Recently in skin disease Category

Chan Hur, L. Ac. of Answers with Acupuncture in Flushing, NY wrote about a successful treatment of eczema with Korean acupuncture techniques, includes before and after picture of a different patient.  

"One girl who was 14 years old came for atopic skin. When she was 2 years old, her parents noticed she often rubbed her back against the corner of a wall. Her parents brought her to an acupuncture clinic in a hurry. The clinic told her parents she had atopic skin and advised that she take herbs. After taking herbs, she was OK until 5 years old. She then suffered this skin problem very much between 5 and 10 years old. She went to many MDs who specialized in skin. The MDs gave skin cream. Her skin became harder and hair grew where these creams were applied. There were continuous new eruptions. Someone advised that she take aloe and she took aloe for a long time. Her skin problem disappeared around 10 years old. This family doesn't know what made her better, as they did so many different things for her.

When she came to my clinic at age 14, she had atopic skin on her fingers, arms and neck. I gave her an acupuncture treatment. I asked her if she was afraid of needles. She was nervous about that. After one needle was inserted, I asked her how it was. " I don't feel anything at all. Are you sure you put a needle on me?" I inserted 4 needles in total. Now I am happy to tell you that her skin problem disappeared with just one treatment. Her sore with waters started to disappear the next day and disappeared totally on the following day."

By Billy Shonez Singh, M.S., L.Ac., Dipl.Ac., Dipl. C.H. (NCCAOM)

                                                ©2010

            Recently my father became a vegetarian a couple of months ago.  Since then, he has lost weight, his psorasis has cleared up, and he is much calmer and reserved than before.  On the other hand, a 44 year old woman comes to my clinic with insomnia and irregular menstruation with blood clots and PMS and feels very cold especially during the summer.  When I asked her about her diet, she says that she has been a vegetarian when she first came to this country from India.  Now, these two highly different cases are related to being a vegetarian.  Some people become vegetarian for political reasons as is the case in a few PETA members I have met.  Other reasons are because of religious issues as in the case of Hindus and Buddhists.  Whatever your reason is for getting into vegetarianism, you should know that there are a few pros and cons to becoming one.  The pros of becoming a vegetarian are weight loss, lowered intake of chemicals and toxins that are associated with eating meat, and a much calmer disposition than non-vegetarians.  According to history, Buddhist monks and those from the Brahmin caste in Hinduism would adopt a strict vegetarian diet not just for spiritual reasons, but the cooling nature of vegetarian foods helped them with their focus during meditation.  However, based on my experience of what I have seen in my clinic, vegetarians present themselves with a disease pattern in Chinese medicine known as blood deficiency.  In blood deficiency, the signs and symptoms are not typically related to Anemia; putting it simply, the quantity of blood has not been compromised; it's the quality of the blood.  Therefore, a person with blood deficiency pattern associated with a vegetarian diet will have the following signs and symptoms:

• Chills
• Cold limbs
• Pale complexion
• Insomnia
• Irregular menstruation
• Intolerance to cold
• Small and pale tongue
• Thin pulse

Therefore, the only solution to all of this is either to start incorporating meat into their diet.  If that is not an option for Hindus and Buddhists, then herbal medicine is a good solution to taking care of blood deficiency based signs and symptoms listed above.  However I find that herbal medicine and dietary changes (such as eating meat) will produce better results together.  For Hindus that cannot eat meat, there is a justifiable way you can get around that rule.  The only caste within the caste system that can eat meat are the Kshatriyas (the warrior caste).  "Vegetarianism is prescribed only for the Brahmin priests among the Hindus.  This is not the original Vedic tradition, because if you go to the source texts in Ayurveda, they all contain tonic recipes and prescriptions for meat, including beef.  Hindu fundamentalists have tried to resurrect Ayurveda in a vegetarian form after independence there in 1948, and this form is the dominant one in the US.  But the actual source texts recognize the tonic qualities of meat (pg.2, Bergner)."

