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The Different Chinese Medicine Patterns Associated with UTI

You’re probably no stranger to the sudden bolt of pain you feel each time you go to the toilet to pee if you’ve ever had a bladder infection. Since it hurts and it’s damaging to your bladder to hold your urine, you have no choice but to pee which also hurts

In Western medicine what’s going on with you seems to be simply a matter of a bladder infection; in Chinese medicine, however, this is anything but simple. Bladder or urinary tract infections (UTIs), like back pain, colds, or headaches, have a distinct personality. This condition runs a gamut of symptoms like pain traveling to your lower back; spasms in the lower stomach; sharp pain in the urethra; dribbling; and urinary difficulty, frequency, and urgency.

UTI, in Chinese medicine usually manifests as a pattern of depletion or excess. UTI caused by depletion often is caused by too much sex, poor diet, lack of sleep, and aging. These factors can take its toll on your Chinese Spleen and/or Kidney which can result in your body’s inability to metabolize water or to control the function of your bladder really well. This leads to a sore lower back, achy dull pain, dribbling, and/or incontinence.

Excess patterns are caused by too much accumulation of something. Excess-related bladder infections are likely to be a combination of heat and dampness (too much fluid accumulation in the body). Burning pain during urination is the most distinguished symptom of this type of pattern. UTI associated with damp heat can be caused by poor hygiene, eating too much sweets, hot spicy foods, and drinking too much alcohol.

Chinese medicine furthers complicate the diagnosis by classifying UTI into six different types:

1. Taxation: This is one pattern of depletion, and is a result of overdoing things or being totally exhausted. Weak achy knees or low back, fatigue, stress incontinence (leaking after sneezing or jumping), and periodic dribbling of urine are some of the symptoms of a taxation pattern.

2. Cloudy: Can be caused by either depletion or excess pattern. A cloudy pattern results in milky or cloudy looking urine. If this pattern is the result of an excess, the urine will look very cloudy combined with urethral burning and pain. If caused by depletion, the symptoms may include achy or weak knees and lower back, ringing ears, dizziness, mild urethral pain, and dribbling or cloudy looking urine. People who have a depleted, weak, or thin body are usually affected by this type of pattern.

3. Bloody: A bloody pattern may also be caused by either depletion or excess. Regardless of the cause, its most distinct symptom will be blood in your urine. Heat causes you to bleed in an excess pattern and besides hematuria (bloody urine), the other symptoms of a blood pattern are sharp burning pain, urgency, and urinary frequency. If this pattern is caused by depletion, the pain won’t be as sharp or that severe and there wouldn’t be as much blood as that caused by excess or the bleeding would not last for a long period of time. You may feel tired though and suffer from achy weak knees and/or low back.

4. Qi: This pattern may also be either caused by deficiency or excess. Qi the vital energy flowing in your body and if it’s in excess, this means that the flow of your energy is stagnant and generating symptoms such as rib pain, tightness in the chest, pain in the lower stomach, sensation of fullness, and difficult urination. A qi pattern caused by a deficiency or depletion is the result of not having enough energy to help the bladder metabolize water. This will lead to an aching lower back, shortness of breath, feeling tired, a pale complexion, incontinence, dripping, and a heavy sensation in the lower stomach.

5. Stony: This type of pattern really causes severe unbearable pain. This is because we are talking about kidney stones that have developed in your body causing extreme stomach and low back pain. Other symptoms include passing stones in the urine, hematuria, urination difficulties, and cramping.

6. Heat: This pattern is the most common form of UTI having symptoms that include a bitter taste in your mouth, thirst, constipation, fever, and a burning sharp pain.

Chinese medicine has a specific form of treatment for each type of UTI. Usually, however, resolving the dampness and clearing heat will be the initial goal of treatment of an excess pattern. This can be achieved using a combo of food therapy, Chinese herbs, and acupuncture. An herbal formula known as Eight Herb Powder for Rectification or Ba Sheng San is commonly used to treat UTI. This herbal remedy is able to drain out dampness and clear heat and sometimes be used to treat UTI that causes blood in the urine.

In depleted caused UTIs, initial treatment may include the use of Chinese herb supplements to tonify Kidney or Spleen Qi (energy). Selected foods and acupuncture treatment in Orlando can help build up your strength. It takes longer to treat a UTI that’s caused by a depletion than in an excess pattern. The reason for this is that when you’re depleted, the aim of the treatment is to rebuild and nourish your body back into health which takes time.

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