Patient's question:
After the baby started attending kindergarten, they caught a cold, coughed, and had phlegm. They took medicine and got better, but after stopping the medication, they developed a fever. After the fever subsided, they started sneezing and coughing again, which hasn't gone away for 8 days. The medicine hasn't helped either. What should we do? The father is allergic to penicillin and cephalosporins, and the baby has never been tested for allergies. What kind of medicine should they take, or could it develop into rhinitis?Doctor's answer:
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) believes that colds are caused by people being affected by external pathogenic factors, such as wind-cold, wind-heat, and summer-heat, which invade the body and lead to illness. Since wind is the primary pathogenic factor, colds are also referred to as "wind cold" or "common cold." The symptoms of a cold are generally mild and superficial. In treatment, TCM primarily advocates for dispersing wind and expelling pathogens to achieve the goal of self-recovery. Colds are typically classified into three types:1. Wind-Cold Cold: This type often occurs during late autumn, early winter, and early spring, but can also be triggered by excessive exposure to cold in summer. Symptoms include headache, aversion to cold, lack of sweating, fever, nasal congestion, clear nasal discharge, cough, and itchy throat. At this stage, the patient's throat is usually not red, and white blood cell counts are normal. Western medicine often attributes it to viral infection. Treatment involves dispersing wind and warming the interior to dispel cold. For children, drinking diluted ginger water or mixing it with milk can help. If coughing with excessive phlegm, they can consume licorice, tangerine peel, ginger, and honey water.
2. Wind-Heat Cold: This is the most common clinical diagnosis. It can occur throughout the year but is much less frequent than wind-cold colds. Symptoms include high fever, no aversion to cold, sweating, yellow nasal discharge, cough, yellow phlegm, red and swollen throat, thirst, dry stools, and yellow urine. Over-the-counter herbal medicines that can be used include Xiao Er Gan Ma, Jian Er Qing Jie Ye, Feng Re Gan Ma, Ban Lan Gen, and Shuang Huang Lian.