Traditional Chinese medicine doesn't use the technology of Western conventional medicine that checks the heart rate and sets you up to a monitor. Because of this it is hard to see how a practitioner can discover what you need without the instrumentation and tools made available by modern science. Chinese medicine as an alternative relies mainly on observation and description on the nature of infections for creating remedies. Determining where your Qi is off indicates what type of help you need.

Physical affects that are causing differences in how you function is the basic principle that will be used when determining a diagnosis for your health and Chinese medicine practitioners use the exterior as a guidance to what is happening in the interior. Most will use what they see as a way to speak with what your body needs.

Chinese medicine uses the exterior of the body as a basis to determine your condition and you will most likely be taken through a series of questions that help with the diagnosis. These can consist to up to one-hundred questions and are based on a series of ten categories - temperature, perspiration, digestion, sleep energy, exercise, urine, thirst, appetite, reproduction and stools. All of these will reflect parts of the Qi that need to be worked on.

Various areas of your body are diagnosed to determine the imbalance that is present, starting with how you are breathing. This includes both the steadiness of your breath and the way that your voice sounds. The smell of your body will also be diagnosed in order to make sure that your temperature elements are balanced.

Various other areas of your body are looked at to see where the imbalance is present. Diagrams for the tongue are important as they are seen as a reflection of the way in which the internal system is working. Practitioners will also listen to your pulse to see what the rate is and to see if it is even in comparison to the rest of your body functions.

Working from the outside in the proper diagnosis in Chinese medicine by examining the various parts of your body, a practitioner is able to find what is best for you and what parts of your body are either imbalanced or not receiving the right amount of energy. From this point, they are able to use the proper methods in moving things back to a normal pace.