I met a male patient in his twenties who complained of back pain, hair loss, and sleepiness, and had taken Liu Wei Di Huang Wan and felt good, but after a while it came back. From his conversation, I could see that this patient must be very tormented by his disease, so he often took his own medicine, but the effect was not very satisfactory, so now he is in great pain and needs an experienced doctor to help. But as a doctor with a clinical specialty in Chinese and Western medicine, I really could not give him a clear diagnosis just from the information he gave me. Therefore, I gave him a suggestion to go to the hospital for a checkup first, and then treat his condition according to the target. In fact, back pain, hair loss and sleepiness are a very common clinical syndrome. Many people will encounter this condition in their lives. I often encounter patients who, when describing their condition, place special emphasis on this syndrome. They, like the above-mentioned patient, have been suffering from this condition for a long time and they have always seen it as a result of kidney deficiency, but although they have seen many doctors and taken many medicines, the effect has been unsatisfactory and finally they are at a loss. I don’t know when many of us have become “deficient” in the kidneys. This may be because in Chinese medicine, it has always been considered that “the kidney is the essence of the innate”, and Chinese medicine believes that people are born with a congenital deficiency, and if the kidney deficiency is serious, it will not only affect normal health, but also affect their own life expectancy and heirloom. Chinese people are deeply influenced by this, plus recently there are some false propaganda to make waves, loudly promote the harmful effects of kidney deficiency. How can we not let the ordinary people who do not have much medical knowledge become “kidney deficiency”? In fact, Chinese medicine talks about kidney deficiency, there are two layers of meaning: the first is that the kidney is very important, is the foundation of life, it is healthy or not, can be related to the health of other organs. The second meaning is that the kidneys are prone to deficiency and will slowly become deficient as people get older. It can be said that kidney deficiency is not only a normal physiological phenomenon of people, which is manifested in human growth and aging, but also a pathological phenomenon of people, which is manifested in human illness and death. Therefore, we should first look at kidney deficiency discriminately, not all kidney deficiency is a disease, all need to be treated. In this way, we should understand that the kidney deficiency that Chinese medicine refers to is not the kidney deficiency that causes our normal aging, but the pathological kidney deficiency that can cause us to get sick and die. Many patients do not understand this, once they hear others say they have kidney deficiency, they are scared to death, blindly seek medical advice and take drugs indiscriminately. So, what exactly is the Chinese medicine of kidney deficiency? There are certain criteria for the diagnosis of kidney deficiency. It is not necessarily a kidney deficiency if you have back pain, hair loss or sleepiness. The diagnosis of kidney deficiency in Chinese medicine must be combined with the four diagnoses of looking, smelling, asking and cutting to reach a conclusion. First of all, kidney deficiency refers to the deficiency of essence and yin and yang of the kidney. There are many types of kidney deficiency, the most common of which are kidney yin deficiency, kidney yang deficiency, kidney qi deficiency, and kidney essence deficiency. The symptoms of kidney deficiency: in addition to the performance of lumbar acidity, lumbar pain, weakness, hair loss, etc., different types of evidence, there are their own different performance, such as the symptoms of kidney Yang deficiency manifested as “cold”, lumbar acidity, cold extremities, fear of cold, and even edema, often appear to have low sexual function, tongue and stool is often thin, urine volume, white or less, the tongue is pale, the coating is white, the pulse is often low. The symptoms of kidney yin deficiency are “heat”, mainly lumbar soreness, dryness and heat, night sweats, false sweats, dizziness, tinnitus, little urine, yellow color, red tongue, little yellow moss or even no moss, thin and weak pulse, etc. There are many diseases that can cause kidney deficiency, but more diseases that can cause back pain, hair loss, sleepiness, not all diseases that cause back pain, hair loss, sleepiness are kidney deficiency, in fact, irregular life can also cause back pain, hair loss, sleepiness these symptoms. For example, people who stay up late in front of a sedentary computer can appear this patient, rest for a few days; chronic prostatitis can also cause this symptom; anxiety disorders can also be accompanied by this symptom; serious malignant diseases, it is often this symptom. Therefore, back pain, hair loss and fatigue are not necessarily kidney deficiency. Today I read this patient’s data, but based on the information he provided, to definitively diagnose kidney deficiency, the evidence does seem to be somewhat inadequate, and he is only in his twenties, very young ah, kidney deficiency usually appears only in the elderly, at his age, if there is no special reason, usually will not appear in this case. Therefore, I suggest that he first figure out his condition, such as to the nephrology department to check first, it is best to do a comprehensive examination, to exclude tuberculosis, nephritis, prostatitis and other such diseases. If possible, it is also necessary to check some blood and immune diseases. In our village, there was a patient with advanced liver cancer who showed typical kidney yin deficiency and was treated locally with herbal kidney tonics, which eventually delayed the disease. Therefore if you encounter this kind of patient, I suggest to check first and treat later. If there is really no major problem, then use Chinese herbal medicine to regulate. However, to take Chinese medicine, you should also remember to go to a regular Chinese medicine hospital and find a doctor with high level to prescribe you medicine. Remember not to take medicine on your own anymore.