This Is the Root of All Chronic Illness - According to Traditional Chinese Medicine

Everyone gets sick from time to time and even many chronic illnesses are not necessarily due to our own actions but are due to genetics or family history. But have you ever wondered why you get sick and why this has happened to you or even why you're not healing? Well Chinese medicine, in my opinion, is better suited more than any other form of medicine to address that specifically. Hey guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hine, author of the health book Master of the Day and doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. So before we jump in I have two very important links right below this video for you. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine you can contact my private practice right below this video. And the second is for a free download which is four daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with Chinese medicine. Now when we talk about the ancient history of Chinese medicine probably what stands out as being most iconic is the idea of the channels and the meridians, right? Because consuming herbs is plausible to people because even many pharmaceuticals come from herbs. But this idea that there are meridians or what people consider to be energetic pathways through the body that these acupuncture points correlate with is a little bit more far-fetched because we can't see them, right? We can't feel them. So how do we know these things are real? Well leaving that question aside just for a moment, the ancient doctors that came up with this medicine had observed that these channels and these organs in the body functioned a lot like nature. So very often the body was viewed as a microcosm of the macrocosm of the universe, right? We have rivers and channels and waste in the body just like we have rivers and channels and waste in nature. And just like there's seasons in the body that we call weather there are seasons in nature that we call weather. Or the seasons in the body called weather are really emotions and the weather in nature is seasons, is weather. These inner-outer correlations were made and these connections were made because these ancient people were keenly interested in the relationships between things. Primarily how things begin immaterially before becoming material. Some people say this is how the energy precedes matter quality. But medically this is really how physiologically something goes on underlying for a while before it becomes something more structural like blood sugar becoming end-stage kidney damage or kidney disease. But these ancient doctors viewed the channels as waterways very often. And so healthy physiological function was viewed almost like a dam in a river or proper river flow. And so even the channels, some of these characters for the channels like jingmai or jingluo were viewed as the warp and the woof of, you know, when someone's weaving something. And so ancient doctors viewed good health as proper physiological flow, proper organ functioning, and proper overall circulation throughout the body and circulation throughout the channels and the organs. So let's talk about more of this idea of health as proper functioning or proper flow. I know it's very almost esoteric sounding and non-specific, but I think you'll see it really is quite clinical. Let's say that the functioning and the flow in the body is like a river. And let's just call this your yang qi. Your yang qi is a concept in Chinese medicine that is not necessarily a real thing, but it's a conceptual way to view health. We could say yang qi is vitality. And again you can't put that in a bottle or measure it in a microscope, but you recognize it when you see it. The little four-year-old running around, bright eyes, high energy. And the 85-year-old, lifeless eyes, no energy, slow reaction time. That's yang qi visualized. That's the gestalt of vitality. And we know when we feel it, and we know when we don't feel it. But let's say yang qi is the river. The river in your body is yang qi, your resources. When the river is high, there's movement, right? There's enough physiological flow. So a stick falls in, no problem. A beaver poops in it, no problem. There's garbage dumped in it, even no problem. The yang qi can take care of that. It can flush it, it can move it, it's the lymph, it's the blood circulation, it's proper hormones, it's physiology. But then what happens is, either due to too much accumulation of garbage thrown into the river, you know, some kids throw in a bunch of sticks, a beaver builds a dam, there's a sewage waste plant above, there's a nuclear meltdown that happens, Fukushima, and suddenly we have all this crap, this garbage dumped into the river in your body. Now if your yang qi is strong, it can deal with detoxification. Ultimately there's a limit to how much garbage you can put in before a problem will happen, no matter the person, right? If you have someone exposed to radiation repeatedly, everyone will get damaged. But for the average person, maybe that waste is too much sugar. Maybe that waste is smoking cigarettes. Maybe that waste is excessive use of pharmaceuticals, or just very poor diet fried food. If the yang is strong, that river can clear that, no problem. But what happens is, very often, yang is weak. Weak because we don't take care of ourselves, weak because we have a weak constitution and we tend to run cold, or are predisposed to GI problems just like our mother had, whatever it is. But the river is now low, and now a weak river that doesn't have much flow, doesn't have the pressure to actually flush some of this out. And so now, either due to genetics, or poor lifestyle, lack of, you know, neglect of our health, the river has gotten low. And so now, as this garbage accumulates, as it always does, it can't fully flush that. And we've produced a localized area of a problem. And that problem is the beginning of a physiological blockage, or some organ dysfunction. And this is one way to conceptualize how illness begins within Chinese medicine. And how do we assess this, though? Because you can't see that within your body, but you actually can, based on some of the symptoms that come up. And I want to talk about a few organ systems, very briefly, that I see as the most common areas where the yang is becoming deficient, or there's some area of localized blockage. So how do I know if I have proper organ function, or proper health, or proper flow, according to Chinese medicine? I mean, a tricky thing is, in conventional biomedicine, how do we assess health? It's typically through labs, right? But I have a lot of patients with blood work that looks good. Nothing is flagged by the primary care physician, but they don't feel well. And within my field, the other methods of diagnosis, the pulse diagnosis, the abdominal diagnosis, are pathological. If I felt that pulse on someone in a bar, that's a red flag. But the labs look good. One of the ways we do this, besides those objective findings within Chinese medicine, are symptoms. So let's talk about a few organ systems here. One common one is what we consider the xiaoyang organs. So the gallbladder and the This commonly shows up as digestive symptoms, like reflux. Reflux, one of the most common symptoms that I treat, and diseases, if you want to call it that, pathologies that I treat, is a clear dysfunction in gallbladder, stomach, and spleen, pancreas, in Chinese medicine. So if you're noticing a little bit more indigestion, a little bit more feeling, a little bit more heat in the stomach, or a little bit more burning pressure in the upper right quadrant, despite there being no pain, there's a canary in the full line. The stomach and large intestine, again, more digestive issues, but they may be more lower GI. Constipation, missing every other day, missing every three days. Some people miss a week, and they don't think it's a problem. That's right there. That river is getting dammed up. The lung and the spleen, the tian organs, respiratory problems, asthma, excessive allergies, issues with immunity, so catching colds every season, getting the flu easily, or digestive, a lot of food sensitivities, excessive bloating, loose stools, diarrhea. Right there, the tian organs, the lung and the spleen, the pancreas, are showing problems. The heart and the kidney, these are issues with insomnia, anxiety, depression, sleeping issues. Very commonly, those four are often heart and kidney. So if those begin cropping up, the river is running low. Those are your canaries in the coal mine. It may mean you used to be able to sleep eight hours. Now, after like six, six and a half, your body wakes you up, and you don't feel rested. That's a canary. It may mean the liver and pericardium. So this is the final organ pair, the dreaian circulatory organs, related to often blood flow and stasis, so clotting issues, circulatory issues, like menstrual problems, missing menstrual cycles, severely painful dysmenorrhea. So all of these are signs that the river, yang qi, there's issues with the functioning of those organs in Chinese medicine. And those are your warning signs. It doesn't mean that it's going to be some horrible thing, or you're going to get cancer. Don't misinterpret what I'm saying. But those are your canaries, that the yang is weak, and the function is weak. And when the river is low, that's where problems can begin to happen. So very different East versus West view of health, and wellness, and disease, and pathology. Very, very important to keep in mind, because I find that often the labs come back and look good. But very often people are still sick, from my perspective, and certainly in terms of the symptoms they have. They are not in a state of good health. And these can sometimes lead to issues later on. That's what I have for you today, guys. The root of all illness within Chinese medicine. There are the links below for you, the free guide. And if you want to read more about my private practice, you can check out the links right below. And I'll see you in these related videos right over there.