The biggest challenge in the treatment of hypertension is that there is no western medicine that can cure hypertension, and it requires almost lifelong use of antihypertensive drugs. The current treatment for hypertension is a mixture of Western and Chinese medicines. Some people do not pay attention to herbal medicine for hypertension, while some patients are afraid to take western medicine for fear of its side effects. However, in the case of severe hypertension, the blood pressure does not drop as well as it should, and it is very distressing. So what are the advantages of Chinese and Western medicines? And what are the shortcomings of each? How to combine the application of Chinese and Western medicines to improve the efficacy of the treatment of hypertension? Here I will talk about these issues.
First, the advantages of Western medicine is the rapid effect of antihypertensive, antihypertensive effectiveness, reliable efficacy. The advantages of western drugs are that they have a fast and reliable effect on blood pressure.
But there are many side effects are also large, some drugs, the patient after taking the drug response is very large and difficult to adhere to take, there is a long-term drug found after a lot of damage to the human body, many patients with severe hypertension are accompanied by diabetes, hyperlipidemia, high uric acid, kidney function damage, etc. Therefore, some categories of drugs such as beta – blockers Metoprolol, diuretics Hydrochlorothiazide, and other antihypertensive drugs should not be used in large quantities for a long time. All western antihypertensive drugs are basically not discontinued after taking the medication. Clinical evidence shows that simply taking a kind of antihypertensive drugs, over time, the control of blood pressure to achieve the rate of reduction. The combination of a variety of western drugs in small doses can be very good control of blood pressure. The combination of Chinese medicine is a more ideal treatment plan for various chronic diseases in internal medicine after clinical evidence.
Hypertension is a disorder of the human cerebral cortex, resulting in a disorder of the coordination of neurological, endocrine, metabolic and cardiovascular systems, which ultimately leads to an increase in cardiac output and an increase in body fluids. The peripheral resistance increases due to vasospasm. This is a very complex disease that causes an increase in blood pressure. The reason why the current drugs can not cure hypertension is that the role of these drugs are in the pathogenesis of hypertension multi-system, multi-level end of the local link to play some diuretic, vasodilator, reduce the excitability of sympathetic nerves. Therefore, in order to cure hypertension, we must take comprehensive measures to restore the balance of the body’s own functions. It is found that some patients taking western medicine, despite taking long-acting antihypertensive drugs, but blood pressure is still unstable, which is the result of the disorder of the body’s mechanism for regulating blood pressure balance. Some patients who take western medicine alone have painful symptoms such as dizziness and headache that do not disappear after the blood pressure drops.
Clinical practice shows that not all cases of hypertension require immediate lowering of blood pressure. If the blood pressure is lowered to normal, the patient will experience a lot of new discomfort. Some clinical patients with severe hypertension simply use antihypertensive drugs, but the incidence of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease increases after the blood pressure drops rapidly to normal. The incidence of cardiovascular disease increases when blood pressure is too low, which is called the “J” curve in medicine. The root cause of this is that there is insufficient blood supply to some important organs in the body. In this case, the increase in blood pressure is a protective response to internal ischemia, and lowering the blood pressure can cause discomfort and provoke the body’s pressure-raising mechanism to become active, making it difficult to lower the blood pressure.
The best way to treat hypertension is to keep the blood circulation in the body smooth; to bring the balance between the blood pressure-raising and blood pressure-lowering mechanisms in the body back to balance, rather than to force the blood pressure back to normal.
The Chinese Hypertension Alliance’s (2008 version) “Self-Management Standards Manual” for patients with hypertension in China suggests that for newly discovered hypertension, the first step is to check the cause. After the test, for patients with hypertension below the second level, even if the blood pressure is 179/109mmHg, it is not recommended to use western medicine to lower the blood pressure immediately, but to observe for three months to see if the blood pressure can return to normal, and then consider using western medicine to lower the blood pressure. At this time, the patient often feels uncomfortable such as dizziness and headache, so it is most appropriate to apply Chinese medicine at this time. The rebound of blood pressure will not happen after the discontinuation of Chinese medicine, and the withdrawal cannot happen.
