5 Tips for SIBO, Anxiety and Spleen Qi Deficiency

If you're going to see someone in traditional Chinese medicine, you might be getting a weird diagnosis that you don't fully understand, like spleen sheath deficiency, one of our most common diagnoses. But in this video, I wanted to share why each of these diagnoses of a pattern is not just one thing or even just one organ, like what we call the spleen, but is really the pancreas. It is usually a cluster of symptoms and as a cluster of physiological pathways that we are treating and are being affected by each meridian or channel or each herbal compounded formula that we give you. So let's jump in and we'll use spleen sheath deficiency as an example here. Hey guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hein, author of the health book Master of the Day and doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. So before we jump in here, there are two very important links right below this video. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, you can reach out to my private practice right below this video to learn more. And the second is I've put together a free guide for daily rituals that can potentially improve your life with traditional Chinese medicine. And again, that's the first link right below. So there's this phrase mentioned in our medical classics that looks like this. And what it means is if we literally translate it as p qi, let's just use qi instead of energy, but we'll call it a functional deficiency. Now that character is often translated as the spleen, but that is highly debatable. When we talk about this diagnosis, you know, spleen sheath deficiency involves typically low appetite, bloating, loose stools, people with a paler complexion, people who catch colds easily. But functionally, this diagnosis can include issues like anemia. It can include issues like low immunity, people who catch every upper respiratory infection every season. It can include things like people who are prone to anxiety sometimes. So this idea of spleen sheath deficiency being just even a digestive symptom is on its own not necessarily true. So let's talk about how some of these patterns like a diagnosis of spleen sheath deficiency, or if your acupuncturist says, you know, the spleen is weak. Let's talk about what that really means. There's a modern famous formula that is from around the year 1100 called sujunzitang, which is four gentlemen decoction. Now this decoction, this compound is made up of four herbs, ginseng, baijiu, which is attractor lotis, fuling, poria, and zhegancao, honey fried licorice. Now this formula traditionally is indicated for this pattern, people who have low appetite, fatigue easily, loose stools, prone to bloating, that sort of thing. But when you look at the clinical research, not only within our profession for the other patterns that this formula can treat, but also what this formula does clinically because it has been well studied in cancer research. So sujunzitang, this formula, is incredible because one thing that it actually has been well studied for is improving the blood values of people who are undergoing radiation and chemotherapy. So some of my patients that are in the process of cancer care have to discontinue their treatment because their blood values are not looking good. Now there are interesting studies, many of them, showing how sujunza can basically mitigate, it can reduce the decrease of white blood cells, red blood cells, hematocrit, and in irradiated mice. So two groups, mice that were getting irradiated, mice that were getting irradiated plus taking sujunza as a preventative, they had much less precipitous decreases in those blood values, which was good for their prognosis and good because they could continue their treatment. So where does this fall into digestion, right? But there's a saying in TCM that the spleen generates the blood. And often blood, let's just say a blood disorder like anemia, one of the ways we treat it is by using formulas that treat spleen sheath deficiency. So there's a fascinating series of relationships here. And in addition, there are other diagnoses like functional uterine bleeding, right? When women are just spotting between their cycle, we often treat the spleen and are not treating necessarily the hormones per se. We give formulas for spleen sheath deficiency to stop bleeding in between the cycle, spotting. When we say the spleen generates the blood, the spleen, this diagnosis, this pattern diagnosis encompasses things like digestion, right? And when we say digestion, let's get specific. Enzyme production, right? People who aren't producing enough enzymes for the pancreas, levels of stomach acid, right? Often low stomach acid, people who get nauseous easily, low appetite, as well as hunger hormones. So it'll regulate those hormones. Secondarily, we're talking about immune system functioning. These formulas for spleen sheath deficiency will not only dramatically improve energy during the day, help people get colds and flus less often. So the immune system. Third, we can say blood cell generation. We talked about that, right? And then just subjective feeling of energy. So lots of people will feel a much greater boost in a formula that primarily is treating digestion, but includes herbs like ginseng that work on the HPA axis. So each diagnosis is a bucket of hundreds of biochemical reactions and dozens of physiological pathways, if not hundreds, but one formula can treat a pattern that may seem unrelated. So very, very interesting, these kinds of diagnoses and the patterns and the symptoms that they treat. Something else that the spleen is associated with is, you know, in TCM, all of these organs are holographic in nature. So there's an emotion associated with the two, right? Remember these ancient doctors, this is the original functional medicine. It's a systems-based biology where how is that an emotion affects certain organs more than others, right? It's very interesting, right? Why does when you feel an intense sadness, it affects the lung, right? This sort of weeping, this crying, that people have, right? So that's why sadness, grief is associated with the lung in that way. But the spleen is associated with something translated as tensiveness or thought or worry. Sort of that furrowed brow when you're really racking your brain over something in your life that cannot, you know, ancient doctors said it cannot the qi, right? If you've ever had that feeling of going through a horrible breakup or divorce and you're just trying to sit down and eat a meal and that emotion overcomes you and you feel that log, that knot in your stomach and you don't want to eat, that's what ancient doctors called knotting the qi. It's palpable, you know it to be true. And that's just emotion, right? That's the stress hormones. But we're talking about the spleen, it's associated with this character called si that the ancient texts use. Now si, I'll break it down here, is comprised of two characters. The bottom one is the heart. So this little four strokes here is the heart. And the top shows a field, the same kind of field like you cultivate. So there's this image of a field or cultivating or work or like cultivating something over the heart, almost like you're racking the brain. The heart and the mind are sort of associated with mental function and the state of the spirit and that sort of thing in traditional Chinese medicine. But there's this visualization of labor or doing something that's racking the heart or the mind. So it's similar to this term, this word sikhal is like to contemplate or think over something. So this excessive rumination is one of the things that affects the spleen digestion, right? Now this is really really important to know because for some people their GI issues may be purely about the stress response. They're eating in front of their computer, they're not taking proper meals, there's too much going on. So sitting and eating at your desk, flipping through Instagram, doing work is not resting, right? This is sikhal, this is like thinking over things, trying to get things done. So spleen, very very interesting organ in TCM and this pattern of spleen sheet deficiency is one of the most common we give out. But again, remember it's not just one thing, it's many many many diagnoses all combined in one. That's what I have for you today guys, check out those links below the video and I'll see you soon.