 One of the most common questions I get is how does traditional Chinese medicine actually diagnose illness? You know people have a lot of misconceptions about the medicine and I've had multiple people ask me so do you just look at a person's aura or Have a yin yang that somehow diagnosis disease and I don't think people realize just how scientific Chinese medicine actually is So in this video, I want to share the four key diagnostic methods that almost every Chinese medical doctor will use So what you can expect honestly in your first appointment? Hey guys, I'm Alex Hein current doctoral student in classical or traditional Chinese medicine and author of the book master the day Now classically there are four diagnostic skills known as Wang Wen Wen Now Wang here stands for observation and what observation means is we observe the Complexion of the patient's face. So complexion is obviously what does the patient's face look like is it more red like a person who's very sweaty and Easily gets hot or is it very pale? Is there are there spots anywhere? Is there a certain color like green or yellow? The second thing we look at with complexion is the tongue So the tongue size the tongue coding any little red spots on the tongue any scalloping on the side of the tongue The second art here is what's called smelling or listening and In smelling or listening we listen to not only the patient's words So the way they speak they could be very loud talking like this very strong or they could be like this in my life It's so difficult and so those things are actually Diagnostically very important because we'll show where a patient is So if there's a really big like the stereotypical business man, he's got acid reflux and indigestion And he's talking really loud like this. It's probably not a deficient condition. So these are very useful We listen to coughing and breathing as well as smells the patient gives off the second one is inquiry So this is the classic intake form. So we ask questions like what do you prefer? Do you prefer warm drinks or cold drinks? Do you tend to run hot tend to run cool? Do you like extra blankets when you sleep or do you always wake up kicking them off you? Are you thirsty? Is there any are there any issues with your urination is their frequency burning and so on and so forth? How are your bowel movements? How often are they solid? Are they more loose? Do they feel hot? How is your period and how's your men's use if this bleeding or their spotting or there's pain? Is it before is it after how heavy? What's the color? It goes really in-depth How's your sleep? Do you have problems going to sleep? Do you wake up? Do you wake up at a certain time? Can you not fall asleep until a certain time and how's your appetite? So these are all key questions we use to figure out very important diagnostic criteria in regard to how Chinese medicine diagnosis illness and disease the last skill here chair is palpation so the most famous chair is pulse diagnosis and Literally channel palpation so in pulse diagnosis the physician is actually feeling Three areas of the radial artery and we're feeling not only the strength the depth and the width of the pulse But we're also feeling each individual position the first position is known as the Sun The second is the guan and the third is the true and these each actually also correlate to certain organs in the person's body So at the end of this large intake the questioning the listening the smelling the asking the palpating We were given all of this diverse data and we have to put these into a concrete diagnosis All together and then we do our pattern differentiation and our differential diagnosis as well But all of these are very key in Chinese medicine and so again This is much more concrete than do we diagnose through aura? I don't know any doctor who does or do we use yin yang to diagnose I mean technically yes Technically all these are to understand is the patient more hot Is the patient more cold are they more deficient and tired a week or are they really excessive and hot and sweaty and Overdoing it all of these are very key information. All right guys So I hope that video helps introduce you to a bit about how traditional or classical Chinese medicine Diagnosis illness and disease and health the best way to stay in touch is to get my free guide How to add 10 years to your life with classical Chinese medicine at alexhine.com For free you can also watch my latest two related videos right here and right here