The strength of Chinese medicine is that it is good at regulating the physiological functions of the human body and promoting the restoration of balance in the regulation function of the rise and fall of human blood pressure.
1, Chinese medicine is our ancestors through the human body function of physiological pathological changes in the external performance of long-term observation, through medical practice concluded. Chinese medicine’s yin and yang, the five elements theory that: the human body’s internal organs function should be mutual constraints, mutual promotion, each other should be coordinated and balanced, the human body’s function can be normal operation, the human body lost coordination of various parts, the balance is broken, manifested as part of the exuberance, part of the deficiency, which is the generation of disease. Therefore, the strength of traditional Chinese medicine is that it has a variety of efficacious drugs with coordinated application, which is good at regulating and balancing the overall functions of the human body, thus improving the pathological state of human body functions and eliminating the discomfort of human body symptoms. These advantages have been proved by clinical efficacy. For example, the Western medicine of gastric power, morpholine, this drug is introduced to China by foreign countries in the 1990s, its effect is to promote gastric peristalsis, the treatment of gastric distension. Western doctors regard it as the most precious, the price of drugs sold in our country is very expensive. Unbeknownst to us, there are dozens of herbal medicines with this function in our country, and herbal medicines also have the ability to improve stomach motility according to different conditions, and the selection of medicines also different differences and more refined classification. We have observed through clinical research on hypertension for nearly two decades that long-term use of Chinese herbal medicine in conjunction with western medicine for hypertension can lead to a gradual reduction in the amount of western medicine. Some of them can even achieve the effect of stopping the medication. The advantage of Chinese medicine is that it can not only eliminate the patient’s painful symptoms, but also improve the regulation function of human blood pressure, so that the dysfunction of the body’s pressure-raising and pressure-lowering mechanisms can be restored to balance and make the blood pressure stable. Because hypertension is greatly affected by lifestyle habits, and because it takes years or decades for Chinese medicine to restore the balance of the human blood pressure regulating mechanism, and because these cured patients are mainly concentrated in the early and middle stages of hypertension, and most of the hypertensive patients treated in our provincial and municipal hospitals are middle and late stage hypertensive patients. Therefore, many hospitals, due to the short period of time that patients apply Chinese medicine to treat hypertension and adhere to the medication, and the small number of people who apply Chinese medicine for long-term treatment of hypertension, do not observe this efficacy and therefore do not understand where the advantages of Chinese medicine in lowering blood pressure lie, and arbitrarily conclude that Chinese medicine is not effective in lowering blood pressure. The research of the Chinese herbal formula that can effectively promote the blood pressure of patients with first-degree hypertension and patients with first-degree critical hypertension to return to normal, so that hundreds of millions of patients in the initial stage of hypertension can turn to normal and be exempted from the pain of lifelong medication, will be a major contribution of Chinese medicine to the world field of hypertension prevention and treatment! This will see hope in the near future.
2. On the other hand, Chinese medicine is also very effective in protecting blood vessels, reducing blood viscosity, improving blood circulation, and in preventing cardiovascular diseases. It is able to eliminate the factors that cause hypertension disease in the body from the root. As it can improve the blood circulation of the heart, brain and kidneys, for arteriosclerosis due to long-term hypertension, especially ischemia of the important organs of the heart, brain and kidneys, leading to further stimulation of the body’s pressure-raising mechanism, which causes stubbornly difficult to lower blood pressure. After treatment with Chinese medicine, the circulation of the heart, brain and kidney is improved, but the blood pressure of patients with stubborn and difficult hypertension gradually decreases, while preventing the rise of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular events in the process of lowering blood pressure, and preventing the occurrence of “J” curve events in the process of lowering blood pressure.
3. Patients with hypertension often have dizziness, headache, palpitations and other uncomfortable symptoms, and Chinese medicine can eliminate these uncomfortable symptoms in the process of lowering blood pressure, which is an advantage over western medicine. In particular, some elderly people over 70 years old, with blood pressure around 150/60mmHg, are not suitable for lowering blood pressure with western medicine, and using Chinese medicine can improve the uncomfortable feeling of dizziness and headache without causing the blood pressure to drop too much.
