The Five Seeds

Since fertility seems to be surrounding me right now in every way that it can, I have decided to further expand on my last post and look at the ever popular five seeds in Chinese medicine.

Gou Qi Zi (Lycium Barbarum Fruit)

Tu Si Zi (Cuscuta Chinensis Seed)

Fu Pen Zi (Rubus Chingii Fruit)

Che Qian Zi (Plantago Asiatica Seed)

Wu Wei Zi (Schisandra Chinensis Fruit)

Gou Qi Zi: Also known as the lycium fruit or the Chinese wolfberry, this herb is use to enrich the yin of the Kidneys and the Lungs. It can nourishes Liver blood and will also mildly tonify the Kidney yang.

This herb is good for yin and blood deficiency patterns. It is neutral in temperature and so it is good to treat both Liver and Kidney deficiency. It is often combined with Dang Gui and Shu Di Huang.

It can benefit the essence and brighten the eyes. This is often a symptom with Liver and Kidney deficiency, where the essence and the blood fail to nourish the eyes. The manifestations are dizziness, blurred vision, and diminished visual acuity. Combining it with Ju Hua for tinnitus, headache and visual impairment works well.

Lastly, Gou Qi Zi can enrich the yin and moistens the lungs. Using this herb for "wasting and thirsting" disorder (aka: diabetes) is very beneficial. To treat diabetes, in folk medicine, 10 grams of this herb are steamed and taken two to three times a day.

Steaming bone disorder (anyone who has had these kind of hot flashes KNOWS what this is!) is also benefited by the use of this herb.

Historically there was a debate as to whether Gou Qi Zi actually cleared heat, or if that function is left to Di Gu Pi, the root bark of this plant. Zhang Xi-Chun, in Essays on Medicine Esteeming the Chinese and Respecting the Western states that it does, due to his personal experiences. I too, believe that it may clear some heat, merely through its action of nourishing and enriching the yin. Through that action alone, some heat will be cleared.

This herb enters the Lung, Liver and Kidney channel. It is neutral and sweet and has a dosage of 6-12g.

Tu Si Zi is known in English as Chinese dodder seeds. It enters the Kidney and Liver channel and is acrid, sweet and neutral.

It warms the primal yang, augments the yin and secures the essence and urine. It is useful for Kidney yang deficiency patterns. This means that patients can present with symptoms such as impotence, nocturnal emissions, premature ejaculation, tinnitus, urinary frequency, sore and painful back and urinary frequency. Tu Si Zi can also help to improve the vision by tonifying the Liver and Kidneys. Also, it can benefit the Spleen and can be used to stop diarrhea due to a deficiency. Often a poor appetite will accompany the diarrhea.

A very important use of this herb is that it can calm the fetus and is used in and useful for a habitual or threatened miscarriage.

This is one of those herbs that seems to do it all. It tonifies yin and yang, and isn't cloying in the meantime. It is warm without being drying. It secures the essence and yet encourages the movement of primal yang. It can address Spleen deficiency resulting in diarrhea or excessive vaginal discharge and then turn around and take care of your aching lower back and knees.

Go get some. A safe dose is about 6 - 15 grams.

Source text: Bensky's Materia Medica.... as per usual.

Herbs

There is nothing quite so humbling as studying your okole off for herbal board and then going to see your acupuncturist who is a master herbalist from China and saying something completely ridiculous regarding various types of seeds that are commonly used for fertility.

No, Chuan Lian Zi is NOT one of the 5 seeds used. I KNOW that. But could I stop it from coming out of my mouth during our discussion? You guessed it. Nope. Out it fell. She kind of looked at me, then politely tried to pass over my ignorance.

So, as my penance, and to prevent anyone else from making the same mistake here are the stats for Chuan Lian Zi.