            In conclusion, vegetarianism has its benefits while at the same time it has its downsides.  After all according to Paul Bergner, "...in the vegetarian south India, there is a higher rate of heart disease, hypertension, and type II diabetes than in the US and Canada (pg2.)."  In my experience, a balanced diet blending both vegetarian and non-vegetarian foods ultimately ends up being the stand-alone preventative to the signs and symptoms associated with a long-term vegetarian diet.  If having a vegetarian diet is nearly impossible to give up because of religious restrictions, at least make sure that all foods are cooked before eaten as opposed to having them raw.  In Chinese medicine, raw food that has been eaten has a tendency to disturb the normal functioning of the digestive system resulting in the above mentioned signs and symptoms along with stomach cramps, nausea, and vomiting.  A good solution when eating vegetables is to incorporate spices such as ginger, garlic, fenugreek, and cinnamon.  The properties of those particular spices are very warming and allow for proper digestion of raw vegetables in the stomach without any ill effects. 

 The Tao of Food: Diet in Taoist Practice states, "If you are a young healthy person, with no sickness, than a vegetarian diet is possible.  But if you have lack of energy or some other deficiency, then meat broth should be consumed from time to time."  It further states that, '...the diet should be composed of 30% leafy vegetables, 20% meat and 50% grain."  Take care everyone and eat well.

 

 

Bibliography

Bergner, Paul Thinking Critically About Diet, http://chineseherbacademy.org/articles/critical_diet.html, April 4^th, 2006. 

 

Hon, Sat Chuen, Tao of Food: Diet in Taoist practice. http://www.qigongtherapy.com/dec.html, December 18^th, 2006

Dispel wind and stop itch

"In terms of itch, Traditional Chinese Medicine considers that it connects with wind pathogen. So treating pruritus is always based on dispelling wind. But for chronic eczema caused by wind from Yin deficiency and blood dryness, it is worthy to be cautious to use pungent and warm natural drugs to resolve superficies. Or the condition would worsen because pungent and warm natural drugs reinforce the wind of blood dryness. Drugs of pungent and cool nature to resolving superficies, such as Bo He (Wild Mint) and Chan Tui (Cicida Moulting) are highly recommended.

Even while the lesion is akin to neurodermatitis, pungent and warm natural drugs to resolve superficies can not be abused, or would cause acute outbreak of eczema. Traditional Chinese Medicine consider that it need to promote blood circulation in the first place for the sake of dispelling wind, and then wind vanish naturally after blood stasis removes. So it is suggestive that some herbs of promoting blood circulation should be added."

Read more at Chinese Medicine Gem blog. He gives TCM diagnoses and possible treatments for common symptoms.

"Psoriasis is a systemic disease and should be treated as such, a fact that Chinese medicine has identified for hundreds of years. A recent article published in the British Journal of Dermatology stated that people with psoriasis have an increased risk of heart disease. The authors stated that traditionally western dermatologists mainly focused on psoriasis in the skin and joint level, but failed to view any correlation to other organ systems.

Because psoriasis is an immunoinflammatory disease, affecting the body as whole, it makes sense that the same inflammation causing the skin manifestations could also aggravate other diseases known to be induced by inflammation, particularly cardiovascular disease. See research here.

Chinese medicine's view of psoriasis as a systemic inflammatory disease is seen in the main traditional patterns attributed to it, mainly fire toxins and heat in the blood with stasis. It has always held that psoriasis is a disease of the blood, hence any part of the body influenced by the blood can be affected, particularly the heart.

It is interesting to see that many of the herbs used to treat psoriasis in Chinese medicine also have cardiac protective properties. Dan Shen, Salvia miltiorrhiza, is one of them. I use the herb a lot in my prescriptions to treat psoriasis, as it's main functions are to cool and invigorate the bloods flow. Dan Shen has been used both traditionally and in modern times to protect and repair heart tissue. Many studies have been done on this herb and I recommend you look at my research section to view one of them.

The more western research that comes out showing that the body is an integrated whole, that problems in one area (like the skin) influence other body areas, the more impressed I am with the observations of the ancient Chinese. By treating the roots of a disease pathoglogy, then not only is the disease itself healed, but so is a multitude of other associated problems. This is wholistic medicine."

Trevor Erikson, March 25, 2009 ;The Chinese Medical Dermatology Website

Mr. Erikson's Skin Disease Photo Gallery shows Before and After pictures of skin diseases treated with TCM.

Trevor Erikson's article is apt because of this April 8, 2009 article in the New York Times "Genentech announced on Wednesday a phased voluntary withdrawal of the psoriasis drug Raptiva from the United States because of a link to a brain infection.

Raptiva has been associated with an increased risk of progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, a rare and usually fatal disease of the central nervous system."