TCM doctors usually make diagnosis by means of “look, smell, ask and pulse”, patient’s drinking of milk or soybean milk before seeing a doctor may cause errors in “look” diagnosis, for these food will make tongue fur more sticky; grape, waxberry and ebony will turn tongue fur into black. Coffee, vitellus, mandarin orange and yellow tablet will turn tongue fur into yellow, thus leading to a wrong diagnosis. Tongue is a “mirror” reflecting the status of internal organs. Many TCM doctors also diagnose illness by odor from patient’s body, if the patient uses perfume or bath-use perfume, the “smell” diagnosis will be affected, so you’d better not take bath before seeing a doctor. “Ask” diagnosis can help doctor to acquire firsthand information, so you must answer doctor’s questions in detail, however, some patients can not remember their symptoms or fail to tell them to doctor, which pose difficulty to diagnosis. Drinking wine will speed up qi and blood circulation and pulse and will affect diagnosis to illness. In addition, since blood flow after meal will slow down, patient should not see a doctor after meal, nor after intense exercise, such as fast walk or climbing stairs etc., because these exercise will also affect pulse-feeling. Some doctors will check temperature in the palm of the hand during pulse-feeling, so patient should ensure that the temperature of their hands is not too low or too high.
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