Skin pattern self-check
Which patterns does your skin picture resemble?
Answer the questions a practitioner would ask about the skin itself and the body around it. You will see the TCM patterns the site associates with what you describe, why each one fits, and what to read next.
- 1 Concerns
- 2 Safety
- 3 Questions
- 4 Patterns
What is troubling the skin?
Choose the descriptions that fit, or search for a condition by name. You can choose more than one.
Nothing chosen yet. You can skip this and answer the questions only.
How the check works
Each answer adds weight to the themes TCM uses to describe skin: Heat, Dampness, Dryness, Cold, Wind, Blood stasis, Qi constraint, Phlegm, and the deficiencies of Qi, Blood, Yin and Yang. Every one of the site's pattern pages was scored against those themes from its own recorded signs, causes and tongue and pulse notes. The patterns whose descriptions match the weight of your answers appear first, with the reasons shown. A chosen condition also pulls in the patterns the site lists on that condition's page.
The tool does not search a database of people or outcomes, does not store anything, and does not ask about the tongue or pulse, which need a trained eye. Treat the result as a prompt for a conversation, not a conclusion.
What the self-check is based on
The questions follow the way a practitioner narrows a skin picture: what the lesion looks like and where it sits, whether it is dry or weeping, how the itch behaves, what makes it worse or better, how digestion, sleep, stress, thirst and urine behave, and how long it has lasted. In Chinese medicine those details separate Heat from Cold, Dampness from Dryness, and the different deficiencies from one another.
Each of the site's 87 pattern pages records its own signs, causes, tongue and pulse notes and treatment principles. This tool scores those descriptions against the themes in your answers and shows the nearest matches with the reasons. A skin condition you select also pulls in the patterns that condition page lists. It does not search a database of patients, does not model outcomes and does not ask for a tongue or pulse reading.
How to use the result
Use the result to prepare for a consultation, not to replace one. The notes at the end summarise your answers and the patterns that were suggested, so you can bring them to a practitioner and discuss where the description fits and where it does not. If a pattern looks close, read its page and the pages of the conditions it appears in before assuming it is your case.
Privacy and limits
Everything runs in your browser. No answers are sent to a server, stored in an account or linked to you, and there is no tracking script on this page. The tool cannot diagnose, cannot read your tongue or pulse, and cannot tell you whether a symptom is serious. If anything is severe, sudden or getting worse, seek medical care first and come back to the library afterwards.