Herbal Medicine
What Causes Disease? Something New or Something Old?
A common question from health care providers to patients during initial intakes around the inception of their chief complaint is: “Did anything new happen or significantly change in your life just before this started?”
If we are looking at an orthopedic issue this might be in suggestion to some physical trauma or accident. If the issue is more psychological, we’re inquiring clearly more around emotional trauma or incident. Either way, no matter the medical paradigm it is always helpful to know what, if anything, was the final straw, and/or only straw, to induce a present pathology.
Where medicine gets tricky is in approximately half of the times when the patient responds: “Nothing… nothing changed.” Nothing new or bad happened.
In this case it is logical to look at genetic tendencies finally rearing latent heads, but I am more inclined to examine patient habits and lifestyles finally catching up to them. Everyone knows that a few cigarettes, or even a few years of cigarettes, do not cause chronic illness, so why should a short or even medium interim of any harmful pattern under the umbrella of self-care?
How many years does it take for a lack of exercise to cause disease? How many years does it take for nightly desserts, social alcohol use, or haphazard use of pharmaceuticals to?
“The last straw(s)” is an etiology which poses a greater challenge to patients’ self-awareness, curiosity, and/or open-mindedness. Being confronted with what we might have been doing wrong for years, if not decades—where our responsibility lies—poses a threat to our ego, our belief systems, as well as our simple energy in its implicit requisite of critical thought, experimentation, and will power to examine what we could/should change. Nevertheless, scientific logic would dictate this to be at least one irrefutable contributing factor to disease.
When “nothing changed” just prior to onset of symptoms, what percentage of causality can we intelligently assign to genetics alone? Thirty percent? Sixty? Maybe ninety on occasion? I am skeptical it is very often 100%, lest I would personally be relegated to medications for gout disease, eczema, and an anxiety disorder.
I recommend to all patients, myself included, to be open, to the idea that although we probably haven’t been wrong about everything, we are just as likely wrong about some of the things we do, especially whilst in the context of seeking help.
Please don’t get me wrong: As much of a pet peeve it is for me to work with patients who take no responsibility for their conditions and/or wield a particularly narrow-minded arrogance around the infallibility of their choices, it is equally unacceptable when health care providers put the entire onus on the patient. The healing process, in my opinion, is not only a marathon-like process of scientific experimentation, but a team process, that usually requires approximately half of contribution from both parties. I’ve heard many colleagues criticize patients’ desire for us to “fix them.” Obviously, I agree, people must take responsibility for their health. At the same time, most chronic conditions need the outside support and help from professionals as well.
Shower Clogs and Chinese Medicine
One of the recurrent flaws in our Jersey City apartment of the past few years has been the plumbing. Within months after moving here we had an inexplicable leak from the kitchen sink that forced management to have to tear up and replace the living room flooring. Of course, my neurosis coupled with faith in ongoing communication from the subjective realm diagnosed this as a sure sign from the universe (and my own spirit guides) that leaving New York City was the wrong decision. My wife on the other hand diagnosed it as a plumbing crisis.
More chronic at home has been our need to regularly flush out the shower drains, and each time we do so we’re sure to use not just hot water, but a pot of boiling water to chase the Liquid Plumr or whichever product my wife deems most ideal to unstick the grime and/or hairs that cause the clogs. It reminded me of one of the most important principles in Chinese medicine, the diet, and lifestyle we encourage of human beings.
Grime or accumulation in pipes is no different in theory than “dampness,” dysbiosis, or plaques in human vessels, arteries, and pathways. Call it what you will—any of the aforementioned, otherwise inflammation or fluid retention, ultimately all paradigms of medicine can consistently observe and cite such blockages as the underlying etiologies to most diseases.
This is why Eastern medicine discourages our consumption of anything and everything cold. Whether cold drinks, cold foods, such as salads, yogurts, or smoothies, or using ice on injuries, cold constricts and solidifies accumulations instead of dissolving them, thereby making such substances counterintuitive to our perpetual intention to reduce inflammation.
Cold foods are often yummy and convenient, which makes them that much more appealing in our fast-paced society, although convenient should always be a red flag when it comes to caring for the planet and ourselves. Microwaves are convenient, as are plastic bags and take-out containers, as well as gasoline cars, all of which are obviously and equally basic and destructive.
Western medicine often alleges there is “no known cause of arthritis,” which really just means they do not know what causes it. In Eastern medicines we know better. This doesn’t necessarily mean our treatment towards full resolution is simple, but its cause is. The human body is made mostly of fluids that have to constantly circulate, often through relatively microscopic spaces surrounding joints and ligaments. This circulation is created by our “qi,” or overall cellular energy, which obviously wanes with age. Exercise can help, as can a good diet, but all of us over the age of 30 are gradually losing energy, which means our fluid circulation is slowing, which leaves us vulnerable to cold clogs, constriction, and inflammation.