Chuan Lian Zi is a fruit. It is from the Sichuan pagoda tree and is bitter, cold, and slightly toxic. It enters the Bladder channel, Liver channel, Small Intestines channel and the Stomach channel. This herb dredges (isn't that the best descriptive word ever?) the Liver, releasing constraint, stops pain and conducts heat from down below. This is a good herb to help with Liver and Stomach disharmony and pain and distention due to this. When it conducts heat from down below, it clears damp heat from the lower jiao by guiding it out through the urine. It is also helpful when killing parasites and to stop pain due to them. It works best on accumulation of roundworms and tapeworms that are causing pain. This herb is not so good at expelling the parasites, but will kill them and will help with the pain. It can also be used as a topical application for dermatosis of the scalp.

As the Grand Materia Medica states, Chuan Lian Zi is slightly sour, slightly bitter in flavor and cooling in nature. Sour things enter the Liver and bitter things direct downward, thus it can guide heat in Liver and Gallbladder down and out through the urine. This herb can clear pain caused by wood dredging earth.

Several references (Grand Materia Medica and Essays on Medicine Esteeming the Chinese and Respecting the Western) also say that this herb can treat bulging disorders. This makes sense given the channels that this herb enters.

Chuan Lian Zi is contraindicated due to cold from deficiency of Stomach and Spleen. If someone were to overdose on this herb (normal dose is 4.5-9 grams) they would see nervous system effects like headaches, blurred vision, double vision, slurred speech or tremors. Also, the digestive system and circulatory system could be affected. Remember, it is slightly toxic.

Good quality of this herb consists of large, full, golden yellow fruit with a yellowish white cross section.

Thanks Dan Bensky and Chinese Herbal Medicine: Materia Medica, once again for setting my okole straight.

I'm Back and Inspired

Well, I am finally in my last year in school. Actually under 200 days to go. 198 days to be exact, but I am not counting or anything.

I had lost a bit of my steam last spring in maintaining this blog, but I am rededicated because I really feel like it is an important thing to maintain for the rest of my schooling and beyond. On a selfish note, I am hoping that it keeps me focused.

Since this is my last year, I have entered into the school clinic. Things have been interesting there to say the least. But, I feel if I am really able to put aside the normal everyday that drives me crazy, I am finally getting into the swing of things. I am loving the patient interactions, the cases, the progress and the learning.

I have found that there are several points that I generally find myself doing on almost every patient. I like to think about the reasons for this. Is it because I need these points done? I like to think not, because that would mean that my treatments are not focused in the way that I would like them to be. Is it the clientel that I am drawing? Perhaps. Are these points so powerful and effective that using them gets results? Maybe. Whatever the reasons, I use them a lot. Here they are.

The first point is Kidney 3, better known as TaiXi, translated as Supreme Stream. At this point in the channel, a greater volume of water is flowing. It is clean and clear and rich in the elemental things that we need. We use this point to draw upon reserves of fluid and enrich the quality of our "water". Because it is the Earth point on the Water channel, this is a good grounding point dealing with both the water and earth energy. They must be balanced. Too much earth can create blockages. These blockages can affect mental state as well as the physical states. There can be dryness causing constipation, sadness, migraines, epilepsy or insomnia. As the 3rd point on the channel, it is significant, as three is the number associated with being and becoming. As Schoolhouse Rocks even pointed out, "3 Is the Magic Number"!

It gives rise to all beings and the 10,000 things.

This point is the Shu Stream point on the Kidney channel, the Yuan Source point on the Kidney channel and the Earth point on the Kidney channel. It is located in the depression between the medial malleolus and the achilles tendon, level with the prominence of the medial malleolus. It has actions of nourishing the Kidney yin and clearing deficiency heat. It tonifies the Kidney yang. This point helps to anchor the Qi and benefits the Lung. It also strengthens the lumbar spine. The indications for use of this point range from deafness and tinnitus to cough with blood, insomnia, impotence, premature ejaculation, nighttime urination, damp and itchy skin lesions on the inner thigh and lumbar pain. And on and on..... This point focuses on yin, yang , qi and jing. As I am writing, I feel like it is becoming more and more obvious to me that this point is useful for everyone. We live in a stressful world, without the proper outlets for our stress, and our poor little adrenals sitting on top of our kidneys are working as fast and furiously as they possibly can. This point could help them out a little bit.

