PULSE DIAGNOSIS (NAADI PARIKSHA)

Beyond your cells, tissues, and organs, there is an abundance of activity you are not aware of! It forms complex patterns and is important to your existence and can be perceived through the sense of touch. It is your Naadi or the pulse!

If any Ayurvedic doctor, just by touching your wrist, reels off about your chronic pain or abnormalities in blood sugar and disgestion or heart murmurs or kidney failure or peptic ulcer… all without prior knowledge, do not attribute any extra-sensory perception or amazing occult power to him. It is just an interpretion of a profound theory, the naadi tatvam!

MODERN VIEW

The pulse is the pressure wave you can feel as the pumping heart pushes the blood through the arteries. According to modern medical science, the pulse gives an indicaton of the rate and pressure at which the heart is beating from the rhythm, character and volume.

In a normal individual, normal pulse rate is between 65 and 85, although it tends to be higher in children and the elderly, up to 100 to 110 beats per minute. Most of the times, the pulse rate changes according to the demand. For example, during and after exercise, the rate increases in order to supply the exercising muscles with more blood and oxygen. However, those who enjoy physical activity often have a slower pulse rate. Just as their body muscles develop and enlarge, so does their heart muscles, which as an outcome, becomes better conditioned and more efficient. Consequently, the rate it which it can perform the job of pumping the blood around the body is slower than it would it can perform the job of pumping the blood around the body is slower than it would be in a less fit individual. The pulse also increases in response to nervous signals and the release of adrenaline like substances into the bloodstream, during psychological stress, excitement or emotion.

Abonormally slow pulse: There are a number of medical disorders that can slow down the pulse below the normal rate and which, as a result, may also induce palpitatons.

1) Medicaltion : Digitalis, the drug that is commonly used to control irregular heart beats, may cause slow pulse. Also, the beta-blockers, such as inderal, atenolol, commonly used for a range of disorders including high blood pressure, angina, anxiety, migraine and abnormal rhythms of the heartbeat, also slow the pulse.

2) Hypothyroidism : Low levels of thyroxine, the hormone produced by the thyroid gland, causes a pulse rate stedily bellow 60, although in a very fit person the rate could be as slow as 40 (the oher sysmptoms of hypothrodism include weight gain, constipation, mental and physical inactivilty, lethargy, thining of hair and dry skin).

3) Heart Block : If your pulse rate is below 60 and physical strain makes you feel dizzy and senseless, this suggests a heart block. (The messages transmitted by the conduction system of the heart sometimes fail to get through from their source in the upper chambers of the heart to the lower ventricular chambers. As a result, the muscles of the ventricles will not contract as often as they should.)

Abnormally fast pulse : Tea, coffe and soft drinks, all contain high levels of caffeine, which is a heart stimulant. So, drinking more than three or four caffeine containing drinks, or, for that matter, more than two or three measures of alchol daily is enough to develop a faster pulse, particullarly if the individual is a smoker, since nicotine enhances the effect.

1) Anaemia : The pulse rate significantly increases in anaemia, a conditon in which the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood is reduced. Anaemic persons look very pale, are often short of breath, particularly during and after physical work, and may suffer from angina, since the condition puts more exertion on the heart. Though the blood carries less oxygen, the body’s tissues are still in need of the same amount of oxygen. The heart, therefore, tries to make up in quantity what the blood lacks in quality, beating faster and faster to re-circulate the blood more quickly so that more of it goes to the required area.

2) Hyperthroidism : Just as an under active thyroid slows down the metabolsim, so an overactive gland, by producing excess amounts of thyroxine hormone, enhances metabloism. This results in rapid pulse. (Associated sysptoms include diarrhoea, increased appetite, weight loss, flushed, sweaty skin, and generally high energy levels. Palpitaiton is also a common sysmptom.)

3) Fever : Most infections, producing a fever, raise the pulse rate, and general rule is ten extra heartbeats per minute for each one degree Fahreheit rise in the patient’s temperature. (There are a few exceptions, notably, typhoid fever typically produces a pulse rate slower than would be excepted for the degree of the temperature)

4) Bronchodilators : Some of the bronchodilator drugs used to relax the airways of asthma sufferers can accelerate the heart rate, especially if execessive doses are taken. Drugs included are salbutamol, theophylline derivatives may have the same effect. Antispasmodic drugs such as belladona and byoscine medications, that relax the smooth muscle of the intestine, produce a rapid pulse rate.

5) Menopause: Most of the women while passing through menopause phase, may notice the hot flushing and palpitations along with rapit pulse. These are the result of circulatory changes caused by hormonal flutuations.

6) Heart ailments : For rapit pulse, heart disease is actually a rare cause. However, after excluding other general causes, the disorders of the heart valves, conduction system of the heart and heart muscle efficiency are to be considered. Usually there are other, more prominent symptoms that would alert patient and doctor to the problem, including chest pain and shortness of breath, especially when lying down, as well as dizziness, loss of consciousness and weakness or numbness in the limbs. In angina sufferes, it is common for the heart muscle to be starved of blood, resulting in chest pain and a rise pulse rate.

7) Lung diseases: In the lungs, pneumonia, with or without pleurisy, or a blood clot in one of the major veins, can produce a fast pulse, often with chest pain, fever and breathlessness as wel. With a blood clot, there will also be bloodstained phlegm.

8) Shock : Rapid and weak pulse is a general sysptom of shock, sudden, severe pain in the abdomen followed by collapse can be the first sign of a perforated peptic ulcer in the stomach or duodenum, and would certanily be associated with rapid pulse.

9) Liver & kidney disorders : Malignancies at certain sites such as liver and kidneys and inflammations of the covering layers of the heart, can increase the basel metabolic rate of the body and cause a fast pulse often inassociation with fever, jaundice and loss of weight.