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savoirefaire's BLOG
{Wednesday, April 02, 2008 . }

I am sitting in my office, with two of my fellow interns snoozing away in my cold cold room. And I have this insane cough that keeps getting worse, and keeps me awake all night. I am drinking fluids, taking bromhexine to break down the immense amounts of phlegm and a cough syrup that is supposed to have expectorant properties but does shit all for my cough.

I did some research about traditional chinese medicine's classification of phlegm which I found interesting, and quite differentiated between the categories.

From Giovanni Macioca's Chinese Medicine website, I quote the two types I suspect I have (I can't tell if it is one or the other):

Phlegm-Heat
Cough with expectoration of profuse yellow sputum which may be blood-tinged, a feeling of oppression of the chest, dark eye sockets, red cheek bones, red face, thirst, oily skin, breathlessness, chest pain, insomnia, dark urine, feeling of heat, mental restlessness, Red-Swollen tongue with sticky-yellow coating, Rapid-Slippery pulse.

Food-Phlegm
Cough with abundant sputum, nausea, vomiting, sour regurgitation, belching, a feeling of fullness in the epigastrium, a feeling of oppression of the chest and epigastrium, epigastric pain after eating that is better after bowel movement, Swollen tongue with thick-sticky tongue coating, Slippery pulse.
My acid-reflux returned just a day after being infected the Sunday before last. It is interesting to see the concept of tying the weakness of the spleen and lack of Qi correlating to the formation of phlegm, because I have been feeling lifeless and weak and my cough only seems to have gotten worse, while other people around me with Flu ("'tis the season!") seem to heal much faster.

Further investigation led me to a separate article about TCM's view of obesity. It seems that the visible and invisible ideas form a very large definition of phlegm than we know in Western medicine.

In this article, what struck me was this:

In cases of Qi Deficiency, the energy simply is not there to be more active. Both the obesity and the avoidance of activity are coming from a common Root - Qi Deficiency. The Root has to be addressed first.


It makes sense that you need to overcome inertia before you launch into weight-loss activity. When I came back from Europe in December, I was in an "active" state, I could walk for miles. I was actually gaining weight, I suspect due to the building of muscle mass. Still, my body felt less "weak". And while you say that energy is gone because I stopped (not true, I walk similar distances everyday and started doing yoga before I fell ill), I really think I stopped because I loss the energy and became much more lethargic. It could be due to very erratic dietary habits, or the weather.

If there is Lung imbalance or poor breathing habits (like breathing from the chest muscles alone instead of the belly), a lot of Air Qi doesn't get extracted. (This is part of why deep breathing exercies sometimes can help not only with obesity but with quite a few other things.)


Funnily enough they encourage proper breathing techniques in Yoga to stimulate metabolism and weight-loss, very powerful!

There are various things which can cause Qi to Stagnate (not flow easily and smoothly). Among these are emotions, trauma, Cold, and Phlegm. From the TCM standpoint, Phlegm is both a symptom and an etiology. Phlegm comes about because of certain imbalances in the body, and in turn Phlegm will trigger or worsen other imbalances. From a TCM standpoint what various poorly handled emotions (repressed, over-expressed, inappropriately expressed) or sudden and severe emotions do is they interfere with the smooth, easy, and proper flow of Qi in the body. For example, great fear and fright can cause Kidney Qi to desend (when it should be ascending), and the child wets his or her pants. Anger - including simmering resentment - can cause Liver Qi to flare up instead of spreading smoothing through the body.


O.O This is the bit that is interesting. It feels like it is more "incidentally" true than for real, because it is easy to fit those analogies to "phenomenas". I believe in psycho-somatic responses, I have fallen ill because of emotional stress etc. In any case, any therapy that has a "cleansing" effect and attempts to tackle the root cause is quite enticing.

I am burning up and I am dying to go home.

/post.




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savoirefaire blogged at 3:56 PM



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