What are the contraindications of taking Chinese medicine?

Traditional Chinese medicine has a very long history of development in our country. Although Western medicine has become popular in our country, traditional Chinese medicine still occupies a certain position in our country. Now many people choose traditional Chinese medicine treatment, and traditional Chinese medicine treatment generally involves taking Chinese medicine, so we need to know some contraindications of taking Chinese medicine.

The contraindications of taking Chinese medicine can be roughly divided into three situations: ① Contraindications of Chinese medicine compatibility; ② Contraindications of medication for pregnant women; ③ Dietary contraindications during medication.

The incompatibility taboos of Chinese medicine are that certain drugs can produce opposite or hostile relationships after formulation, which may reduce the efficacy of each other or induce toxic side effects, so they are contraindicated for use together. According to the ancient Chinese medical books, common Chinese herbal medicines with incompatible combinations include: Aconitum with Pinellia, Trichosanthes, Fritillaria, Bletilla striata, Bletilla striata, Licorice with Sargassum, Gelsemium elegans, Daphne zedoaria, Euphorbia, Veratrum with ginseng, Salvia miltiorrhiza, Scrophularia ningpoensis, Adenophora stellaria, Sophora flavescens, Asarum, Paeonia lactiflora, as well as sulfur with potassium nitrate, mercury and arsenic, wolfsbane and realgar, croton and morning glory, clove and Curcuma, Aconitum with rhinoceros, ginseng with Notopterygium wilfordii, saltpeter with Trillium, cinnamon with red ochre, etc.

The main contraindications for medication for pregnant women are to avoid fetal movement and abortion. Because pregnant women often have poor tolerance to extremely cold or hot drugs, strong purgatives, blood-breaking and blood-stasis-removing drugs, and highly toxic drugs, the relevant drugs must be avoided. Common Chinese herbal medicines that are contraindicated for pregnant women include: croton, morning glory, euphorbia, musk, trillium, leech, curcuma, blister beetle, horsefly, gelsemium elegans, genkwa, and pokeweed; Chinese herbal medicines that pregnant women must use with caution include peach kernel, safflower, rhubarb, dried ginger, cinnamon, immature bitter orange, and aconite.

Dietary taboos during the period of taking traditional Chinese medicine, also commonly known as dietary taboos, are mainly designed to avoid interference factors when taking medicine and to improve the efficacy of the medicine. It can be divided into two categories: dietary taboos corresponding to a certain medicine and dietary taboos when taking medicine under different disease conditions: the former is like Polygonum multiflorum and Rehmannia glutinosa, which should be avoided in eating onions, garlic, radish, mint, and turtle meat; Changshanshan should be avoided in eating onions, Poria should be avoided in eating vinegar, ginseng should be avoided in eating radish, turtle shell should be avoided in eating amaranth, licorice should be avoided in eating silver carp, and Quisqualis mandshurica should be avoided in eating tea, etc.; the latter is that for chronic diseases, one should avoid eating raw and cold food when taking medicine; during the treatment of febrile diseases, one should avoid spicy and delicate food; for carbuncles, sores, and skin diseases, one should avoid eating fish, shrimp, goose meat, and spicy and stimulating food.

The above introduces some taboos about taking Chinese medicine. We can see that there are dietary taboos when taking Chinese medicine, because people are afraid that certain foods will affect the efficacy of Chinese medicine.