What kind of traditional Chinese medicine should be taken to improve immunity

Judging from more than ten years of clinical clinical experience in traditional Chinese medicine, there is no "special immune-boosting traditional Chinese medicine" that is suitable for everyone. All conditioning medicines must first correspond to your own type of "deficiency of righteousness". Random supplements will disrupt the body's original immune balance, so it is better not to use them.

Last week, I met a girl who had been healthy for less than a month. I checked and said that astragalus can improve immunity. I drank a lot of it in a thermos cup every day. After drinking it for a whole week, not only was the problem of getting tired and catching colds when exposed to the wind not cured, but a string of herpes appeared on my mouth.

This may be the misunderstanding that many people have about TCM immunity. They think that as long as it is a tonic, it is effective. In fact, the low immunity we often say corresponds to the "insufficient righteousness" in traditional Chinese medicine. For example, people who are usually afraid of wind, sweat when they move, and catch colds every time they move, mostly have lung qi deficiency. For this kind of people, it is suitable to use astragalus with some windproof, which is the base of the classic Jade Ping Feng Powder. It is equivalent to putting a gentle windshield on your body surface. Wind evil will not easily get in, and you will naturally be less likely to catch a cold.

If you always feel lack of energy, have diarrhea after eating something cold, and have a sallow complexion all year round, it means a weak spleen. Just replenishing lung qi is useless. You need to use some spleen and stomach-strengthening foods such as Radix Pseudostellariae and Poria cocos. After all, the spleen and stomach are the "production factories" of righteousness. If the factory's production capacity cannot be increased, no matter how much you supplement, it will be in vain. There are also many people who stay up late and always feel dry mouth, hot palms, tired and upset after staying up late. This is due to deficiency of Qi and Yin. They need to supplement with some Ophiopogon japonicus, American ginseng, and a small amount of Astragalus to avoid getting angry.

Nowadays, there are a lot of controversies on the Internet about traditional Chinese medicine for regulating immunity. One group says that it is purely an IQ tax, while the other group says that taking some tonic medicines can enhance your physical fitness. In fact, both of them are too extreme. Take Cordyceps sinensis, which is very popular nowadays, for example. Some studies believe that the cordycepin in it can regulate innate immunity and is indeed useful for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and recurrent respiratory tract infections due to lung qi deficiency. However, many scholars believe that its content of active ingredients is too low and its cost-effectiveness is far inferior to conventional tonics. When I prescribe to ordinary patients, I would not recommend Cordyceps first. Most people use affordable medicinal materials to treat symptoms for two or three months, and the number of colds during seasonal changes can be reduced by at least 70 to 80%.

If office workers don’t have time to cook medicine, there is no need to make too complicated prescriptions. Just find out your own constitution first. For example, if you are sure that you have lung qi deficiency, take 3g of astragalus and 1g of windbreak in a thermos cup and drink.

By the way, there is another pitfall that is easiest to step into. If you don’t have any uncomfortable symptoms at all, and you just want to "boost your immunity," really don’t take medicine blindly. I have seen many people taking Liuwei Rehmannia Pills and donkey hide gelatin for health care. In the end, they end up with a weak spleen and stomach and a bloated stomach, which messes up the originally balanced immunity. If you really need to adjust it, it is better to find a reliable traditional Chinese medicine doctor to identify your physical constitution before taking action.