Therefore, we would like to remind patients with hypertension that since hypertension is a multi-system and multi-linked dysfunctional balance of the human body, it is impossible to fantasize about curing hypertension fundamentally by inventing a drug. It is necessary to take comprehensive measures and apply them in combination in order to restore the disturbance of the balance of functions of the human body in multiple links and systems. The propaganda that the invention of a new Chinese medicine can cure hypertension is an excessive exaggeration.
How can Chinese and Western medicine be used in conjunction with treatment? Chinese and Western medicines should be chosen according to different blood pressure levels and physical conditions. The characteristic of Chinese medicine is that it is effective in improving the many uncomfortable symptoms of hypertensive patients. It is also effective in restoring the body’s own blood pressure regulation mechanism in the long run, and the dosage of western medicine can be reduced after using Chinese medicine. However, the shortcoming is that the content of antihypertensive active ingredients in Chinese medicine nowadays is small, and the antihypertensive power is weak. If you use Chinese herbal medicine to lower your blood pressure, no matter how high your blood pressure is, it will often lead to a failure of treatment because of the difficulty in lowering your blood pressure, so you must choose the application of Chinese herbal medicine.
1. If you are a young patient who has just discovered hypertension and your blood pressure is below 160/100mmHg, you may want to take herbal medicine first. It takes about one month to three months of treatment, and it is possible for your blood pressure to return to normal without you having to take Western medicine for life. The greatest advantage of Chinese herbal medicine for hypertension is that it treats hypertension early. This is the best period when the disordered regulatory mechanism of hypertension can be restored and hypertension can be cured. The purpose of using herbal medicine in this period is to avoid taking western medicine for life in the future. However, it is necessary to cooperate with life regulation to eliminate the factors that cause high blood pressure in life, such as eating less salt, quitting smoking and drinking, insisting on physical exercise, and maintaining a balanced state of mind. This is to ensure that blood pressure will not rebound after treatment with Chinese medicine, but if you do not pay attention to your life, your blood pressure will rise again after a period of time. For such hypertension patients who cannot adhere to life regulation still need to adhere to western medicine for good.
2, If your blood pressure is above 160/100mmHg for a long time, and you have been treated with western medicine to lower your blood pressure, then it is recommended that you still take the original western medicine, plus Chinese medicine, after which you will find that your blood pressure can gradually decrease. After about three months, your blood pressure will show a significant drop, and when it drops below 110/70mmHg you can gradually reduce the dosage of western medicine. If you want to significantly reduce the amount of Western medicine to lower your blood pressure you need to take Chinese medicine for a longer period of time, which may take six months to a year. The approach we use clinically is generally to wait until the patient’s blood pressure is significantly lowered and the amount of western medicine is reduced. If the patient has difficulty taking tonics, he or she should switch to Chinese medicine treatment or continue to take the tonics in pills.
3, long-term hypertension of patients with severe hypertension, serving a variety of Western medicine combined application effect is not satisfactory, the examination and no secondary hypertensive factors of intractable intractable hypertensive disease patients,. This kind of patients are accompanied by neurological disorders, as well as metabolic disorders, and often have severe arteriosclerosis, and there is insufficient blood supply to the heart, brain and kidneys, Chinese herbal medicines to tonify the kidneys and submerge the yang not only have a hypotensive effect and can change the neurological disorders, regulate the metabolic function of the human body; while the blood circulation, phlegm and ligament Chinese medicines have improved blood circulation, especially to improve the blood circulation of the heart, brain and kidneys, which is conducive to the fall of blood pressure. It can prevent the occurrence of ischemia caused by the heart and brain in the process of lowering blood pressure, so it is also very suitable for taking Chinese medicine treatment. It is also suitable for Chinese medicine treatment. It has a definite effect on persistent hypertension. It can make the blood pressure fall and prevent the further development of hypertension. After long-term treatment with Chinese medicine, the amount of western medicine can be reduced and the blood pressure can be stabilized in the normal range. After the amount of western medicine is reduced, the side effects of long-term application will be less.
