How long after a meal can I take Chinese medicine?

People often choose different time periods when taking Chinese medicine. Some people think it should be taken before meals, some think it should be taken after meals, and some people take it before going to bed. In fact, the more correct choice is to take it after meals. So how long after a meal can you take Chinese medicine? About half an hour after a meal is a more preferred time period to take Chinese medicine, but it also depends on what kind of Chinese medicine you are taking. Some need to be taken an hour after a meal.

When is the best time to take Chinese medicine?

Choosing the correct time to take Chinese medicine will achieve the best therapeutic effect, especially for Chinese medicine. The time to take Chinese medicine should be determined according to the condition and the nature of the medicine. Most medicines should be taken half an hour to an hour after a meal.

When Chinese medicine practitioners use Chinese medicine in combination, they pay attention to the "four properties and five flavors", and formulate prescriptions based on the cold, hot, warm, and cool properties of the medicine, and the five flavors of pungent, sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. When taking medicine on an empty stomach, cold medicines or medicines with strong flavors may cause certain damage to the gastric mucosa.

Different types of Chinese medicine require different times of taking. For liver, kidney, and intestinal diseases, medication should be taken before meals; for dizziness and throat diseases, medication should be taken after meals; laxatives, tonics, and anthelmintics should be taken on an empty stomach; sedatives should be taken before bedtime.

These are general requirements for the time of taking medication based on different conditions and the characteristics of the drug's effects. When taking medication, the doctor will adjust the medication according to the patient's physical changes. The prescription will not be limited to a certain type of medicine. In addition, long-term medication will inevitably cause damage to the gastric mucosa. Therefore, it is recommended that people who drink Chinese herbal decoctions for a long time take the medicine within 30 to 60 minutes after a meal to reduce the direct stimulation of the drug on the gastric mucosa.

Six taboos of taking Chinese medicine

Spicy type:

When taking Chinese medicine, we must be careful to avoid spicy food when eating. This kind of food is mostly spicy and hot, and has the effect of promoting yang and strengthening the stomach. If consumed too much, it is easy to produce phlegm and fire, disperse qi and consume blood. Therefore, this kind of diet is only suitable for people with cold syndrome diseases, but not for people with yin deficiency and yang hyperactivity, as well as patients with blood syndrome, warm disease, hemorrhoids, fistula, carbuncle, etc. Such foods include onions, garlic, leeks, ginger, wine, peppers, etc. As chili peppers are hot in nature, if people with symptoms of heat such as fever, constipation, short and red urine, dry mouth, dry lips, sore throat, nosebleed, and red tongue eat them, it will inevitably aggravate the symptoms of "getting angry", thereby offsetting the effects of heat-clearing, cooling blood and nourishing yin drugs. Therefore, patients with heat syndrome should not eat chili peppers when seeing a Chinese medicine doctor.

Fishy:

You should also be careful to avoid eating fishy foods, otherwise it may affect your health. Such foods are mostly salty, cold and fishy, ​​and contain foreign proteins, which can easily cause allergic reactions. Eating too much can easily damage the spleen and stomach and induce diseases. Therefore, people with spleen and stomach diseases should not eat too much, especially those with allergies. Such foods include yellow croaker, carp, hairtail, clam meat, shrimp, crab, etc., while carp, sardines, catfish, yellow croaker, crab and yellow mud snail are most likely to cause allergies. Fishy foods are also considered to be allergenic.

Hair products:

Irritating foods generally accelerate the worsening of the disease, so it is best not to eat irritating foods when taking Chinese medicine. These foods are all those that stir up wind, generate phlegm and aid fire. Since the degree to which the disease has a certain effect on food selection varies, the effects of the disease on food also vary. Such foods include mushrooms, champignons, bamboo shoots, mustard greens, pumpkin, rooster meat, pork head, sow meat, etc. For example, patients with hyperactivity of liver yang and internal liver wind should not eat rooster meat and pork head meat; patients with skin diseases such as furuncles, boils, sores and carbuncles should not eat shiitake mushrooms, bamboo shoots, rooster meat, pork head meat and sow meat, otherwise it will accelerate redness, swelling and pus formation; people with gastrointestinal diseases should not eat pumpkin, because pumpkin contains sugar, eating too much will produce more acid, which will irritate the gastrointestinal tract. In view of this, "fa" can be said to, to a large extent, to promote the deterioration of the disease.

Cold food:

When taking Chinese medicine, we must be careful not to eat cold food, otherwise it will affect our health. Such food is mostly cold in nature, and its main function is to clear away heat and quench thirst, so it is suitable for heat syndrome diseases. However, it can easily affect gastrointestinal function, so it should be avoided by people with weak and cold constitution and patients with gastrointestinal diseases. For example, white radish is cold in nature and has the effects of digesting food, resolving phlegm, and regulating qi. If patients with weak constitutions or gastrointestinal diseases eat it, it will add to the cold and make their gastrointestinal function worse. In addition, when taking ginseng and other tonic medicines at the same time, due to their incompatible properties, the effectiveness of the tonic medicines can be reduced or eliminated, so radish and ginseng should not be taken together.

Greasy type:

We also need to be careful not to eat greasy food as it is difficult to digest and can damage the spleen and stomach. This type of food includes animal fats and hard foods that are fried or deep-fried. Greasy food can damage the spleen and stomach, so it should be avoided by those suffering from external diseases, jaundice, and diarrhea. Fried foods are hard, hot and difficult to digest. People with gastrointestinal diseases or those suffering from "internal heat" should avoid eating them.

Sour and astringent:

When taking Chinese medicine, we need to be careful to avoid eating sour and astringent foods, which will irritate the stomach and intestines. Too much acid will irritate the stomach and intestines, so patients with excessive stomach acid and gastrointestinal ulcers should avoid eating it. Those that are astringent mostly contain tannins. For example, tea contains tannins, and the content of strong tea is even higher. When taken together with Chinese herbal medicine, it can combine with certain proteins, alkalis, and heavy metal salts in the herbal medicine to produce precipitation, which will affect the absorption of the active ingredients of the medicine, and also affect the absorption of nutrients such as protein. Therefore, when taking Chinese herbal medicine, it is generally not advisable to take it with strong tea.