TCM treat Cirrhosis (Liver Hardening) with Herbal Medicine

TCM treat Cirrhosis (Liver Hardening) with Herbal Medicine  

中医治疗肝硬化

Clinically, we do have patients telling us that when they go for their blood test, the blood test showed that they have fibrosis or cirrhosis. 

Fibrosis describes some degrees of scarring in the liver, while cirrhosis is referring to the most severe of scarring and the chance of complications of liver disease is higher. 

Liver fibrosis has an insidious onset, slowly progressing over many years and typically taking over 20 years to develop into liver cirrhosis. Some may not realize that they have liver fibrosis until they go for medical check-up. Rapid progression over a few years to liver cirrhosis can also occur in some cases. 

Some may wonder how they have liver fibrosis, however, genetic as well as environmental factors can be the cause of liver fibrosis.  But TCM views that unhealthy food can also contribute to liver fibrosis.

Our clinics have seen many cases of Cirrhosis cases, there are many cases where their cirrhosis was mild, and they were asked to do regular exercise by their western doctor, but usually no medicine was prescribed for them. There were quite a numbers of patients who told us that they did not want to wait till her cirrhosis became serious and wished to get some treatment from us to prevent her liver from deteriorating further.  With our medicine, they could see that their cirrhosis is better. 

There were also many advance cirrhosis cases who came to seek treatment from us, usually they were diagnosed to have liver cancer.  Their symptoms are weakness and tiredness, loss of appetite, easily feel nausea and vomiting, weight loss and muscle tenderness or pain around the liver area.  Some may have big stomach and could see some crochet veins or tiny red lines (blood capillaries) on the skin.  They may also have yellowing of the skin and eyes (jaundice) and itchy skin.

Traditional Chinese Medicine is not that we can treat everything.  Basically, we treat based on symptoms 辨证论治Syndrome differentiation and treatment。For example, if the patient has poor appetite, we can prescribe 麦芽 谷芽to increase his appetite; If he feels nausea and vomiting, we can give 旋复花, 代赭石, 炒竹茹 ；If he cannot pass motion, we can give 大黄素，if he feels very tired, we can give him 党参， 黄芪， 人参 etc. TCM makes sure that he can eat, he can digest his food and he can pass motion.  Also we can also help him to be more relax and not to be too worried and can sleep better.  

Of course, we can also add some medicine to reduce the hardening of his liver, and nourish his blood and enhance blood circulation. There are a lot of TCM herbs that have anti-cancer property. TCM herbs also help him to have enough energy to do his daily activities such as exercise, cooking, bathing, eating, and so on.

He may not be able to get well with his liver cirrhosis but in some ways  he may be able to prevent further deterioration.

 

The symptoms of liver cirrhosis:

1) Itchy skin;

2) Jaundice (yellowish eyes and skin);

3) Loss of weight and loss of appetite;

4) Fluid build up in the abdomen (ascites);

5) Nausea;

6) Sleeping difficulties;

7) Swelling of legs (oedema);

8) Lethargic;

9) Vomiting blood;

11) Red spider-looking spots on your chest and back (spider angiomas);

10) Confusion in severe cases.