↑ reinforcing ↓ reducing ⊥ even method.
1. Blood Deficiency with External Wind
Clinical manifestations: Skin cracks and fissures that are dry, not weepy, itching that comes and goes or shifts location, worse at night and in dry windy weather, pale or sallow complexion, aversion to wind or drafts.
Tongue: Pale, thin body with a thin white and slightly dry coat. Pulse: Fine, may feel wiry or floating.
Treatment principle: Nourish Blood, moisten dryness, dispel Wind, and stop itching by addressing the root deficiency that leaves skin undernourished.
Note: moxa applicable on the tonifying points. This dermatological Blood-deficiency-generating-Wind pattern is distinct from the organ-level Liver-Blood-deficiency slide on this site, so no pattern link is given here.
2. Toxic-Heat
Clinical manifestations: Red inflamed cracks with burning pain, pus or weepy discharge from fissures, intense thirst for cold drinks, dark scanty urine or constipation.
Tongue: Red body with prickly thorns, dry yellow coating. Pulse: Rapid and forceful, often full or overflowing.
Treatment principle: Clear Heat, resolve toxicity, cool the Blood, and reduce swelling to eliminate the pathogenic factor damaging skin integrity.
Note: no moxa. No standalone Toxic-Heat slide exists on this site, a confirmed and recurring absence, so no pattern link is given here.
3. Cold Invading the Channels, Joints and Muscles
Clinical manifestations: Skin cracks feel cold to the touch, pain worsens with cold exposure and improves with warmth, skin may appear dark or purplish, joint stiffness or pain near the cracked skin, cold sensation in the limbs.
Tongue: Pale body, thin white coat, moist surface. Pulse: Tight, often wiry and slow.
Treatment principle: Warm the channels, dispel Cold, harmonize Qi and Blood circulation, and nourish the skin by restoring warmth and flow to congested tissue.
Note: moxibustion strongly indicated on ST-36 given the Cold. No deck on this site has a generic Cold-invading-the-channels Bi-syndrome category outside the Liver channel's genital-specific version, a confirmed and recurring absence, so no pattern link is given here.
Clinical manifestations: Skin cracks are pale, dry, and not inflamed, fatigue and physical weakness, poor appetite with loose stools, pale or sallow complexion, dizziness or light-headedness.
Tongue: Pale, possibly thin body with a thin white coating. Pulse: Fine, choppy and weak at right Guan.
Treatment principle: Tonify Spleen-Qi and nourish Blood by strengthening the digestive system's capacity to produce nourishing resources from food.
Note: moxa applicable throughout. Direct match with this site's own Spleen-Blood-deficiency slide.