Zang-Fu Pattern Differentiation Flashcards

The most important clinical feature that differentiates Liver Fire from Liver Qi Stagnation is:

Answer: Liver Fire has pronounced heat signs: red face, bitter taste, intense thirst, red tongue with yellow coat

Liver Fire is essentially Liver Qi Stagnation that has transformed to heat, adding red face, bitter taste, thirst, yellow tongue coat, and a wiry rapid pulse.

A patient presents with throbbing temporal headaches, dizziness, tinnitus like rushing water, irritability, red face, and a wiry forceful pulse. The most likely pattern is:

Answer: Liver Yang Rising

Liver Yang Rising presents with ascending symptoms including throbbing temporal headaches, dizziness, tinnitus, and red face with a wiry forceful pulse.

Heart Fire is distinguished from Heart Yin Deficiency primarily by:

Answer: More pronounced heat signs: mouth ulcers, burning urination, dark urine, and red tongue tip with yellow coat

Heart Fire features excess heat signs including mouth ulcers, burning urination, and dark urine in addition to palpitations and insomnia, whereas Heart Yin Deficiency is a deficiency heat pattern.

Phlegm Misting the Heart (Phlegm-Cold obstructing the Heart) is most accurately characterized by:

Answer: Mental confusion, incoherent speech, depression, or unconsciousness with a slippery pulse and greasy tongue coat

Phlegm Misting the Heart impairs the Heart's housing of the Shen, producing mental/emotional disturbance, incoherent speech, or unconsciousness with typical phlegm signs.

Which combination of signs most definitively identifies Heart Blood Stasis?

Answer: Stabbing or pricking precordial pain, purple lips and nails, purple tongue with petechiae, choppy pulse

Heart Blood Stasis is confirmed by stabbing chest pain, cyanotic (purple) discoloration of lips and nails, a purple tongue, and a choppy pulse reflecting obstructed blood flow.

Damp-Heat in the Gallbladder is most distinctively characterized by which symptom cluster?

Answer: Bitter taste, nausea, hypochondrial pain, yellow jaundice, and a yellow greasy tongue coat

Gallbladder Damp-Heat produces hypochondrial pain, jaundice, bitter taste, nausea, and a yellow greasy coat reflecting the combination of damp and heat in the Gallbladder channel and organ.

Bladder Damp-Heat is most correctly identified by which presentation?

Answer: Burning urination, urinary frequency and urgency, dark yellow urine, lower abdominal pain, yellow greasy coat

Bladder Damp-Heat presents with the classic urinary symptoms of burning, frequency, urgency, and dark urine due to heat combined with dampness in the lower jiao.