What are the causes of adverse reactions to traditional Chinese medicine?

　　Because Chinese medicines are mostly made of animals, plants or minerals and are purely natural substances, the use of Chinese medicines to treat various diseases is becoming more and more popular among many patients and their families. However, since the traditional Chinese medicine used to treat diseases requires certain processing and preparation, and most of them are compounded, when using traditional Chinese medicine to treat diseases, in addition to good curative effects, there are still some adverse reactions. So what causes these adverse reactions?

　　1. The toxicity of the drug itself: Chinese medicines have their own properties, tastes, and meridians. Some Chinese medicines are also toxic. Traditional Chinese medicine has long had the ancient sayings of "eighteen antis" and "nineteen fears", which are still strictly followed today. Certain chemicals, such as Nux Vomica, Aconite Radix, Aconite Aconite, Aconite, Kansui, Euphorbia, Aracenia, Cinnabar, etc., may cause adverse reactions due to poor processing or improper dosage control, or prolonged use or abuse.

　　2. Improper preparation of drugs: Some toxic traditional Chinese medicines must be processed accordingly to reduce their toxicity and maximize their therapeutic effects. If the raw product is used without processing, or the processing degree is not enough, or the processing method is improper, it will inevitably lead to toxicity. If raw rhubarb causes diarrhea, roasted rhubarb must be used to stop bleeding; aconite must be decoctioned for a long time to destroy its alkaloids and reduce its toxicity. Clinically, there are often reports of poisoning due to improper decoction of aconite, aconite, and nux vomica. Light frying of nux vomica can increase the toxicity of the compound drug, and the ld50 is reduced from 1.2g/kg to 0.5g/kg.

　　3. Problems with patients’ physical differences: Everyone’s physical strength is different, and their tolerance to drugs is also different. Men and women are different, old and young are different, and long-term illnesses and new diseases are different. Therefore, doctors are required to use drugs according to individual conditions and consider the dosage of drugs. Sometimes there is a lack of understanding of the medication used by patients with allergies, and allergic reactions may occur when encountering Chinese medicines containing allergic substances. For example, decoction of a traditional Chinese medicine decoction mainly composed of Desmodium is used to treat allergic rashes caused by bladder stones and cholelithiasis. The symptoms include measles-like red maculopapular rash all over the body, unbearable itching, and upset. The patient recovers after stopping the medication.

　　4. Unauthorized use of medicines: Some patients think that they are "cured after a long illness" and know a little about the disease, so they "prepare medicines according to the prescriptions and use them according to the instructions"; some patients are overly superstitious about folk prescriptions and secret recipes, and follow what others say and use them; or they listen to traveling medical vendors and abuse traditional Chinese medicines at will, resulting in adverse reactions or even poisoning. There are also people who hate taking medicine when they are sick, taking it more often and for a longer period of time, resulting in accumulated toxic reactions. For example, a patient with wolfberry allergy picked about 30g of wolfberry, washed it and decoction it before taking it. The next morning, he developed swollen eyelids, facial rash, severe itching, and nausea and vomiting. He was improved after anti-allergy treatment.

　　5. Some problems in traditional Chinese medicine advertisements: Some pharmaceutical units and sales units, for the sake of economic benefits, or due to unintentional negligence, ignore the description of drug toxicity and side effects in publicity, resulting in improper use of medicines by doctors or patients, resulting in adverse reactions.

　　6. Changes in dosage forms of traditional Chinese medicine: New dosage forms of traditional Chinese medicine are constantly emerging, and the route of administration has also been changed or innovated, such as injections. Drug preparations quickly enter the human circulation through intramuscular injection and intravenous injection. Problems with the preparation, changes in active ingredients, and problems with body utilization, etc., may be different from the original preparations, leading to the emergence of certain adverse drug reactions. For example, Qingkailing injection, Shuanghuanglian injection, and Salvia miltiorrhiza injection have clinical reports of toxic and side effects after injection.

　　7. The problem of counterfeit and wrong medicines in traditional Chinese medicine: This is a very serious problem. For example, some mistook fish gall for snake gall, mistook it for alum, and others misused Phytolacca imitated as fake ginseng, wild jasmine root imitated as fake Gastrodia elata, etc., causing poisoning.

　　8. Improper prescription: It can be caused by a variety of factors, such as lack of careful clinical use of medication, or improper syndrome differentiation, resulting in deficiency or excess; or improper compatibility in the prescription, which increases the toxicity of the drug; or the foreign drug with the same name is not clearly marked, such as osmanthus root and broad bean root, cassia root and cassia root, eleuthero bark and eleuthero bark, etc.; or it is caused by intentional innovation but lack of caution.

　　9. Improper combination of Chinese and Western medicines: Nowadays, the combination of Chinese and Western medicines is more common in clinical practice. Due to insufficient explanations of medication methods or insufficient popularization of medication knowledge, patients cannot take Chinese and Western medicines at a reasonable interval according to scientific regulations, resulting in adverse reactions.

　　Everyone knows about the adverse reactions caused by the use of traditional Chinese medicine to treat diseases, and I hope it can attract everyone's attention. When treating diseases, we must go to regular hospitals for treatment and never believe the claims of quack doctors, otherwise we may cause harm to ourselves.