Women's Taboos for Drinking Medicinal Herbs
Many female friends like to use traditional Chinese medicine to regulate their bodies. So what are the taboos for women to drink medicinal herbs? How to drink herbal medicine more effectively?
Taboos for Drinking Medicinal Herbs, Correct Methods for Drinking Medicinal Herbs, Precautions for Drinking Medicinal Herbs
1. Choose the right time to take herbal medicine in order to achieve the best therapeutic effect. This is particularly important for herbal medicine. The timing of taking herbal medicine should be determined based on the condition and nature of the medicine. Most medicines should be taken half an hour to an hour after meals to reduce direct irritation to the gastric mucosa.
2. When using herbal medicine, pay attention to the four properties and five flavors. The composition of the prescription should be based on the properties of the medicine (cold, hot, warm, or cool) and the five flavors (pungent, sweet, sour, bitter, or salty). When taking herbal medicine on an empty stomach, cold or cool medicines and medicines with strong flavors may cause damage to the gastric mucosa.
3. Different types of herbal medicine should be taken at different times. For liver, kidney, and gastrointestinal disorders, it is recommended to take the medicine before meals. For dizziness and throat disorders, it is recommended to take the medicine after meals. For purgative, tonic, and deworming medicines, it is recommended to take them on an empty stomach. Sedatives should be taken before bedtime.
4. It is advisable to eat less beans, meat, raw and cold, and other hard-to-digest foods to avoid increasing the burden on the intestines and stomach and affecting the recovery from the disease. Patients with spleen and stomach deficiency should eat less of these foods.
5. For patients with heat-related diseases, it is best to avoid or eat less alcohol, spicy foods, fish, and meat. Alcohol and spicy foods are hot in nature, while fish and meat have the effects of greasiness, heat generation, and phlegm production, which can aggravate the disease and worsen the condition.
6. When taking medicine for relieving surface symptoms or promoting rashes, it is advisable to eat less raw and cold and sour foods, as these foods have astringent effects that can affect the efficacy of the medicine in relieving surface symptoms and promoting rashes.
7. When taking warm tonic medicine, it is advisable to drink less tea, as tea leaves have a cooling nature that can reduce the effectiveness of warming the spleen and stomach. Before and after taking sedatives and hypnotics, it is not advisable to drink tea, and these drugs should not be taken with tea.
8. When taking medicine for clearing heat, cooling blood, and nourishing yin, it is not advisable to eat spicy foods, as they can aggravate heat symptoms and counteract the effects of the medicine (such as gypsum, honeysuckle, forsythia, gardenia, rehmannia, and moutan bark) and nourishing yin medicine (such as dendrobium, adenophora, ophiopogon, anemarrhena, and scrophularia).
9. When taking licorice, coptis, black plum, balloon flower, coptis root, or evodia fruit, avoid eating pork.
10. When taking rehmannia or fleeceflower root, avoid eating onions, garlic, and radishes.
11. When taking salvia or poria, avoid consuming vinegar.
12. When taking atractylodes or white atractylodes, avoid eating peaches and plums.
13. When taking poria or Rubus chingii, avoid drinking tea.
14. When taking schizonepeta, avoid eating shrimp and other seafood.
15. When taking magnolia bark, avoid frying and stir-frying legumes.
16. When taking ginseng or codonopsis, avoid eating radishes, as radishes help digestion, resolve phlegm, and promote qi circulation, while ginseng and codonopsis are tonics, so the effects cancel each other out.
17. Spicy foods should be avoided by people taking Chinese medicine, as they can weaken the effectiveness of the medicine and even react with it, seriously endangering health. Traditional Chinese medicine also points out that spicy foods are mostly warm in nature and consume qi and create fire. Therefore, when taking medicine for clearing heat and detoxifying, nourishing yin and increasing fluid, cooling blood and nourishing yin, it is best to avoid these foods, or during the treatment of abscesses and ulcers, spicy foods should also be avoided. Those who experience bitterness and dryness in the mouth, restlessness and heat, constipation, yellow urine, high blood pressure, fatigue and restlessness, and rapid heartbeat, as well as those with hyperthyroidism, generally should avoid eating ginger, garlic, chives, onions, mutton, dog meat, and peppers, which are high in fat, dry, and spicy.
18. During the consumption of Chinese medicine, it is advisable to avoid consuming various raw and cold foods, as they are mostly cold in nature and very difficult to digest. Moreover, raw and cold foods also have a stimulating effect on the intestines and stomach. In this case, if Chinese medicine is taken immediately, it will seriously irritate the gastrointestinal tract and affect the absorption of the medicine. Those with spleen and stomach deficiency, cold hands and feet, loose stools, low blood pressure, and slow heartbeat should avoid watermelon, winter melon, radish, mung bean, pear, sugarcane, honey, and turtle, which are raw, cold, greasy, and slippery.
19. Those who are afraid of cold and have fever, headache and irritability, constipation and yellow urine, oral ulcers, boils, and tumors should avoid bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, luffa, chives, eggplant, shrimp, crab, snails, clams, and other foods.
20. Various greasy foods should also be avoided during the consumption of Chinese medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine points out that greasy foods are mostly sticky and greasy, and they also promote dampness, phlegm production, and stagnation of the intestines and qi. After eating, they can mix with the medicine and hinder the absorption of the effective ingredients of the medicine by the intestines and stomach, thereby reducing the effectiveness of the treatment. Especially for patients with weak spleen and stomach, indigestion, hypertension, and coronary heart disease, they should eat less of these foods in their daily lives.
21. Most Chinese herbs have aromatic odors, especially aromatic herbs for promoting diuresis and eliminating dampness. These herbs contain a large amount of volatile oil, which is essential for their therapeutic effects. These aromatic substances are least compatible with fishy and gamey odors. If they are not avoided when taking Chinese herbs, they often affect the efficacy of the medicine. For example, fish, shrimp, and seafood have a fishy odor, while beef and mutton have a gamey taste.
22. It is generally not recommended to drink strong tea when taking Chinese medicine because tea contains tannic acid, and strong tea contains more tannic acid, which can affect the absorption of the effective ingredients of the medicine by the human body and reduce its effectiveness. This is especially true when taking "donkey-hide gelatin" or "silver ear" medicine. It is not advisable to take them with tea, as taking them at the same time can cause precipitation of tannic acid and alkaloids in the tea, affecting absorption by the body. If you usually have the habit of drinking tea, you can drink less green tea, and it is best to drink it 2 to 3 hours after taking the medicine.
