Tongue coating is equivalent to an item in a traditional Chinese medicine health examination report, and we should learn to understand the results of this report.
Many times, we only pay attention to the discomfort in our bodies, but in fact, before any physical abnormalities occur, the tongue has already sent us signals of health issues through its coating.
How to understand the relationship between tongue coating and health today we will use a Chinese patent medicineBaohe WanLet's learn about this knowledge together.
I. Normal Tongue Coating
The tongue is a reflection of the body's health status. From the perspective of biological holographic theory, the tongue is closely related to the internal organs of the body.
Under normal circumstances, a pale red tongue body with thin white coating, no swelling, moderate moisture, and flexible movement indicates sufficient and balanced qi and blood in the internal organs, which is a sign of a healthy tongue appearance.
II. Thick and Greasy Tongue Coating
If one day you find that your tongue coating has become thick and greasy, you often also feel uncomfortable symptoms in your body.
Thick and greasy tongue coating is usually associated with dampness and turbidity.
This is like a sewage treatment system having a problem, blocked at the lower section, which can be seen from the upper section. There are two reasons for the blockage: first, too much sewage material comes, exceeding the system's processing capacity, gradually accumulating and causing system blockage. Second, the system's processing capacity declines, even if the amount of sewage material is normal, it also leads to excessive system load due to reduced capacity.
This system in our body is the spleen and stomach system, specifically responsible for the digestion of food and the transportation of fluids. Its working principle is the same as this sewage treatment system. Once the system malfunctions, abnormal information can be observed on the tongue coating.
01. Thick Tongue Coating
The change of tongue coating from thin to thick is an abnormal signal, indicating an excessive accumulation of pathogenic factors in the body. This is caused by the putrid and turbid qi produced by the accumulation of undigested food in the stomach and intestines, which rises and steams to the tongue surface, accumulating there. The thicker the coating, the more severe the stagnation.
02. Greasy Tongue Coating
greasy, a signal code for abnormal water metabolism, is also a characteristic of pathological products of water metabolism (damp turbidity).
It has the nature of oil, sticky and difficult to remove. When the body's ability to transport and transform water and dampness decreases due to spleen dysfunction, leading to abnormal water metabolism, water and dampness accumulate internally and transform into phlegm, resulting in internal phlegm turbidity and causing the phenomenon of oily and greasy tongue coating.
Three, Tongue Coating Color
Based on the color of the moss, we can further determine the nature of damp turbidity
01. White Thick Greasy Coating
White, a cool color tone, indicates the presence of cold in the body. This type of coating is often caused by internal stagnation of cold-dampness, which impairs the yang qi of the spleen and stomach, leading to weakened transportation and transformation, failure of stomach turbidity to descend, and inability of spleen clarity to ascend. These substances accumulate in the body, ascend to the tongue, and result in a thick, greasy white coating.
Or indulging in raw, cold, and greasy sweet foods, which damages stomach fire, or overeating and accumulating beyond the spleen and stomach's digestive capacity, leading to the accumulation of cold food and cold qi pressing on the tongue, resulting in a white, thick, and greasy coating.
02. Thick Greasy Yellow Coating
Yellow indicates a heat syndrome, often due to spleen deficiency leading to impaired transportation and transformation of dampness, accumulation of dampness transforming into phlegm, generating heat, and the binding of dampness and heat forming a state of intermingled damp-heat, or excessive consumption of spicy, greasy, and rich foods, resulting in food stagnation transforming into heat.
This upward steaming of heat produces a thick, yellow tongue coating; the thicker the coating, the more severe the heat. It is often accompanied by symptoms such as dry mouth, heavy breath, sticky and uncomfortable stools, and dark yellow urine.
IV. Recommended Treatment Medication: Baohe Wan
For the regulation of thick greasy tongue coating, there is a classic prescription in traditional Chinese medicine: Baohe Wan, which has a good regulatory effect on both white thick greasy tongue coating and yellow thick greasy tongue coating.
This medicine is commonly used in daily life for promoting digestion and removing stagnation. Here, it is used to regulate the spleen and stomach system with its effects of "strengthening the spleen, promoting diuresis, removing stagnation, and clearing heat," and is applicable for both yellow and white greasy tongue coatings.
Composition:Charred Hawthorn Berry, Stir-fried Medicated Leaven, Prepared Pinellia Tuber, Indian Bread, Dried Tangerine Peel, Forsythia Fruit, Stir-fried Radish Seed
Fang Jie
01. Strengthen the spleen, dry dampness, and resolve phlegm
Pinellia, Tangerine Peel, PoriaThe three main ingredients of Erchen Wan, Pinellia ternata for descending adverse flow and harmonizing the stomach, a key pathogenesis of thick greasy tongue coating is caused by the upward steaming of turbid stomach qi.
The core pathological root is the decline in the stomach's function of descending turbidity. Pinellia is used to lower stomach qi and relieve the upward steaming of putrid qi. Meanwhile, Pinellia excels at drying dampness and resolving phlegm, synergizing with tangerine peel's ability to regulate qi, transform dampness, promote qi flow, and harmonize the middle, as well as poria's function of fortifying the spleen and draining dampness. The combination of these three herbs forcefully "presses down" the accumulated dampness and turbidity, and then utilizes their dampness-transforming functions to expel these pathogenic factors from the body.
02. Promoting Digestion
Charred Hawthorn Fruit, Fried Medicated Leaven, Fried Radish SeedFood stagnation is one of the causes of "putrid turbid qi". In the formula, hawthorn is used in large quantities, which is sour, sweet, and slightly warm in nature, and is particularly effective in digesting greasy and meaty accumulations. The "Compendium of Materia Medica" states that it "transforms food and drink, and dissipates meat accumulations," hence it serves as the principal herb.
Assisted by Shenqu, which is sweet and pungent in flavor and warm in nature, it aids digestion and harmonizes the stomach, capable of resolving accumulations of alcohol, food, and stale substances; Laifuzi, pungent and sweet, directs qi downward, excels in dispersing accumulations of flour-based foods, widens the chest and diaphragm, and relieves distension and fullness.
After stir-frying, it directly targets the spleen and stomach, enhancing the ability to resolve stagnation. The combination of these three herbs can digest various types of food stagnation, reduce the digestive burden on the spleen and stomach, and eliminate "putrid turbid qi" from the root.
03. Clearing Heat
Forsythia suspensa,Bitter cold and aromatic, it has the effect of clearing heat and dispersing nodules.
Damp turbidity transforms into phlegm and generates heat, or food stagnation over time leads to depression and heat transformation. These are the reasons why foul qi transforms into thick tongue coating. Without clearing heat, it is insufficient to clear the foulness. In the formula, the bitter and cold nature of Forsythia is utilized to clear and resolve this heat toxin, effectively preventing and improving the condition of yellow tongue coating (damp-heat). This is also the key point of this formula in addressing both yellow and white thick tongue coatings.
The combination of the entire formula, for white thick greasy tongue coating, by strengthening the spleen and promoting diuresis, enhances the spleen and stomach's function of transporting and transforming dampness, expels cold-damp qi, and naturally restores the tongue coating to its normal state.
For thick and greasy yellow tongue coating, the bitter and cold properties of Forsythia are used to clear heat, combined with spleen-strengthening, dampness-draining, and phlegm-resolving actions, so that damp-heat is cleared, and the thick yellow coating can also return to normal.
