pulmonary fibrosis

[Guest guest]

Has anyone treated pulmonary fibrosis with success? I think I have seen 2

such patients. One was already terminal when he came to me, but he did

get some palliative relief. the other was unable to comply with treatment.

Both of my patients were exhibiting yang xu symptoms and were treated

accordingly. they also presented with blood stasis signs, which I

attributed at least in part to lung qi xu >>>>> qi stagnation >>>>>> blood

stagnation. Purple tongue with distended sublinguals and widespread

spider nevi on the chest of both patients. However, they did vary in

other ways and so did not receive the exact same diagnosis.

 

This is interesting because fibrosis in other parts of the body is also

often found in patterns of blood stasis (such as many cases of liver

cirrhosis).

 

It also raises a question in my mind. I know disease presentation varies

from patient to patient and thus do our pattern dx. However, have others

noticed that despite differences, one disease typically presents with

certain patterns. For example, I find blood stasis to fairly ubiquitous

in chronic autoimmune diseases with rheumatoid components. The rest of

the presentation will vary, but the blood stasis is usually there. Same

with advanced hep C. In fact, it is remarkable how similar the tongues of

many of my hep C patients look (dark purple, fissured) and the overall

quality of their pulse (wiry). Or spleen qi deficiency in chronic fatigue

syndrome, food allergy, colitis. Or dampheat in IBS. I am not saying

that all cases are such, but just most that I see.

 

In each case, blood stasis or dampheat is a logical result of a number of

different pathways and spleen qi xu a logical antecedent. I'll give one

example.

 

Consider three hep C patients

 

1. yin vacuity leads to heat which decocts the blood and causes it to

become thick and sluggish

 

2. liver qi depression leads to qi stagnation which leads to blood stasis

 

3. dampheat accumulation blocks the freeflow of blood

 

All three would be treated with different formulas, but blood moving would

be an element of all the strategies.

 

I want to reinforce that one should never make an absolute correlation in

one's mind between a disease and a pattern, but in many diseases, I always

look for certain patterns carefully in order to rule in/rule out.

 

 

 

Chinese Herbs

 

 

" Great spirits have always been violently opposed by mediocre minds " --

Albert Einstein