The Bad Boy of the Body--The Liver

If there was an organ that would ride a Harley, the Liver is it. The Liver is full of yang that can get riled up very easily. It can overact on the Spleen, causing diarrhea and bloating and poor food digestion taking advantage of the Spleen's inherent weaknesses. But the Liver also has a soft side too. It is a yin organ and can become deficient, allowing the fire of the Liver to flare upward and cause headaches and red eyes.

The spirit of the Liver is the Hun. The Hun is the Ethereal soul. The Chinese character for Hun is made up of 2 characters. The one on the left is "cloud" and the one on the right is "ghost". This is to represent that the spirit of the Liver is like a ghost, but is also free like a cloud that can float in and out of the body. The Hun is what gives us "sight" in the day and our dreams at night. It is responsible for our projects and plans and our dreams for the future. Because the Hun is in the Liver, and the Liver stores the blood, anything that can cause a loss of blood can make a deficiency in the Liver that can allow the Hun to get out of control.

The Hun is considered to be the minister to the Heart. The Hun proposes things and the Shen either accepts or rejects. The Shen is supposed to control the Hun, keeping the Liver spirit from wandering too far away into a world of dreams and no purpose. This presents a problem when the Shen isn't strong enough. The Hun can wander away, or be stolen away. The Hun can leave the body and go out into the world and not come back (mental illness) and it is then the Shen's job to get it and make it do it's job.

The Hun has 3 souls. These 3 souls resonate with the 3 Dan Tians. The first soul is connected to the Lower Dan Tian. When they are in harmony, physical health improves. The second soul is connected with the Middle Dan Tian. When they are in harmony, the emotions heal. The third soul is connected with the Upper Dan Tian (which is considered to be the superior Dan Tian), the spiritual being is developed. This is symbolic of the relationship with the (Yuan) Shen.

When we die, the Hun returns to the sky. This is why it is important to nourish your soul as well as your physical self.

The liver energy flows out and upward. It also stores the blood. It governs the tendons and when there is insufficient blood in the liver to nourish the tissues the body can have tremors, stiffness, or become weak. The eyes are the window to the Liver and depend on the good functioning of the Liver. When the liver energy is strong, the vision is clear both on a physical and mental level.

Wood is the element of the Liver and represents both firmness and flexibility. Anger is the emotion of the Liver and can cause the Liver energy to rush up. So, when there is too much anger and stress, causing that Liver energy to go upward, the Liver becomes exhausted and burns itself out (causing Liver yin deficiency, or Liver yang rising which is excess above and deficiency below (usually involving the Kidney too.....))

Why does the Liver want to flow up and out? Because spreading is the nature of wood. Wood qi is characterized by its upward momentum and its innate desire to be straight.

I think the Liver gets a bad rap. The Hun has a lot to do, and what if the Shen isn't such a good leader? What do you expect the Hun to do?

As always, I use resources for this, today thanks to Master Liu Dong and Master Liu He in their wisdom and Subhuti Dharmananda from ITM in his genius.

Explaining Differences

I was talking with my mother-in-law the other day and she was going to see her endocrinologist the following day. While she was visiting a month or so ago, she got a herbal formula and saw a local acupuncturist. She wanted a breakdown of the herbs she had been taking to make sure that they didn't interact with the few meds she was taking. She wanted to go to the Doctor's office armed with plenty of information so the MD didn't put the cobash on her herbs just because she "didn't know". Very understandable.

As I sat down to write out the herbs, I was reminded of 2 things. One that I want to address in this and subsequent posts and another that deserves its own topic. First, in becoming a practitioner of Chinese Medicine and prescribing herbs, (patents and formulas) becoming very aware of interactions and studies that are being done is just as much, if not more-so, our responsibility, not the MD's. This is our medicine, we need to take that on. The MD's are "to busy" or really, probably just not that interested. That statement is really not meant to bash the Western Medical community, it is just a realistic view at how things are right now. We are our biggest allies and need to remain abreast of research to solidify our credibility as practitioners. We are behind the eight ball in our society of science and a+b=c (and only c!)

