Topics in Chinese Medicine

Yesterday I received my newest edition of my favorite journal, The Lantern. Not only is this edition full of excellent and inspiring articles, it also features an article by Nigel Dawes!  The article is entitled “Evidence is More Valuable than Logic”. In addition, Nigel is going to be teaching in Australia, for our Australian readers.   His class is called “Fukushin in Modern Practice”. For other information about Nigel’s teaching and practice, check out his web-site as well as Michael Max’s informative 2-part interview with Nigel.

On to our final installment of my questions for Nigel:

Not wanting to take Nigel’s generosity too far….I finish my questions (for now!)

Okay, one more and I’ll leave you alone….at least for a little while..

On the  handouts you gave us at the start of class – the ones with the pictures of Osaka’s 13 abdomens – the ‘Inside Emergency’ # 9 says that the ‘Li Ji’ is a result of overstrained rectus abdominus compensating for low abdominal pressure.  I don’t get what this means.  Could you explain it to me a bit more?  How do the muscles strain in response to low abdominal pressure? Continue reading →

Here is installment 2 of 3 blog posts on Kampo.  Again, this post has been taken from a written conversation between Nigel Dawes and myself.

Many kinds of pulsations can occur on the abdomen.  Here, Nigel helps me tease this all apart.

I am also trying to understand pulsations in general.  It seems they can be caused by:

1. water – which in turn could be more Kidney (Zhen Wu Tang), Spleen (Bai Zhu/Sheng Jiang type formulas) or excess water (Wu Ling San type) – all of which over lap.  Am I missing something in terms of what could cause water accumulation/splash sounds?

Yes this is right. Water accumulation causes the Qi to stagnate (or vise versa) leading to pulsations. Continue reading →

As promised, here is the first installment of a short series of entries on Kampo.  These next three entries are all taken from a written conversation between Nigel and myself, in the form of questions and answers.  I hope you all find this as interesting and useful as I do!

In a deficient person with a tight abdomen and pulsations – how would you differentiate whether to use Gui Zhi Jia Long Gu Mu Li Tang vs. Zhi Gan Cao Tang?

Firstly on the abdomen the location of the pulsations will be different for each formula. Gui Zhi Jia Long Gu Mu Li Tang will often have pulsations along the midline in the upper portion of the abdomen especially around Ren 12/13/14 (though they can also occur lower down at the navel area). In the case of Zhi Gan Cao Tang Continue reading →

When I was in acupuncture school more than 30 years ago and after – I had the opportunity to study Hara diagnosis (The Hara is the abdomen)with Kiiko Matsumoto and Stephen Birch quite intensively. They wrote Hara Diagnosis: Reflections on the Sea (Paradigm title)

In my own practice I have consistently felt the tummies of all my patients in every session, finding the abdomen an invaluable source of clear diagnostic information.  When I first heard about the use of abdominal diagnosis in relation to herbal diagnosis I was excited to find out how I could integrate this.  Then I met Nigel Dawes.   Continue reading →