Chronic cough with phlegm and bladder infection treated by Chinese herbs Zhu Ling Tang

Female, 53 years old. She had been coughing for 3 months. The coughing started with pain between her breasts that she thought was a muscle pull from weight lifting. She started having a very watery eye (right) for about a month, sneezing, and the start of cough.

She was treated for allergies, post nasal drip, acid reflux, bronchitis but nothing helped. She was tested for whooping cough, sputum testing for TB etc. chest and sinus x-ray. All tests came back negative.

Now: She would start coughing while talking or eating, and it got worse at night, so she had to sit in bed and even that did not stop coughing. She was bringing up a lot of clear, stringy mucus. She also had to start wearing adult diapers and the coughing made her incontinent.

Irritated throat, thirsty all the time, drinking a lot of hot water but urine was not as much as it should be with dark yellow color, no sweat, Bowel movement everyday with dry stool. Also had dizziness, palpitation, fatigue.

Her pulse: deep and fine, red tongue with less tongue fur but watery.

From the perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine, this cough is caused by water retention in the lower Jiao because the bladder does not work well, and cannot get waste water completely out of the body. Water blocks the Qi, when Lung Qi goes up, it causes coughing.

Under this condition, people usually feel very thirsty because waste water stays in the body, so the water you drink cannot be transformed to nutrition. You may have somewhere swollen.

I gave her Xiao Chai Hu Tang and Wu Ling San. 1 week later, she came back and said she only took the herbs for 2 days because she had a bladder infection and she took antibiotics for 5 days. Her bladder is better but still feels pressure, swollen leg, swollen eye, frequent urination with little amount and yellow color.

This time I gave her Zhu Ling Tang and told her to leave the first herbs for later, take the new herbs first.

A week later, she came back and was very happy. She could empty her bladder, less cough, less headaches, and sleep well. She continued to take herbs for another 10 days and everything was going well, she even lost 10b.