Chinese medicine for post-operative fracture patients

  Years of clinical practice have made me feel the great advantages of combining Chinese and Western medicine in treating diseases. As an orthopedic department that treats diseases with the combination of Chinese and Western medicine, we have been using Chinese medicine before and after surgery according to the individual conditions of the patients, and using Chinese medicine to escort patients after fracture surgery, achieving satisfactory results and relieving the suffering of the majority of patients. Here is a case we treated recently: 87-year-old Zhan Danyang fell down accidentally while walking not long ago, and immediately felt pain in her left hip and could not stand or walk because of the limitation of movement. After examination and x-ray, it turned out that the fall had caused a “left femoral intertrochanteric fracture”, and the fracture was obviously displaced. In order to enable the old man to get out of bed early and avoid bed sores, infections and other bed-ridden complications, and to avoid deformed healing of the fracture, early surgical treatment was required. We quickly performed “closed reduction PFN internal fixation”, and the operation was successfully completed and the patient returned to the ward safely.  However, the old man was weak and suffered from hypertension, cerebral infarction and other underlying diseases, and his diet was significantly reduced after the fall and fracture and surgery, resulting in hypokalemia and then paralytic intestinal obstruction, abdominal pain and distension like a drum, and inability to pass stools. These further aggravated the problem of reduced diet, thus creating a vicious circle. Although the condition was slightly relieved by potassium supplementation, gastrointestinal decompression, enema treatment and simple internal administration of drugs that pass through and attack the lower part of the body, the symptoms were still heavy.  Seeing this situation, the head of the department, Prof. Lei Zhongmin, organized the general physicians to conduct an in-depth analysis of the patient’s condition in both Chinese and Western medicine, and synthesized the patient’s physical condition, medical history, symptoms, signs and tongue and pulse, and concluded that the patient’s condition belongs to the category of “Guange” and “intestinal knot” in Chinese medicine. “At the same time, due to the patient’s weak constitution, deficiency of Qi and Blood and weakness of gastrointestinal peristalsis, the patient should be treated with Qi and Blood, and given Peach Nut Cheng Qi Tang with Angelica Sinensis Blood Tonic Tang, plus reduction. After taking two doses, the patient’s symptoms were significantly relieved, and after five doses, the abdominal pain, abdominal distension and stool obstruction disappeared, and the diet also basically returned to normal.