What does five o'clock diarrhea mean

Nowadays, people often suffer from various health problems as they age. People have begun to realize the importance of traditional Chinese medicine, because after seeing a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner for some diseases, they find that the medication has no side effects. Moreover, some diseases only require adjusting your own physical condition. Traditional Chinese medicine has many methods of treating different diseases. So what does diarrhea at five o'clock in the morning mean?

Five o'clock diarrhea is also known as morning diarrhea, kidney diarrhea, and cockcrow diarrhea. It first appeared in "Dan Xi's Heart Method" "There is diarrhea at five o'clock every day..., follow the diet and abstention, as long as there is nothing to do in the first half of the day, the diarrhea will come back around five o'clock." It is a chronic, recurring diarrhea at dawn. The main symptoms are abdominal pain or no pain starting at 5 a.m. before dawn, diarrhea with intestinal rumbling, relief after diarrhea, unformed stool, and no mucus, pus or blood.

Etiology and pathogenesis

1. Kidney yang deficiency is more common in middle-aged and elderly patients. They are born with insufficient endowment, or they are malnourished after birth, and long-term illness damages kidney yang, or they have excessive sexual intercourse, which eventually leads to kidney yang deficiency and insufficient fire in the gate of life, which cannot warm the spleen yang to better digest and transport water and grain. Dawn is the time when yang begins to emerge and yin begins to retreat. If kidney yang is deficient, yang will find it difficult to control yin, and yin will decline, so yin and cold will move inside the body and spread between the intestines, causing abdominal pain. The cold water trapped between the intestines will flow down with the water and grain, which is diarrhea.

2. Spleen deficiency and excessive dampness. "Huangdi Neijing" says: "The spleen likes dryness and hates dampness". If the spleen is deficient in dampness, the clear yang will be suppressed, making the spleen powerless to transport and transform, resulting in stagnation of water, grain and dampness, so that the spleen yang sinks, and the middle burner is trapped by dampness. Dawn is the time when yin rises with yang, but the spleen yang sinks, and the yin and dampness are blocked, so it causes diarrhea.

3. Liver Qi overpowers the Spleen. Dawn is the time when Shaoyang Wood is strong. If one has spleen deficiency, or worry or diet damages the spleen, leading to spleen deficiency and liver hyperactivity, it is easy for Wood to overpower Earth at dawn, causing the spleen to lose its healthy function and food to fail to be transformed, resulting in diarrhea.

Treat according to syndrome differentiation

1. Kidney Yang Deficiency Syndrome

(1) Symptoms are more common in middle-aged and elderly patients. They have abdominal pain before dawn, which is accompanied by rumbling in the intestines, and relief after diarrhea. They are also accompanied by cold body and limbs, sore waist and knees, a preference for hot drinks, a pale tongue with white coating, and a deep and fine pulse.

(2) Treatment principle: warming the yang and stopping diarrhea.

(3) Modifications to the main formula Si Shen Wan.

2. Spleen deficiency and dampness syndrome

(1) Symptoms are more common in people with puffy bodies or office workers who are less active. They have loose stools before dawn, which are aggravated by eating greasy food. They are also accompanied by decreased appetite, aversion to greasy food, abdominal distension and discomfort, sallow complexion, limb fatigue, pale tongue with white coating, and a thready pulse.

(2) Treatment principles: Strengthen the spleen and eliminate dampness, and stop diarrhea with mild diuresis.

(3) The main formula is Shenling Baizhu San with modifications.

3. Liver Qi invading the spleen syndrome

(1) Symptoms are common in people who are usually depressed and nervous. They are characterized by abdominal pain and rumbling before dawn, loose stools, and abdominal pain with diarrhea, accompanied by chest and flank distension and discomfort, belching, poor appetite, pale red tongue, thin white fur, and a stringy and slow pulse.

(2) The treatment principle is to tonify the spleen and drain the liver, eliminate dampness and stop diarrhea.

(3) Add or subtract the main prescription for diarrhea.