symptoms. Diet should choose foods that clear away heat and promote diuresis, such as white radish, tomato, towel gourd, lotus root starch, mung bean or coix seed porridge, and fruits can choose hawthorn and pear. ⑷ Thin or slippery tongue coating, or partial shedding of tongue coating: it is mostly caused by damp-heat in gastrointestinal tract or excessive fire due to yin deficiency, which is seen in parasitic diseases or chronic wasting diseases. You can choose lily soup, Sydney, watermelon and other foods with the functions of nourishing yin, reducing fire, promoting fluid production and relieving cough, and avoid spicy foods such as mutton, garlic and onions. As the saying goes: take a photo every day and you will know if you are sick. A healthy person, looking at his tongue in the mirror, should have a soft and moist tongue, red tongue, fine and even particles, white fur and moderate humidity. This is called "red tongue and thin white fur". However, after illness, the quality of tongue coating and tongue coating will change. Therefore, regular observation of the tongue picture can help us understand the health status and carry out self-care and conditioning in time. Nowadays, when I go to the hospital to see Chinese medicine practitioners over middle age, many doctors regard tongue reading as more important than pulse-taking. After asking about the symptoms, they often say, "Let me see your tongue." In this regard, Professor Guo from the Department of Gastroenterology, the First Affiliated Hospital of Henan College of Traditional Chinese Medicine explained that Chinese medicine believes that "the tongue is the seedling of the heart" and "the coating is the root of stomach qi", and the tongue body is connected with the meridians of the lungs, heart, liver, spleen and kidney. If there are lesions in human internal organs, they can be directly reflected on the tongue. An experienced doctor looks at the tongue just like watching the ups and downs of the moon. He can know the severity of your illness at a glance, the deficiency, cold and heat in your body. Traditional Chinese medicine divides the tongue into three parts: the tip of the tongue reflects the changes of the heart and lungs, the middle and sides of the tongue reflect the situation of the liver and spleen, and the root of the tongue prompts the pathological changes of the kidney. However, Professor Guo said that Chinese medicine and western medicine have different heart, liver and kidney functions, so there is no need to apply them rigidly. Professor Guo said that people with yellow tongue coating and red tongue (that is, red tongue) have bitter taste and dry throat, which belongs to heat-induced internal heat. Heart meridian has fever, yellow tongue coating and red tongue accompanied by impatience, insomnia and dreaminess, and most of them are heart meridian fever. Patients can use some drugs to clear the heart fire at this time. Such as bamboo leaves and lotus seeds soaked in water, when drinking tea frequently every day. If you don't sleep well, you can cook porridge with lily, lotus plumule and jujube kernel. For sores on the mouth and tongue, 60 grams of wild chrysanthemum can be used. After frying, you can eat several times a day. Guo said that there was an old cadre who had sores on his mouth and tongue for many years and used many methods to treat them. With this little prescription, he will be fine in a month. Patients with damp-heat bladder, red tongue and yellow greasy tongue coating, accompanied by unclean urine, or feel fever and pain when urinating, are mostly damp-heat bladder, that is, urinary tract infection of western medicine, which can be used as tea after decoction. Liver meridian has red tongue and red edge, Huang Gan coating, red eyes, swelling and pain, or often sty. Because there is fire in the liver meridian, rhubarb processed with wine can be soaked in water to drink. Guo believes that rhubarb is cold and has the effect of stopping diarrhea. After processing with wine, rhubarb can be drawn to the tap to relieve the burning fire. The lung meridian is hot, the tongue is slightly red, and the thin yellow fur indicates that the lung meridian is hot, which is common in the early stage of cold or pharyngitis. Dry stool, Rabdosia rubescens and rhubarb can be slightly fried and used as tea every day. You can make tea with boat-fruited Sterculia, Ophiopogon japonicus and chrysanthemum for sore throat, and honeysuckle, Sophora Tonkinensis and Arctium lappa for severe symptoms, and constipation will turn yellow. Professor Guo said that Chinese medicine has the saying that "lung and large intestine are exterior and interior". In the early stage of viral cold, the method of removing the fire of lung meridian with heat toxin in large intestine can often receive good curative effect.