As we seem to instantaneously traverse from summer into a rather chilly fall this is an important concept to keep in mind. While anti-inflammatory diets and nutritious foods can be great, many times our bodies can benefit by just pouring hot water into it every day. Whether in the form of herbal teas, pu-erh tea, barley and ginger tea (message me for this recipe) green tea (only for those of us with heat patterns), soups, and/or bone broths, or shiitake mushroom broth for my vegan friends, a daily ritual of these edible, nourishing versions of Liquid Plumr can have immeasurable preventive benefits if consumed consistently over long periods of time.
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Mercury Retrograde! The Fall 2022 Version
Just a friendly heads up, fair warning, from your local subscriber to (almost) all paradigms off the beaten path and/or beyond the five human senses: Another Mercury retrograde is upon us, to officially begin this coming Friday, September 9th; but for those of us such as myself, born under a Mercurial sign, the effects of its “shadow” and prior “pre-shadow” phases have already reared their heads around many facets of life. This will continue for the rest of September.
When the planet Mercury is in retrograde the things most known to suffer are travel, communication, and technology—recall October, 2021, when all of Facebook and Instagram collapsed and blacked out for a day—though my personal experience is just an overriding theme of carelessness and misfortune that can lead to a whole litany of problems.
For example, while mercury is retrograde I am more likely to roll an ankle, drop and break a glass, lose my wallet, or tell someone to “F off!” The latter of which I’m confident has become less frequent with age and maturity (and the astrological awareness to, take a breath—it’s just mercury)…
This weekend my brother witnessed a road rage incident on the upper east side where two drivers got so angry at one another that they took turns ramming each other’s cars as if in a video game until finally jumping a curb resulting in a collision on 2nd Avenue. Fortunately, no one was hurt. And while confrontations obviously happen year-round, I couldn’t help but flag such an extraordinary instance as partially exacerbated by the stars’ misalignment, hypothesizing: “If only one of the two combatants was more astrologically aware, he might have taken a breath and turned the other cheek (or wheel as it were) and avoided the legal, financial, and medical issues caused. For the month to come, try your best to pause before reacting.
For my part thus far, we’ve had last minute babysitter cancellations, patients arriving later than ever (you’re all forgiven!), my bed frame broke for no reason other than wear and tear, our freight elevator was down all week, as is our cable at home (grateful it happened after Serena’s match). When mercury is retrograde we should do our best to just go with the flow of such conditions, and avoid making any major life decisions or signing contracts until our perception—that is our communication with the outside world is more lucid.
The nice thing about mercury retrogrades is they are generally times when people from our past—hopefully not detested ex’es—either randomly reach out to connect or run into us randomly in public. Such “coincidences” are common, which can be fun and offer somewhat of a silver lining to these otherwise frustrating, chaotic few months of each year.
Of course, astrology is only an interest of mine, not remotely my field of expertise. To dive deeper I recommend The Inner Sky by Steven Forrest, or at least this ASTROSTYLE ARTICLE on how to mentally prepare and approach this upcoming period. Alternatively, alternative medicine is another useful coping tool for the stress that comes with astrological storms. Even if just harmonizing treatments, down-regulating our nervous system, or releasing our back and shoulder muscles, outside support is always advisable, and available. Please just give yourself an extra five minutes to get to your appointment 😊
Father’s Day, from a Chinese Medical Perspective
In celebration of my first Father’s Day as a father I couldn’t help but reflect on when and why I first decided that I wanted to have children. As an exorbitantly self-absorbed, 20-year-old, male urbanite with artistic passions and lofty career goals, I never thought about having kids. I don’t know that I defiantly didn’t want a baby—nor did I consciously want one. It wasn’t until approximately a decade later, upon my initial explorations into Buddhism and spiritual literature that I decided procreation mattered to me.
Parenthood, in my opinion, represented an important experience towards self-actualization. Like most young adults I developed aspirations to give to my future child an even richer and more complete experience than was given to me, which I’m confident my own parents succeeded in providing relative to their upbringings. I think most of my generation were brought up with greater affection and career opportunities than the previous generation. My hope is to bring my daughter up with a greater cultural experience and spiritual awareness, and of course a more conscious diet.
I entered parenthood with these naïve notions, images of sitting lotus posture across from my child, our eyes locked as I imparted fortune cookie wisdoms to her, until we spontaneously merge into an exploding ball of white light and love. Instead, my experience is closer to that of an unpaid employee at a 2-star restaurant, who frantically wears the hats of chef, dishwasher, busboy, and maintenance man, while shouting back and forth at my “co-worker” anything but pieces of fortune cookie wisdoms. I am aware of course, as I sit here typing this, that these are the “spiritual experiences” in action that I sought. Though it is admittedly beyond challenging in those moments to recognize them as such, or to understand what it means to be a father.