4, if you are a long-term hypertension patient, blood pressure is high and low, unstable; or blood pressure is normal but often insomnia, headaches, dizziness and other symptoms do not improve, discomfort symptoms and complex, this situation with the effect of taking Chinese medicine, Chinese medicine can balance the body’s yin and Yang, adjust the body’s internal organs qi and blood pressure regulation mechanism and play a role in stabilizing blood pressure. This is the strength of Chinese medicine in improving the discomfort caused by high blood pressure.
5, the elderly due to age, and physical weakness, the stability of their own blood pressure regulation mechanism is weakened, atherosclerosis, clinical performance for the pulse pressure (the difference between high and low pressure up and down), and blood pressure instability, and fluctuations, Chinese medicine can enhance the human body, strengthen the body’s function of self-stabilizing function, and antihypertensive effect and slow, very suitable for taking Chinese medicine treatment, can avoid a large number of antihypertensive Western medicine, It can avoid the discomfort of dizziness and weakness of limbs caused by the rapid drop of blood pressure. It can be applied to the kidneys to strengthen the spleen, pacify the liver and submerge the Yang, activate the blood circulation and lower blood pressure.
6, into the menopause of female hypertensive patients, or menopausal women find that blood pressure is elevated, often because of endocrine changes resulting in plant nervous disorders, and some patients often have hot flashes, excessive sweating, irritability, impatience, insomnia, limb fear of cold many uncomfortable symptoms are most suitable for taking Chinese medicine treatment, clinical application of the two immortal soup plus the liver and kidney tonic tianma hooked vine, dulcimer, etc. can not only be good to eliminate The patient’s discomfort is very effective and the effect of lowering blood pressure is also very good. If the liver fire alone is strong, you can use tian mao hook and vine drink plus blood circulation medicine. The patient can use Danjian Yiyao Pill with added flavor to apply. The actual fact is that you can find a lot of people who are not able to get a good deal of money from the internet.
7, for those patients who work every day is quite nervous, stressful, or emotional instability, as well as social frequent can’t stop drinking and so on difficult to change their own life habits that lead to the rise of blood pressure and then cooperate with the treatment, pure application of Chinese medicine treatment, the beginning effect is very good, blood pressure drop is also obvious, but after a long time, it will appear that the patient’s blood pressure drop is not satisfactory enough. However, the patient feels that after applying herbal medicine, the previous irritability, irritability, dizziness and headache, and other uncomfortable symptoms have been eliminated, and the typical low pressure and small pulse pressure of these patients have been improved. In addition, the fluctuating blood pressure and unstable blood pressure can also be well improved. These patients are willing to insist on taking Chinese medicine, so it is recommended that these patients, if their blood pressure is still not controlled to normal after long-term use of Chinese medicine, can be combined with a small amount of Western medicine to keep their blood pressure normal, and after a long period of time with Chinese medicine, the amount of Western antihypertensive drugs can be gradually reduced.
Fourth, but it should be noted that because Chinese medicine is a natural plant with low content of active ingredients, its advantage lies in its superior long-term efficacy.
Therefore, if you want to achieve obvious results as soon as possible, it is recommended that you first take Chinese herbal soup, and then take Chinese herbal pills to maintain the treatment after the painful symptoms disappear and the blood pressure drops to normal, and after satisfactory results are achieved, and the dosage of western antihypertensive drugs can be reduced, so as to meet the purpose of the patient’s treatment. If you use Chinese herbal medicine at the beginning, the effect is often slow and the blood pressure does not fall satisfactorily, which leads the patient to think that the treatment is not effective and terminate the treatment, so the treatment fails.
