Insights and Updates

Last Friday I invited my guqin teacher over for a lesson. As he tuned my strings he said, "You've kept these strings stretched too long; they've gone bad and need repairing. From now on, loosen the strings when you're not playing, to protect them." To…

After I finish work on the morning of this Thursday (May 16), I will be away on business in the afternoon and expect to return only on the afternoon of next Monday (May 20). So work is paused for a few days; please do not…

Today a parent brought a child with neuroblastoma to see me. In passing, she mentioned that during a prior hospital stay the child had developed a pressure sore with ulceration, and she had tried many things without success. By chance she combined zinc oxide ointment…

After radiotherapy, cancer patients often develop complications such as radiation enteritis. It is very stubborn and hard to treat: patients have chronic diarrhea and bloody stool, and some become severely anemic from long-term bleeding, requiring regular transfusions. TCM treatment of radiation enteritis is also tricky.

We have entered the hot season. In TCM theory, summer heat brings heavy dampness, so damp-heat diseases are common. The weather is changeable, and this summer has been abnormal: southern friends joked that this year's Start of Summer felt like Start of Winter, and it…

1 The bamboo hut is bare, the birds chatter; content with the view, I lie in the cold village. Only the art of raising the dying back to life is in mind; how could I seek the gates of fur coats and fat horses. The…

Nowadays many TCM doctors like to prescribe heat-clearing, detoxifying herbs to cancer patients; I myself often use such formulas. But some patients, after overusing cold and cooling herbs, develop marked discomfort, and some develop severe side effects. I have treated several patients whose spleen and…

Chai Ge Jie Ji Tang (Bupleurum-Kudzu Muscle-Resolving Decoction) comes from Tao Hua's Shanghan Liu Shu of the Ming dynasty. It was designed to treat combined disease of the three yang channels (Taiyang, Yangming, and Shaoyang). It thus uses Shaoyang herbs Chaihu (Bupleurum) and Huangqin (Scutellaria),…

There is a folk saying, "If the drug matches the pattern, a single bowlful cures." Many TCM classics also describe effects like "recovery as soon as the cup is turned upside down" or "effect as immediate as a drum to a drumstick." "Recovery on turning…

Moxibustion is an economical, easy-to-practice TCM therapy for health maintenance and treatment that can solve many problems. Especially for chronic disorders caused by deep cold, moxibustion may be one of the best treatments. But not everyone is suited to it. For some patients, moxibustion not…