Secondly, as I started to write out each herb, its nature, flavor, properties, which organs it went to and the "spirit" of the herb, I had to laugh at myself. I was writing about the organs in more than their physical sense and it was hard not to imagine seeing them in that way. But really, in my past life, as a nurse, that was NOT at all how you viewed organs. Each organ was a well oiled machine that performed its functions and somehow the dance of the body worked. The body is amazing, but to look at the energetics of it? Why? It didn't matter. But, I am here to say, after 3 years of immersion in Chinese Medicine, it DOES matter. Very much, actually. I am constantly amazed at conclusions that Chinese doctors made thousands of years ago, with little to no knowledge of the cellular level or how disease processes worked. They had it right and that is proven over and over again by studies that are done today. So every time that I hear that Chinese medicine is new, I have to laugh. WE are new to Chinese medicine.

Sorry about that tangent. That was not where that last paragraph was supposed to have ended up. What I was getting at, was that while writing out her herbs and descriptions I found myself wondering what her doctor would think of the energetics of the organs and the herbs that I was writing about; tonify the Spleen, regulates the middle Jiao, nourish the Kidney yin, tonifies the essence, calms the Shen.... I found myself leaving some of it out and simplifying things a bit, so her doctor would hopefully be able to understand what I was saying. So, just in case her endocrinologist ever reads this blog (haha!) I thought I would go through each organ and focus on it's energy and role in the body. I think that this will probably take more than one post, so I will just take it one at a time.

Before I get going, just a brief overview of the organs. They are called the Zang-Fu Organ. Zang means solid and Fu means hollow. So, logically enough, they are divided into Solid organs (Heart, Liver, Kidney, Spleen and Lung) and the Hollow organs (Large Intestines, Small Intestines, Pericardium, GallBladder, Bladder and Stomach). Then Zang organs are considered more Yin and the Fu organs are considered more Yang. There are also 6 extraordinary organs and those are: brain, bone marrow, blood vessels, uterus, bones and GallBladder (yup, it doubles!).

I love the Heart and it is the "Emperor", so I am starting with that organ. The Heart is home for the Shen. The Shen is the First Spirit in the body and has 2 parts to it. There is the Yuan Shen, or the original Shen, and then the Zhi Shen which is the spirit of the Heart's more worldly functions. The Zhi Shen is connected with mental activity and thinking and controls the physicological and emotional activity as well as our learning and long term memory. They both live in the Heart and the Yuan Shen is "in charge" of the Zhi Shen to keep it from overthinking adn over-analyzing.

It incorporates all five mental and spiritual aspects of the body (the Hun, Po, Yi and Zhi). The Heart is derived from prenatal essences as well as postnatal essences. It is outwardly manifested in the face (look at complexion color) and opens into the tongue. It dominates the blood and vessels. The Heart governs the blood in two ways. First, the transformation of food-qi into blood takes place in the Heart. Secondly, the pulse and blood flow, or circulation, is controlled by the Heart. The Heart is also the influence for the sweat. The hair is the odds and ends of the blood and the Heart controls the blood flow, so they are connected.

The Heart houses the mind (problems like insomina, confusion, illogical speech, forgetfullness are all related to the Heart) and the Shen (which is the spirit mind). The Shen is reflected in the eyes. The Shen, in one sense, indicates the whole of mental faculties which "reside" in the Heart. In a broader sense, the Shen indicates the whole sphere of mental and spiritual aspects of a human being, as I mentioned briefly above. The emotion that is most connected with the Heart is joy. It is difficult to explain why joy would be cause for disease, because a normal state of joy is not in itself the cause of disease, but when it becomes an excessive craving for excitement, this can injure the Heart. In Chinese Medicine, joy is considered the same as inordinate craving which stirs up the Minister fire. This flows upward and overstimulates the mind. Think about children and joy. When joy is too much and leads to overexcitement, it usually ends in tears.

