Through the understanding of psoriasis knowledge, most patients should have already seen the drawbacks of Western medicine in treating psoriasis. Therefore, many people choose traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) treatment for psoriasis. However, when using TCM to treat psoriasis, do you also see the same effect as Western medicine, which is that after taking medicine, the results are significant and skin lesions clearly retreat, but with prolonged medication, the condition recurs or even worsens.
Is TCM powerless in front of psoriasis?
Regarding the root cause of psoriasis, traditional Chinese medicine generally believes that symptoms such as blood heat, blood dryness, blood deficiency, and blood stasis are the culprits of psoriasis. For psoriasis caused by blood heat, medical books explain it as follows: "Excessive liver fire leads to symptoms characterized by abnormal blood flow, fever, and in severe cases, unconsciousness." "Blood flows through its normal channels. Internal organ fire forces blood out of its normal channels, damaging the network vessels, causing blood to not follow its normal path and overflow outward. Therefore, blood heat syndrome is mainly characterized by bleeding and heat symptoms."
Traditional Chinese medicine believes that "liver fire" directly causes blood heat, so mistakenly regards the fire within the patient's body as being caused by excessive liver yang. Since blood heat exists, general TCM treatments focus on cooling the blood and detoxifying.
If you have seen a TCM practitioner, you must have used many drugs that cool the blood and detoxify, and initially felt good effects, with skin lesions retreating in a short period of time. But after prolonged use, you may find that the lesions quietly return, and become more severe than before. You might consider this phenomenon as simple recurrence of the condition, but now I tell you, this is the inevitable result of TCM's method of cooling the blood and detoxifying.
The reason why cooling the blood and detoxifying works in the short term is because traditional Chinese medicine, through methods such as observation, listening, questioning, and pulse-taking, diagnoses that there is fire within the psoriasis patient's body. Cooling blood and detoxifying can quickly suppress this fire, so the skin lesions will retreat. However, traditional Chinese medicine makes a mistake by mistaking the fire within the patient's body as being caused by excessive liver yang, which is considered real fire.
Based on our nearly ten years of clinical observation and scientific research, we found that the true root cause of psoriasis is liver yin deficiency. It's correct that there is fire within the body of psoriasis patients, but this fire is caused by liver yin deficiency. Yin deficiency makes Yang seem excessive, which is false Yang excess. We believe that this fire is virtual fire.
We have explained the concepts of virtual fire and real fire before. Simply put, real fire means Yin is not deficient, but Yang is excessive, while virtual fire means Yin is deficient, making Yang seem excessive. Traditional Chinese medicine does not distinguish between "virtual" and "real", and targets excessive liver yang in its medications. The selected cooling blood and detoxifying drugs and other bitter-cold drugs only suppress Yang, unaware that suppressing Yang simultaneously harms Yin, further aggravating liver yin deficiency. The recurrence or worsening of psoriasis is therefore not surprising.
Unlike traditional Chinese medicine, we have found the true root cause of psoriasis - liver yin deficiency. We do not deny that symptoms such as blood heat, blood dryness, and blood stasis are closely related to the onset of psoriasis, but we see that liver yin deficiency directly leads to these symptoms, hiding behind blood heat as the root cause.
From the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, extinguishing fire is correct, and we also see that there is fire within psoriasis patients. Those who understand Chinese medicine know the principle of "different treatments for the same disease." Although both aim to extinguish fire, unlike traditional Chinese medicine that uses cooling blood and detoxifying drugs, we adopt a method of nourishing yin and enriching blood.
As mentioned earlier, the reason why traditional Chinese medicine cools the blood is because it mistakenly regards excessive liver yang as the source of fire, failing to see that liver yin deficiency is the root cause of internal fire. As a result, the more fire is suppressed, the bigger it gets, leading to the adverse consequences of recurring and worsening conditions. The reason we emphasize "nourishing yin and enriching blood" is that we see liver yin deficiency as the true source of fire. Since there is insufficient Yin and blood, we need to nourish Yin and enrich blood, thereby fundamentally balancing Yin and Yang.
In actual treatment, we always emphasize "treating from the root," where liver yin deficiency is the root, so nourishing yin and enriching blood is treating from the root.
By now, you might ask: if we treat from the root, is the problem of curing psoriasis solved?
If it were that simple, psoriasis wouldn't be one of the world's difficult and complicated diseases. The process of curing psoriasis is gradual. Besides treating from the root, we must also recognize various factors that exacerbate liver yin deficiency and eliminate all pathogenic factors, which is a very slow process.
Similarly, simply nourishing yin and enriching blood, from the overall perspective of Chinese medicine, is also a very slow process. Unlike traditional Chinese medicine's sole reliance on cooling blood and detoxifying drugs, nourishing yin and enriching blood is a complex medication process. In addition to directly using drugs that nourish yin and enrich blood, we also see the relationship between other organs and liver yin deficiency, especially the roles of the lungs and spleen.
We know that the lungs restrain the liver, manage the defensive energy, and serve as a natural barrier helping the liver resist external pathogens. If the lungs malfunction, it directly leads to pathogen invasion, worsening liver yin deficiency. The spleen governs digestion and is restrained by the liver. The spleen is responsible for distributing nutrients from food through the lungs to the entire body's meridians, nourishing the whole body's hair and skin. An unhealthy spleen also exacerbates liver yin deficiency. The mutual generation and restraint relationship among the liver, spleen, and lungs makes us consider these factors while nourishing yin and enriching blood.
In specific treatment, we advocate strengthening the spleen to moisten the lungs, and moistening the lungs to regulate the liver, making the operation among the internal organs tend towards balance. This is the process of regulating liver yin deficiency, which actually includes the treatment of nourishing yin and enriching blood.
The holistic approach of TCM in treating psoriasis recognizes the mutual generation and restraint relationships among the five zang organs and six fu organs, and sees the role of external factors in the onset of psoriasis, establishing a complete set of treatment systems. We emphasize that the treatment of psoriasis must adhere to the core principle of "treating from the root" and conduct dialectical treatment from an overall perspective.