Sore Throat
Overview
Sore throat is redness, swelling, and pain of the pharynx or larynx with painful or difficult swallowing, often with dryness, burning, itching, or a foreign-body sensation. In Chinese medicine it is often due to wind-heat invasion, exuberant lung-stomach heat, or yin deficiency of the lung and kidney with deficient fire rising. Acute cases are usually excess heat; chronic recurrent cases are often yin deficiency.
Pattern differentiation (clinical patterns)
Wind-Heat Invasion
Sore dry burning throat with painful swallowing, fever and mild aversion to wind, headache, cough, thin yellow coating, floating rapid pulse.
Expel wind and clear heat; benefit the throat and reduce swelling.
Exuberant Lung-Stomach Heat
Marked red swollen throat pain with difficult swallowing, dry mouth and bad breath, thirst for cold drinks, sticky yellow sputum, constipation, red tongue with thick yellow coating, surging rapid pulse.
Clear heat and resolve toxicity; drain fire and benefit the throat.
Connections
Daily care & prevention
Rest the voice, drink warm fluids, and gargle with lightly salted water. For wind-heat or excess heat, honeysuckle, chrysanthemum, or peppermint tea may help; avoid spicy, fried, and hot-drying foods. For recurrent yin-deficiency sore throat, lily bulb, snow fungus, pear, and ophiopogon nourish yin and moisten the lung. Massage Hegu (LI4), Quchi (LI11), and Lieque (LU7).
When to seek medical care
Seek urgent care for breathing difficulty, drooling with inability to swallow, marked hoarseness, persistent high fever, neck swelling, severe one-sided throat pain, or pus on the tonsils with rash, to rule out epiglottitis or peritonsillar abscess.