I don't know how much all of you have read about Chinese medicine, but, I was having a conversation with someone today and also the other day that occured to me as being interesting for many of you.

In Chinese medicine, we differentiate patters of illness. I have spoken about this before alot in my posts. But, one interesting pattern differentiate is as follows: Heat. Some of you are saying to yourself, "Heat? Really?" I know, the terms of CM are foreign and sound really funny. I personally often don't use them, although Boaz does a lot. He can make anyone understand anything and explains theory quite well. However, I tend to westernize many of my explanations, you know, "when in Rome..." I like this better because I feel like we are speaking the same language. But, Heat came up the other day, and it is one common type of a syndrome (usually syndromes do not come in one nice neat pattern, but are intertwined amongst other syndromes) that is common to IC and that is deficient Heat. 

What is deficicient Heat? metaphorically speaking...think about when a car runs out of water (not gas) and the engine steams. That is like the Heat that is given off from a person with deficient Heat syndrome. Someone who is dehydrated-not as in they didnt drink enough water today, but rather are dehydrated on a very deep tissue level over a very long period of time. This kind of person is probably going to have adrenal fatigue from burning the candle from both ends for a long period of time. This person may also have other symptoms of intense Heat that may be so intense that it feels infectious. But, putting out the Fire from an infection and putting out the Heat from a deficient Heat pattern  requires very different thinking and treatment. Essentially to put out an infection, one needs to use herbs to cool down that Fire with herbs appropriate to the kind of Fire it is. If you use the kinds of herbs you would use for the full blown Fire on a person with deficient Heat, this will make the deficient Heat feel worse. 

Essentially, in order to put out signs of heat and inflammation, one needs to know what kind of Heat it is. Oh gosh, and then there is inflammation from Cold, and Damp, and Wind, but that is for another time.

The Heat issue came up because it is a common one, and I wanted to express the idea so that one could see the metphor. Also to know that those Heat signs can pop up in different places and you think you are going crazy because it seems like you have all of these different problems, when really they are owing to the same imbalance.

OK, that's it for this post. I hope I didnt confuse you more.

Dr. M (&B)