Pulse Diagnosis

Pulse diagnosis is an art that traces back thousands of years and is a diagnostic method used in Chinese medicine. Chinese medicine is really good at interpreting bodily symptoms and making sense of them, and pulse diagnosis is another way in which we can learn about a patient’s health. 

By spending time taking the pulse, your Chinese medicine practitioner can tell the quality and amount of blood in the body, how well it is circulating, how much energy or strength an organ has (such as how strong digestion is, how strong the Lungs are, how well the Liver is functioning, the state of the adrenals and Kidneys, etc.). Your Chinese medicine practitioner will also be able to tell if there is lots of inflammation present, or if there are pathological fluids disrupting blood flow or hindering digestive processes. 

We also check the pulse rate, as in how fast or slow the heart is beating. A normal pulse rate is 60-100 bpm; however, a pulse that is beating 100 bmp rather than 60 can be differentiated in Chinese medicine. The overall strength of the pulse also gives us an idea of how much energy a person has. Sometimes pulses can feel very weak, and almost imperceptible. This can sometimes be caused by a few different things, and most often the patient will feel very fatigued. 

The pulse will also change and present a certain way when someone is experiencing stress or frustration about life. Just like our muscles tend to tighten under stressful situations, our vasculature actually does the same thing. The pulse becomes taut and wire-like. When stress occurs for too long and manifests in the pulse as feeling very tight and wiry it can cause a slew of physical symptoms such as digestive issues, specifically IBS type symptoms, headaches, anxiety, and/or a constricted feeling. 

Learning to take the pulse and pick up on fine details about someone’s health can take quite a while to master, and skill level tends to vary between practitioners. Fun fact: During our 4 years in Chinese medicine school, often we learned to increase the sensitivity in our fingers for pulse taking by feeling for strands of hair between book pages. 

Do you have questions about pulse diagnosis? Let us know in the comments below! ☺

This blog post was written by Samantha Kloss.