Key points
When the temperature gap widens, some people start with congestion and sneezing. The same symptom can have different causes. Here is what to record separately before your consultation, explained by Dr. Hong Myeong-hwi at Hyunginjae Korean Medicine Clinic Gangnam.
.ez-toc-title{font-size:0!important}.ez-toc-title::after{content: “Table of Contents”;font-size:16px}
.gb-text-2bcfde2b{font-size:0!important}.gb-text-2bcfde2b img{display:none!important}.gb-text-2bcfde2b::after{content: “✍🏻 by Dr. Hong Myeong-hwi, Chief Physician”;font-size:16px}
At the end of August, the same conversation comes back to the consultation room.
“It’s still hot, but my nose blocks up every morning.”
This is the stretch where days stay warm and only the early hours turn cool.
Some people’s bodies react to that gap through the nose first.
But the same congestion can have entirely different causes.
For one person it leans allergic; for another, the body has been chilled by air conditioning.
The two call for different responses.
So before deciding on a prescription, I separate the causes.
The same congestion, different causes
These are the branches I check first in consultation.
- Leaning allergic — repeated sneezing in the morning, clear discharge, itching in the eyes and throat as well
- Chilled by cold — long stretches in air conditioning; blocked only in the morning, easing by midday
- Weakened digestion — heavier after meals, a heavy body, prone to swelling
- Accumulated fatigue — light sleep, recurring at every change of season, slow to recover
On the surface they are all “a blocked nose.”
But when the branch differs, the prescription differs.
Approaching someone chilled by cold as though it were primarily allergy helps only for that moment.
The reverse is equally true.
What we actually check in the consultation room
Description alone often doesn’t settle which branch it is.
So we look at pulse, abdominal, and tongue examination together.
Whether the abdomen is cool or warm, what the coating on the tongue looks like, whether the pulse is floating or sunken.
We also reference body composition (InBody). Someone carrying a lot of swelling and someone with low muscle mass recover at different speeds.
💡 From the consultation room: Someone who came in around this time last year had been taking rhinitis medication at every change of season for several years. In practice, though, the larger issue was internal cold from air conditioning and cold food. Once we settled that side first, the nasal symptoms decreased.
The direction only becomes clear when you read the body’s conditions rather than the symptom.
We tell you the duration in advance
Keeping someone on herbal medicine for a long time is not good treatment.
I raise this principle early in the consultation.
When we move toward settling the constitution, I set a minimum of three months as the baseline.
For anything involving immunity, we sometimes look at longer — six months to over a year.
Shorter is not automatically better, and neither is longer.
We plan only what is needed, and if things improve along the way, we reduce or finish.
There is one thing I want to be clear about.
Seasonal symptoms are not the kind that disappear in one go.
It’s closer to making each change of season less difficult than the last.
Two weeks of records is enough to bring in
Writing things down for about two weeks before you come lets us separate the branches far more quickly.
- Time of day — morning, midday, or night: when is it most blocked
- Place — indoors or outdoors, and whether the air conditioning is strong there
- Accompanying symptoms — itching in the eyes or throat, headache, heaviness after meals, cold hands and feet
- Sleep — what time you fall asleep, and whether you wake during the night
Many people leave out the fourth.
When sleep is light, recovery slows, and the same prescription produces a different response.
And if you are currently taking any medication, please write the names down exactly as they are.
We need to remove any overlap before building the plan.
This article is general health information and does not replace a personal diagnosis. If symptoms persist or worsen, please see a doctor.
About our doctor
