Digest Number 782

[Guest guest]

In response to the Shao Yang debate. Ted Kaptchuck, in his interesting

interpretations of the Shang Han Lun, makes room for the idea that the

alternating chills and fever could be describing a hot and cold emotional state.

With this in mind, perhaps this egroup could use a

bit of Xiao Chai Hu Tang. What about people's experience? I certainly have

used XCHT quite effectively when there has been no alternating chills and fever.

My Chinese gynecology teacher uses it for " heat in the blood chamber " meaning

heat in the blood of the uterus and has

written on this idea. This is also mentioned in Formulas and Stratagies. I

will often use it for lingering pathogens that are neither on the Wei, Qi, Ying

or Blood level but stuck somewhere in between, especially if the patient

presents with symptoms on the Shao Yang

Channel(especially one sided headaches or earaches), wirey pulse, depressive

heat spots on the tongue, irritability or moodiness(hot and cold). For

pediatrics it is often a miraculous formula - especially for earaches or

lingering pathogens. For me, irritability and moodiness

is always a key symptom to look for. Formulas and Stratagies writes that the

conditions it is used for " are not located in a set place in the body and their

presentation is often unpredictable " . This seems to imply that when you know

there is a pathogen but you can't locate it

or pin down it's features, in other words, when it's weird, think of Xiao Chai

Hu Tang. I will often feel that something is trying to leave the body but,

because it is not in the surface, it can't. The very fact that it is stuck

leads to the heat that Chai Hu and Huang Qin so

effectively vent but often the pathogen that is stuck is not a hot pathogen.

For this reason, I often make additions to address the nature of the pathogen -

be it a damp,cold, wind or combined pathogen. I would love to hear other

people's thought on this.

 

About Qing Hao, my understanding is that it is a light herb, especially in

contrast to Bie Jia, with which it is classically combined. It goes deep yet

vents out empty heat in the Ying and Blood levels through the surface. Because

it creates a sweat, it is used in combination

with major Yin enrichers and protectors but still it is an essential medicinal

for vent that deep seated empty heat. There is no sweating in the original

condition because the Yin is so depleted. Perhaps you have never seen it

produce a sweat because it is always used in such

careful ways, in small doses, so that the sweat is just enough to vent the heat

and no more. In general, with the Shang Han especially, sometimes the sweats

they are talking about are clinically very subtle. Like the sweat people are

supposed to be having in order to use Gui

Zhi Tang...I have never had someone say they are sweating as the books say. I

stopped relying on their report of sweating and rely more on the fact of a wind

cold with more deficiency signs than say a Ma Huang Tang presentation. I would

be interested in other's experience of

this.

 

Sharon W