Reply To: Acupuncture Bootcamp
Hi there I have a question from practice exam 3
68. Question
A patient is intolerant to wind, and easily catches cold. He also has spontaneous sweating, especially upon physical exertion. His tongue is pale with a thin, white coating, and his pulse is Superficial (Fu) and Weak (Xu). According to the Eight Principles, this belongs to an:
Interior Deficiency syndrome
Exterior Cold syndrome
Excess Cold syndrome
Excess Heat syndrome
Exterior Deficiency syndrome
Not quite! From the information provided in the case, it is an Exterior (Invasion of Wind-Cold) and Deficiency (of Yang Qi/Wei Qi) syndrome.
Let’s break it down:
Intolerance to wind and easily catching colds suggest a weakness in the body’s defensive Qi (Wei Qi)
Spontaneous sweating indicates a failure to keep the pores closed, another sign of weak Wei Qi
Pale tongue suggests Blood or Qi Deficiency
Thin white coating is often seen in Deficient conditions
Superficial (Fu) and Weak (Xu) pulse confirms a Deficient state
I understand its a Wei qi defn, and that would allow an external pathogenic factor to enter, like wind cold, but he doesnt have a fever (i was taught : chills, fever, floating pulse = EP )
and all the points show qi (wheter wei or not) defn, so how do I differentiate between these?
I seem to struggle with exterior vs interior when it’s an external pathogen as well, because I’ m looking for that trio: chills fever floating pulse, in this question as well from case 2:
Question 11: Case 5
Frizzle Schnizzle, a 34-year-old patient caught a Wind Cold 2 years ago and his whole body broke out in rash with severe itching.
Patient Information:
rash is worse with scratching
he has tried cyproheptadine hydrochloride and vitamin c treatments which brought about some relief, but still he had frequent recurrence
last week after eating seafood, there was a recurrence of the rash
whole body was covered with rash of unequal size
form of the rash was not uniform, bright red in color and bump
rash color faded with pressure, and itched intensely
low grade fever
headach
thirst
constipation
turbid urine
Tongue: red with yellow coat
Pulse: Wiry (Xuan), Rapid (Shuo)
Question 11: The location of the disease is:
Exterior
Interior
Deficient below, Excess above
Both Interior and Exterior
I saw your earlier answer that this coudl be debatable, but is there a way it can be clarified:
if something Starts exterior, and goes interior – thus resulting in the LACK of floating pulse/chills/fever, how do I know if the answer is still exterior , interior or both?
Apologies I’m having trouble wording that well.
Thanks,
Julie