Do you understand the pros and cons of bloodletting therapy?

Bloodletting therapy is commonly used in clinical practice. It has many benefits, such as antipyretic, analgesic, detoxifying, heat-purging, and swelling-reducing effects. However, everything has two sides, and bloodletting therapy also has certain disadvantages. The first is that it is unhygienic. If it is not disinfected in time, infection is likely to occur.

1. Benefits of Bloodletting Therapy

1. Antipyretic effect

Traditional Chinese medicine believes that there are two main types of fever: one is Yang excess fever, and the other is Yin deficiency fever. The antipyretic effect of bloodletting applies to the former. Because abundant Yang Qi will inevitably lead to abundant blood, bloodletting can reduce the abundance of blood, thereby reducing the evil heat in the blood vessels and allowing the body's Qi and blood to return to normal.

2. Analgesic effect

“If the meridians are unobstructed, there will be no pain” and “if there is pain, there will be blockages” means that if there is a disease with internal pain symptoms, there must be blockages in the meridians. Bloodletting therapy can directly bring out the pathogenic factors that are stagnant in the meridians and adjust the blocked situation. Once the meridians are unblocked, the pain can be stopped immediately. In clinical practice, many acute diseases, such as sore throat and migraine, can be treated with bloodletting therapy, which can quickly produce good results.

3. Detoxification

The detoxification effect mentioned in traditional Chinese medicine refers to the symptoms that appear when the body is unable to resist the toxic evil due to its own dysfunction under pathological conditions, such as "red silk carbuncle" caused by excessive toxic fire, and sores, carbuncles and ulcers caused by the infiltration of toxic evil. Bloodletting can not only expel the toxins that have invaded the body with the blood, but more importantly, it can restore the body's functions to normal through the effect of "regulating blood and regulating qi", thereby inhibiting the spread and regeneration of pathogens.

4. Fire-purging effect

Traditional Chinese medicine believes that internal disturbance of fire and heat can lead to a variety of diseases and symptoms, which are often manifested as restlessness, mouth ulcers, limb pain and swelling, irritability, and even fever, coma, delirium and other symptoms. Bloodletting therapy can directly discharge the heat and fire evil with the blood, and is suitable for a variety of heat syndromes.

5. Anti-swelling effect

Swelling and pain are mostly caused by stagnation of Qi and blood, which causes stagnation of meridians. Bloodletting can directly eliminate the stagnant qi and blood and pathogens in the local meridians, promote the smooth flow of meridians, and thus achieve the purpose of reducing swelling.

2. Disadvantages of Bloodletting Therapy

The effect of pricking and bloodletting therapy is to clear out blood stasis in the body and achieve the effect of unblocking meridians and removing blood stasis. However, it also has certain side effects that need attention. The first one is the hygiene issue. If you do not pay attention to disinfection, it can easily cause infection. Another issue is the control of bloodletting volume, which can easily lead to excessive blood loss. Another thing is that needles are reused without being disinfected by professional disinfection equipment, which can easily lead to cross infection. Therefore, if you want to use this method for treatment, you must go to a regular Chinese medicine hospital.