Yin and Yang: Assessment

A 52-year-old woman: flushes rising from the chest, insomnia from three o'clock, night sweats, red tongue with little coating. Which imbalance?

1. Excess yang
2. Yin deficiency
3. Excess yin

A young man, after a match in the rain: intense fixed low back pain, stiffness, better with local heat, deep forceful pulse. What is it and what do you do?

1. Excess yin from cold and damp: expel and mobilise
2. Kidney yang deficiency: tonify deeply
3. Yin deficiency: nourish and moisten

Two patients with «heat». Sort the findings between the one with real heat and the one with deficiency heat.

• Drinks litres of very cold waterReal heatDeficiency heat
• Sips small amounts oftenReal heatDeficiency heat
• The whole face is flushedReal heatDeficiency heat
• Only the cheekbones are flushedReal heatDeficiency heat
• Heat appears in the afternoon and before dawnReal heatDeficiency heat
• Heat is present all day, evenlyReal heatDeficiency heat

Which of these statements about yang deficiency is correct?

1. It gives a red peeled tongue because fluids are missing
2. It is the same as external cold, only chronic
3. The patient improves with warmth and worsens with exertion

Order the reasoning with a new patient, first step to last.

1. Decide whether the picture leans hot or cold↑↓
2. Decide whether something is in excess or missing↑↓
3. Check whether the loud signs and the deep ones agree↑↓
4. Name the imbalance and any mixed component↑↓
5. Choose between adding and removing, and with what precautions↑↓

A patient with yin deficiency has spent a month on very warming tonics on a relative's advice. What do you expect to find?

1. Improvement, since any tonic strengthens
2. Worse heat: more thirst, worse sleep and a redder, more peeled tongue
3. No change, since yin and yang are independent