Three Chinese Patent Medicines for Rhinitis
Rhinitis is only a minor ailment, but it lingers and is hard to cure, greatly affecting quality of life and so being a real headache. In recent years, because of COVID-19 and influenza A, many people have developed rhinitis as one of their post-infection sequelae. Recurrent rhinitis has no very good solution; Western nasal-irrigation therapy is miserable, and many patients have asked me whether there are Chinese patent medicines specifically for rhinitis.
This article introduces three Chinese patent medicines for rhinitis available on the market. Patients with rhinitis can choose the one that matches their symptoms.
Qianbai Biyan Pian (Thousand-Mile Rhinitis Tablets)
The formula for Qianbai Biyan Pian is included in the Pharmacopoeia of the PRC and is produced by several patent-medicine manufacturers. Its composition is: Senecio scandens (qianliguang) 2424 g; Selaginella (juanbai) 404 g; Notopterygium (qianghuo) 16 g; Cassia seed (juemingzi) 242 g; Ephedra (mahuang) 81 g; Ligusticum chuanxiong (chuanxiong) 8 g; and Angelica dahurica (baizhi) 8 g.
The seven herbs: Notopterygium, Chuanxiong, and Angelica dahurica are ground into fine powder. The remaining four (Senecio and others) are decocted twice in water; the decoctions are combined and filtered. The filtrate is concentrated to a thick extract, mixed with the powder above, dried, ground into granules, and compressed into 1000 tablets, then sugar-coated. The dose is 3–4 tablets orally, three times daily.
This product clears heat and resolves toxins, activates blood and dispels wind, diffuses the lung and opens the orifices. It treats wind-cold nasal obstruction due to wind-heat invading the lung, internal stagnation transforming into fire, and qi-blood stasis, with symptoms that fluctuate in severity, nasal obstruction and itching, a hot sensation in the nose, dry mouth and thirst, yellow thick nasal discharge, or constant obstruction with a dulled sense of smell. Qianbai Biyan Pian can treat various acute and chronic rhinitis of the lung-heat pattern.
Tongqiao Biyan Pian (Orifice-Opening Rhinitis Tablets)
Tongqiao Biyan Pian is composed of fried Xanthium (cangerzi), Saposhnikovia (fangfeng), Astragalus (huangqi), Angelica dahurica (baizhi), Magnolia flower (xinyi), fried Atractylodes (baizhu), and Mentha (bohe), with excipients including dextrin, talc, and magnesium stearate.
This formula is built on Yuping Feng San (Jade-Screen Powder, composed of Astragalus, Atractylodes, and Saposhnikovia), to which Xanthium, Angelica dahurica, Saposhnikovia, Magnolia flower, and Mentha have been added. Yuping Feng San treats exterior deficiency with spontaneous sweating; built on that base, this product mainly addresses the exterior-deficiency, insecurity pattern. Xanthium, Angelica dahurica, Saposhnikovia, Magnolia flower, and Mentha all disperse wind-heat and open the orifices—these are disease-specific herbs. So the formula combines pattern differentiation with disease differentiation; once you understand its logic, you know how to use it.
The indications of Tongqiao Biyan Pian differ from those of Qianbai Biyan Pian: the latter treats lung-heat patients with yellow discharge, while the former treats wind-cold patients with clear discharge, exterior deficiency, and spontaneous sweating.
Biyankang Pian (Rhinitis-Health Tablets)
Biyankang Pian contains Agastache (guanghuoxiang), Xanthium (cangerzi), Centipeda (ebushicao), Ephedra (mahuang), wild chrysanthemum (yejuhua), Angelica sinensis (danggui), Scutellaria (huangqin), pig-bile powder (zhudanfen), menthol oil (boheyou), and chlorpheniramine maleate, with excipients including magnesium stearate, silicon dioxide, aluminum hydroxide, starch, talc, maltodextrin, polyvinyl alcohol, phospholipids, xanthan gum, and colorants.
Biyankang Pian is actually a combined Chinese-Western patent medicine. It clears heat and resolves toxins, diffuses the lung and opens the orifices, reduces swelling and relieves pain. It treats acute and chronic rhinitis and allergic rhinitis caused by wind pathogen accumulating in the lung.
The chlorpheniramine maleate in the formula is a Western antihistamine. Agastache, Xanthium, Centipeda, and Ephedra are all common TCM herbs for rhinitis; wild chrysanthemum, Scutellaria, menthol oil, and pig-bile powder all clear heat and resolve toxins; Angelica sinensis activates blood and resolves stasis. Angelica is added because TCM holds that prolonged illness necessarily involves stasis, so chronic diseases usually include some blood-activating, stasis-resolving herbs.
The TCM logic of Biyankang Pian is heat-clearing and toxin-resolving plus blood activation and stasis resolution, together with symptomatic treatment. From this logic, its main indications are allergic acute and chronic rhinitis and sinusitis.
Although all three products treat rhinitis, their emphases and indications differ; patients should choose according to their own symptoms.