Some people who recognize the effect of herbal treatment and are willing to insist on taking tonics have blood pressure under 160/100mmHg. The hypertensive patients I treated insisted on taking one herbal soup every day and insisted on it for more than a year. The hypertensive patients who used it for more than a year almost stopped taking western medicine, and those who did not stopped only used a small amount of a little bit of antihypertensive medicine, and no side effects were found in the indicators of physical examination. And for those patients who work or socialize, can not stop drinking, busy, nervous patients, only seeking normal blood pressure and difficult to change the causes of elevated blood pressure and other unhealthy habits, patients who do not pay much attention to traditional Chinese medicine, is to overemphasize the effect of traditional Chinese medicine, such patients are difficult to adhere to the treatment with traditional Chinese medicine, fantasy with traditional Chinese medicine soup to achieve good results often fail, patients in this situation choose Chinese medicine long-term It is difficult to show the advantages of Chinese medicine by taking them for a long time. Therefore, if you want to achieve good and unusual antihypertensive effect, you should select Chinese medicine for the treatment of hypertension: firstly, you should select patients with prominent symptoms, whose symptoms will be improved soon after using Chinese medicine and show the advantages of Chinese medicine; secondly, you should select patients who actively cooperate with the treatment and can make up their mind to change their habits; thirdly, it is more expensive to apply Chinese medicine for a long period of time, therefore, if you want to achieve unusual effect, you should pay attention to the patients who choose Chinese medicine for the treatment of hypertension. Therefore, if we want to achieve extraordinary results, we must pay attention to whether the patient’s financial condition can afford it.
If a patient with first-degree hypertension is just discovered, after taking Chinese herbal medicine for a short period of time, about three weeks to three months, the blood pressure of most patients can be reduced to normal, and the medicine can be stopped after a period of consolidation. If a patient with hypertension has been ill for a long time and his blood pressure has dropped to a certain extent with Chinese medicine, and if he continues to take the medicine, the drop is no longer obvious, then he can switch to Chinese medicine pills and insist on taking them to consolidate the effect. At present, there are many proprietary Chinese medicines with antihypertensive effects sold in pharmacies. Some of them are mainly effective in clearing liver and fire, while others are effective in activating blood circulation and removing blood stasis. Some are mainly for tonifying the kidneys, calming the liver and calming the mind. They are suitable for different kinds of people’s constitution. The specific application requires a doctor to check your pulse and identify your type of constitution before you can use it.
The reason for the recurrence of blood pressure in patients with normal initial blood pressure is not that antihypertensive drugs are ineffective. Rather, after the hypertension has healed, the factors that triggered the increase in blood pressure lead to a disruption in the blood pressure regulation mechanism of the body. Therefore, it is important to eliminate the unhealthy habits that lead to hypertension and eliminate the factors that cause blood pressure to rise in order to fundamentally ensure that blood pressure does not rise again, and you cannot imagine that there is a once-and-for-all panacea. If blood pressure rises repeatedly, if the patient is not able to cooperate with the regulation from life, and the patient cannot insist on taking tonics, Chinese medicine can be made into pills and taken for a long time, or taken with western medicine, and the benefits of Chinese medicine can be obtained by insisting on a long period of time.
The disorder of the regulation mechanism of blood pressure rise and fall in the human body leads to hypertension, which is also a long-term process, and is a disorder of human physiological function caused by the stimulation of long-term life’s adverse factors. If the patient’s physiological function is to be restored to normal blood pressure, there must also be a long-term transformation process. Therefore, the advantage of treatment with Chinese medicine lies in the long-term regulation, and I cannot imagine that I can be completely cured with a few months of treatment because I have been suffering from hypertension for a long time. Therefore, herbal treatment should also be applied for a long time.
In general, Chinese medicine treatment for hypertension is mainly based on the four organs of the heart, liver, spleen and kidney. The main purpose is to harmonize the qi of the internal organs and unblock the stagnation of blood vessels. This treatment not only treats the discomfort caused by hypertension, but also improves other painful symptoms of the patient. In addition, through the change of bad habits, the combination of traditional Chinese medicine and western medicine can greatly improve the efficacy of hypertension and achieve more satisfactory results.
Finally, it should be pointed out that hypertension is a Western medical name for the disease, and since it was not known in ancient Chinese medicine in the past, Chinese doctors have not had enough experience in treating this disease, resulting in many doctors having poor results in treating hypertension with Chinese medicine. Many unsatisfactory antihypertensive effects have been the current treatment difficulties in the TCM community, and the effects we have described above are also the result of decades of clinical research that have led to breakthroughs in recent years. Therefore, to treat with Chinese medicine, you need to find a cardiology TCM specialist who has more experience in hypertension.