After I recovered from COVID in 2021, the coughing never stopped.

I went to two different hospitals. Both doctors said the same thing — chronic pharyngitis. They prescribed antibiotics and cough medicine. I took them for months. Nothing changed.

Then I visited a friend who runs a TCM clinic. He also said chronic pharyngitis and gave me Chinese patent medicine (Yan Yan Pian). I took those for a month. Still nothing.

One and a half years. Day and night, I coughed. Eventually, it got so bad that swallowing started to hurt.

Then in 2023, I stumbled on a video by Master Ni Haixia, a renowned TCM teacher. One line stopped me cold:

"Most of the time, the disease you think you have is not the disease at all."

I started studying his TCM lessons obsessively. My symptoms were strange — I felt like something was stuck in my throat, like an invisible hand was gripping it. I couldn't cough it up, couldn't swallow it down.

After studying TCM diagnosis, I realized: I never had pharyngitis at all.

It was water qi (水气) — fluid stagnation trapped in my throat, creating the sensation of a foreign body. No wonder antibiotics and Chinese patent medicines didn't work. They were treating the wrong problem.

My First Prescription — Written by Myself

Now that I understood the root cause, I made a bold decision. I would write my own prescription.

I chose Ban Xia Hou Po Tang (半夏厚朴汤) — a classic formula from the Shang Han Lun specifically for the pattern called "a piece of roasted meat stuck in the throat." I added Fu Ling (Poria) and Bai Zhu (Atractylodes) to help the body drain excess fluid.

The next day, I took my prescription to the pharmacy. The pharmacist looked at it, then at me. "Who wrote this?"

"I did," I said.

He didn't say another word. Just filled the order.

The preparation was simple: rinse the herbs, soak them in 1500ml of water (about 9 bowls) for 60 minutes, then bring everything to a boil in a clay pot. After boiling, simmer for 30 minutes. Strain out about 500-600ml of liquid (roughly 3 bowls).

I let it cool to warm, held the bowl in my hands, and drank the first dose of medicine I had ever prescribed for myself.

15 Minutes

Less than 15 minutes later —

I stopped coughing.

The choking sensation in my throat was gone. The invisible hand had let go. One and a half years of suffering, dissolved by a single bowl of soup — and there were still two bowls left.

That was the moment I truly understood: TCM isn't about "killing inflammation." It's about identifying the root pattern and using the natural properties of herbs to guide the body back to balance. The name of the disease doesn't matter. What matters is finding the right pattern.

Afterword

I'm not a medical hero. I'm just an ordinary person who was suffering for too long and decided to understand what was really wrong with his body.

TCM didn't give me a prescription. It gave me a key — a key to understanding my own body.

From that day, I knew my direction: to use the knowledge of TCM to help others understand respiratory health who have been misdiagnosed, who are suffering, and who feel like they've run out of options.

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Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor. This is my personal experience with self-studied TCM. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider for your own health concerns.