A few days ago, I met a patient who came to Beijing from abroad specifically to see a TCM doctor. The patient actually had no major problems, just a little back pain, which was not cured by local treatment for more than half a year, so he came to Beijing to find a TCM doctor. I looked at his previous checkups, firstly, the urine routine, which was suspicious of nephritis; then the ultrasound, which showed that there were no stones; then the blood test, which did not show any obvious abnormalities; the CT was also done, and the lumbar discs were fine. In the patient’s words, after a whole bunch of tests and not a single penny of medicine, her back still hurts now. I asked her about her medical history, and there was no infectious disease or family history, not to mention no bad habits. I thought it was a bit strange, nothing why would the back pain? I was young and strong, I should say that the kidneys would not be deficient. I continued to ask questions and found that the patient had habitual constipation. This condition has lasted for many years, the stool is very hard and dry, and every time I have a bowel movement, I feel uncomfortable. But after each stool, the back pain would be much relieved. After so many tests at the local hospital, I basically didn’t need to write any more prescriptions. I then told the patient that it was likely that your constipation was causing the back pain. I gave her a lot of knowledge about TCM and told her that constipation is also a manifestation of kidney deficiency, for example, there is a term for kidney deficiency constipation in TCM. I gave her a prescription and told her to go back and take the medicine as prescribed. The medicine was very simple, as the patient was very young and in good health, she used some laxatives like rhubarb and other drugs with laxative function and kidney tonics like Cistanches. The day before yesterday, the patient came to me again and said that after I gave her the medicine, her bowels were clear and her back pain had disappeared. In fact, when I was a student, my teacher had already told me that some people have hard stools, and when they accumulate in the intestines for a long time, it causes discomfort and pain in the lower back. Many people treat this as back pain, when in fact it is caused by constipation. Tip: If you have low back pain and also constipation, if you rule out kidney and lumbar spine problems, it is likely that constipation is causing your low back pain.