With all due respect to the modern mutability of gender roles, identifications, and definitions, when I think of a father I think of my own dad, the masculine energy, or “yang qi” of the body. In Chinese Medicine our first line of immunological defense are the “tai yang” (or “greater yang”) channels. It is the job of the yang qi to protect and warm us, also to motivate and excite us, and direct us upwards… which may be why my daughter prefers that I lift her up towards the ceiling to kick her legs and laugh, but insists with no equivocation that she always be put down to sleep by the calmer, more nourishing, “yin energy” of Mom.
While my own father was a paternal treasure, an awesome dad five times over, where I saw his “yang qi” finally falter in his later years was in the all too common indulgences of “pathological yin” substances: Sugar, alcohol, cold foods and drinks, a sedentary and relatively anti-social lifestyle over time will put out our yang fire, and too often in our society what we see in older dads are soft, curvy, and fleshier physiques concurrent with quiet, more withdrawn demeanors. While some degree of grounded calm is very organic in our later years, my opinion and observation is that there can be a healthier, more engaged manifestation of it.
Without much apparent choice in the matter, my intention is to continue grinding away in the 2-star restaurant, hopefully with perpetually greater mindfulness that every sleepless night, every screaming cry, and scrubbing session on my hands and knees of the cooked produce peppered around our living room floor is the spiritual experience. With hopes that one day through my own appropriate discipline and self-care, I’ll possess adequate yang qi by which to sit lotus across from Peyton, look into her eyes, and impart everything I know, and don’t know.
Happy Father’s Day!
A Healthy Eastern Medicine Breakfast
There is no school of medicine or nutritional paradigm that does not consider breakfast to be “the most important meal of the day.” The reason for this is of course, science: the fact that morning is when our metabolism is strongest and we are most sensitive to our body’s insulin, whose job it is to break down glucose.
Nevertheless, cultural conditionings invariably conflict with scientific evidence, and breakfast remains generally the most neglected. People either don’t eat it at all, cite coffee as “breakfast,” or turn in C- work in the form of the unhealthy toast or bagel, otherwise “healthy” smoothies and yogurt. From a Chinese medical perspective such breakfasts are mostly inadequate in protein or healthy fat, and worse, they’re cold and sweet. As my mentor, Suzanne Robidoux always says: “A smoothie is not a meal.”
Once in a while, such indulgences are okay. But if taken regularly over time the microbiome becomes colder and weaker, and/or encumbered with gluten and sugars. Once this happens it becomes more difficult to digest heartier foods, so when we try introducing them we feel bloated. Instead of nutrients, our food turns to inflammation, our guts get weaker, and so on. This is the vicious cycle that leads people to have little to no appetite in the morning… which is the metabolic equivalent to not feeling tired at night, or not having a libido during the summer. It is an imbalance (of the liver or gallbladder meridians) that must be corrected.
One way to do so is to fake it until you make it. Eat warmer, higher calorie foods for breakfast, but begin with smaller portions, “smaller dosages,” to allow the body to acclimate. In Chinese medicine there are few foods more revered than (organic) eggs. I have no reservation in advising that it is impossible to eat too many eggs—especially of good quality. Start with one egg, ideally cooked a bit runny and over easy, but any way is beneficial (the yolk is thought to nourish our yin and blood, and is used in certain herbal formulas). You may cook with organic butter, avocado or olive oil, and/or dressed with olive oil at the end. Alternately, one can start with roasted vegetables…
“What??? Roasted vegetables for breakfast???” remarks all every American I know.
Yes. I realize this seems very odd in our country, but keep in mind that our country also leads the first world in cancer, autoimmune, and heart disease. Anyone not willing to step outside of the box of our cultural norms, in my opinion, puts themselves at great risk.
Roasting vegetables in the morning is SO EASY. In the winter I’ll throw a bunch of sweet potatoes (another Chinese herbal superfood) or brussels sprouts in the oven—in summer I’ll err more towards asparagus, if not sauteed leafy greens on the stove. Not only is this fast and simple, but also easy to digest, and checks off much of our daily vegetables requirement. My wife and I eat this with eggs literally every single morning, which in my opinion has undoubtedly nourished for our microbiomes a virtuous cycle of having strong morning appetites and putting them to good use by churning through substantial fatty protein. Or in Chinese medical terms, “the qi is strong” with which to start the day.
We’ll never know the diseases we avoid through good habits. We’ll only know those we endure, and quite often we’re left unsure of what caused them. The conditionings of fast-paced capitalism are obviously what has led us to neglect this spectacular source of strength in the day’s first meal. I highly recommend working towards reversing it. As always, acupuncture and herbal medicine can encourage things in the right direction.
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