No Purgation for Chronic Spleen-Stomach Disease: Laxatives Should Be Used Cautiously by Stomach Patients
In treating chronic spleen-stomach disease, the purgation method should be used with great caution. From the TCM perspective, patients with chronic gastric illness belong to spleen-stomach deficiency; from the Western-medicine perspective they are functional disorders. Neither is an excess pattern suited to purgation. If the purgation method is abused - using laxative herbs such as aloe, rhubarb and mirabilite that induce bowel movements - the patient's condition will only grow worse, and may even lead to severe damage of the liver and kidneys, ending in a lingering, stubborn illness lived out in great suffering. Nor should patients with chronic gastric illness take laxative health products that moisten the intestines and promote bowel movements.
The treatment of chronic gastric illness centres on restoring the normal function of the gastrointestinal system. One should heavily use spleen-fortifying herbs such as ginseng, astragalus, atractylodes, poria, Chinese yam and white hyacinth bean, and lightly and appropriately use some qi-regulating herbs to promote recovery of the patient's spleen-stomach function. One should not lightly speak of attack and purgation; for patients with chronic disease, attack and purgation make the illness of most patients progressively worse.
Digestive-tract tumours that have developed from chronic spleen-stomach disease must also be treated cautiously. One must not abuse purgatives and other attacking herbs; rather, treatment should centre on fortifying the spleen, assisted by digestion-promoting herbs, while also attending to anti-cancer action. The goal is to let the patient live with better quality of life. Once the right moment is found, it is permissible to deliver, in stages, some stronger attacking treatment.
When a digestive-system tumour reaches the late stage, many patients can no longer tolerate attacking treatment at all. The first thing to attend to is the recovery of the patient's strength. Attacking treatment is safest only when carried out on the basis of the patient's having strength; otherwise the patient will not die of the illness but will still end up dying of the medicine.
Chronic gastric illness requires a very long course of treatment. During treatment one must strictly hold to the disease mechanism and keep firmly to one therapeutic approach, telling the patient that medicine must be taken long term and that diet must be restrained. Gastric illness is three parts treatment and seven parts nourishment. Its treatment is best carried out gently with pill medicines and powders. Decoctions are used only to cope with especially severe episodes; the rest of the time, pill medicines should slowly regulate and nurture the condition. One also follows the principle of "withdrawing gradually," gradually reducing the dosage until the patient finally comes off the medicine.
In patients with chronic spleen-stomach disease, one must always look after their sleep. Most such patients sleep poorly - which is why Gui Pi Tang (Spleen-Restraining Decoction) contains the calming herbs Poria and Suan Zao Ren (Sour Jujube Seed). Letting the patient sleep sufficiently promotes recovery of the body's own function. Insomnia worsens the patient's condition.