Clinical Experience with Shugan Hewei Wan in Treating Multiple Diseases
Shugan Hewei Wan (Liver-Soothing and Stomach-Harmonizing Pill) is a Chinese patent medicine I use often—inexpensive (Tongrentang's small water pills cost less than ten yuan a bottle) but quite effective. According to TCM theory, it belongs to the qi-regulating category of formulas.
The ingredients of Shugan Hewei Wan are: Xiangfu (Cyperus, vinegar-processed), Baishao (White Paeony), Foshou (Bergamot), Muxiang (Aucklandia), Yujin (Curcuma), Baizhu (Atractylodes, stir-fried), Chenpi (Aged Tangerine Peel), Chaihu (Bupleurum), Guang Huoxiang (Patchouli), Zhi Gancao (Honey-fried Licorice), Laifuzi (Radish Seed), Binglang (Areca, scorched-fried), and Wuyao (Lindera).
These are mostly qi-regulating herbs. Xiangfu, Foshou, Muxiang, Chenpi, Laifuzi, Binglang, and Wuyao all regulate qi and stop pain; Chaihu is the famous herb that soothes the liver and relieves stagnation. Huoxiang is an aromatic stomachic; Baishao softens the liver and relieves pain; Yujin breaks through stagnation and widens the chest; Baizhu is an excellent spleen-tonifying herb. Used together, they soothe the liver, regulate qi, resolve stagnation, and relieve pain. In TCM terms, Shugan Hewei Wan is used for disharmony between liver and stomach, fullness and distension in both hypochondria, epigastric pain, poor appetite, hiccup and vomiting, and irregular bowel movements.
These symptoms appear in many digestive diseases—chronic gastritis, gastric ulcer, reflux esophagitis, gallstones, cholecystitis, gallbladder polyps, hepatitis, and others. Although by modern medical naming these are not the same disease, as long as they present with the above symptom pattern, TCM can treat them with the same method.
Two members of my family had gallstones and cholecystitis, and I cured both with Shugan Hewei Wan; in one case the stones were actually passed after taking the pills. The mechanism may be that Shugan Hewei Wan dilates the bile duct, but this is only my guess, and I hope colleagues will test it experimentally in the future.
During this year's Qingming Festival, when I returned to my hometown, a local patient came to see me. He had been hiccuping continuously for over eight years. Treatment at several Grade-A tertiary hospitals in our province had not only failed but made things worse. The hospitals finally diagnosed a hiatal hernia and kept him on proton-pump inhibitors year-round, to no avail.
I asked about the onset. The patient told me that more than eight years earlier, after drinking too aggressively in a drinking contest, he began to hiccup. Since then he had seen every famous doctor without cure; the hiccups were so frequent he could barely live or work normally. On reflection, it seemed suited to Shugan Hewei Wan, so I told him to try a few bottles. After two bottles, he happily told my family that he was much better.
My junior fellow apprentice is an orthopedist who also suffered from chronic hiccups. Doctors treated it as gastritis for a long time without cure; he tried acupuncture himself, which only gave temporary relief and never rooted it out. Once I noticed something odd in the sound of his hiccups and, learning it was a long-standing condition, suggested Shugan Hewei Wan. Before he finished two bottles, the hiccups were gone.
We often say "nine out of ten stomachs are ailing." Improper eating, irregular routines, and binge eating can all trigger digestive diseases, and many of these conditions fit the indications of Shugan Hewei Wan.
This is the good thing about Chinese medicine: no matter the disease name, TCM only treats the pattern. If the pattern matches, a vast array of different illnesses can be resolved. Whether there is a clear Western diagnosis does not matter.