Other Heart Relationships:

1. The Heart's smell is scortched
2. The Heart's color is red
3. The Heart's taste is bitter
4. The Heart's climate is heat
5. The Heart's sound is laughter

When using the Heart Channel for treatment of problems or disorders, it has the actions and indications for:

1. Treating pain of the chest and Heart and diorders of the Heart rhythm. All points of the Heart channel (except for QingLing Ht 2) threat either pain of the Heart and chest, or palpitations and other disorders of heart rhythms.
2. Regulating and calming the spirit.
3. Treats disorders of the tongue adn speech
4. Treats disorders of the throat like pain, swelling and congestion
5. Treats disorders of the eyes
6. Treats disorders of the skin and complexion, especially the face.

(Thanks to Peter Deadman and "A Manuel of Acupuncture" for that list)

According to my QiGong teacher, the Yuan shen (or the original shen) finds its home in the Heart after the first trimester (which is when the heart begins to beat) and distributes spirits to the five organs. The organs don't need their spirit to develop physically, but they don't truly come alive until they receive their spirit from the Yuan shen. These organ spirits are controlled by (or should be controlled by) the Yuan shen. The Yuan shen also animates the Heart. It is connected with the sky and the heavens.

So, that is what I have for tonight. I know that there are lots of gaps in there, so help me fill them in! Or correct any mistakes that I have made!

First week back....

Well, I am finishing up my first week back in spring quarter. 6 more quarters to go. It should be a good quarter. I have a few classes that I am pretty excited about. And then there are those few that I am just waiting to get through.

I have so many ideas for this blog that I am having a hard time getting started! I think what I am going to do, is focus on specific herbs and points or channels for each post and then "shake things up" a bit with various bits of theory or questions that come up. I am hopeful to get feedback and insights from other students and practitioners, it would be fun to be able to talk about all of this along the way.

Herb of the Day: San Qi
AKA: Tian Qi, Pseudoginsing Root (Latin: Notoginseng Radix)
Channels Entered: Liver, Stomach, Large Intestines
Nature/Flavors: Warm, Slightly Bitter and Sweet
Actions:

• This herb is used to stop bleeding. It does this without causing blood stasis, which is why it is so useful.
• It can transform blood stasis, reduces swelling and stops pain.
• It is one of the herbs in the "secret formula" for yunan biyao.
• It invigorates the blood.

Indications:

• Useful for internal and external bleeding including vomiting blood, nosebleeding and blood in the urine or stool.
• It is the herb of choice for traumatic injuries, swelling and pain from falls, sprains, fractures and concussions
• Also used for chest and abdominal pain and joint pain caused by blood stasis, sores and abscesses.

Cautions/Contraindications: Use with caution during pregnancy

Toxicity: There have been reports of toxicity even within the low dose range (1.5-3g) and the signs of toxicity include: nausea, repeated vomiting, hemorrhagic tendencies, nosebleeds, gum bleeding, heavy vaginal bleeding. Some other signs are GI related and are: pain with swallowing, poststernal pain and heartburn as well as swelling and erosion of the esophagus, nausea and diarrhea. In high doses (5g or more) this herb has caused second degree AV heart block.

But never fear! This is a great herb!! Just be careful and conscientious when prescribing it!! Here is some extra fun stuff about this herb that will help keep it in your mind.

• It has long been recognized as one of China's best tonic herbs for building the blood, improving the circulation and preventing anxiety.
• The root comes in the raw form (sliced) or cooked (steam-processed) each with different attributes
• Research findings indicate that raw Tian Qi positively affects the heart and tributaries. Some research in China shows that Tian Qi increases blood flow in the coronary artery, and increases the consumption of oxygen in the middle muscular layer of the heart. This results in the lowering of blood pressure and improving regularity of the heart beat.
• Tian Qi can relieve chest pain and/or the feeling of oppression in the chest due to angina pectoris induced by coronary insufficiency.
• Tian Qi has been found to significantly reduce the cholesterol levels in the blood and arteries.
• Steamed Tienchi is rich in iron, calcium, proteins, saponins and flavinoids. It becomes a very efficient blood tonic, strengthening the body and promoting growth.

Here is a picture: umm, okay, no picture, my technical skills are lacking. Hopefully I will figure out how to upload a photo!