Diagnosis

Diagnosis in Tibetan medicine is based on cause and effect principle, just like when we see smoke from distance, we can predict that there is a fire. Similarly, a Tibetan physician predicts a disease or illness by analytically observing signs and symptoms of the patient, using precise diagnostic techniques which include visual observation, pulse reading and interview.

However, even with such variety of diagnostic tools, one has to be very cautious while diagnosing the patient: when we see a dark cloud in the sky, it does not necessarily mean rain and if we predict it inflexibly, our prediction might be wrong. For instance, if a physician notes that the patient is highly feverish,

he should not treat his condition automatically with cold remedies as common sense would suggest, because that superficial fever might be connected to an underlying, unripe fever of different nature which is basically Lhung and Bad-kan and therefore cold. In such circumstances, cold remedies would only aggravate the patient's condition. Therefore, appropriate treatment should be given after thoroughly examining the nature of the disease.