Doctor Yu’s Clinic Notes I: Seasonal Illness of the Fall | 于博士行医手记（一）| 秋季的季节病

Now the summer has gone and half of the fall has passed. The weather is becoming colder day by day. The children have got busy for school after the summer break. The two doctors in our clinic are also getting so busy that there is hardly time to answer the patients’ phone calls for appointments. The fall season is a season of climate change, and many people catch the seasonal illness such as asthma, hypochondria, rheumatic diseases, even heart diseases.

Since about a month ago, our clinic started to have more and more hard cases. For example, there was a 98-year-old patient Neil, who came to me again because of the serious pain all over her body that made her unable to sleep. She has been here many times before, but this time was the most painful so far. I also observed that she had early symptoms of panic disorder, bipolar disorder, and memory loss. The pain points on her back were unidentifiable, but there were swellings at T7-T10. For her pain, my diagnosis was the same as before---osteoporosis, with possibly slight fracture of bones.

Seeing an old lady of her age suffering was really bad, therefore I tried to sooth her up. She has enough confidence on me, and she calmed down shortly. Then I took needles and started treatment on her hands. I pierced needles and asked her to move around. After a while the pain started to be released, and smile came back on her face. She was able to get down with her back up, and I pierced the “Jia Ji” points on her back for 10 minutes, with stroke piercing technique using the plum flower needle, plus fire cupping. The treatment lasted 30 minutes, and finally Neil said to me with a big smile : “ I knew you can help me!”

There was a very special asthma patient. I am not an expert in treating asthma, but I accepted him. Why? First, there is no division of branches in traditional chinese medicine; second, in TCM, asthma is associated with the “kidney”, and all the studies and practice I have done are related to the “kidney”; third, recently I have gained more knowledge and confidence in treating the acupuncture points associated with the “kidney”.

The symptom of this patient’s asthma was first loud noise when breathe, and his symptom usually became worse after 5pm every day. He went to some other TCM doctors. After their treatment, his symptom appeared more of short of breath---there was no noise breathing, but he started to feel something blocking his lung that he could not breathe in easily. The puffer had become useless to him too. He almost called emergency several times, and his family doctor did not know what to do. Besides asthma, he also had these symptoms: excessive sweating of the hands and feet, easy to sweat, yellowish skin color on the face, back pain, few and sticky sputum, over acting of the tongue channel, and “cun” channel, and weak “chi” channel. I diagnosed him as lack of “qi” in lung and kidney.

Considering his overall situation, I concentrated his acupuncture on the “kongzui”, “guiji”, “qihai”, and “danzhong” acupuncture points. I also combined acupuncture with herbs: I used needles with stroke piercing technique on his back from T1-T12, and let him take zhibaiduhuangwan and jinguishenqiwan mixed at 2:1 ratio, plus several walnuts. The patient waited urgently for four days, and finally on the fifth day his symptoms almost disappeared. The sweating in the center of his hands and bottom of his feet were greatly reduced too. Currently, I am giving him herbs aiming to solve the problem completely.

Recently many hair loss patients visited us too. Among them, there were two 60 years old Caucasian ladies: L.F. and D.T.. They both suffered from a weak kidney, and had obvious symptom of cold hands and feet. One of them only had 56% of the kidney function. Their hair loss condition is therefore definitely related to their kidney condition. Because of this, I also included treatment for the kidneys in their treatment. Now L.F.’s hair loss has already decreased, from around 360 hairs per day to only 70 hairs per day, and D.T.’s hands and feet coldness has become better too. Hopefully they will have more positive results soon.

My friend Michael who is also a TCM doctor introduced another patient to me. This patient recovered from a stroke, but the stroke left him double vision on both eyes and exotropia on the left eye. I carefully treated him, and after four sessions, his conditions also became much better---the double vision was almost fixed so that he did not need to wear eye pad on his left eye, and the disoriented left eye has become better too. I used treatment of three-eye-needle，and deep piercing jing ming on him.

There are more interesting cases. I will tell you more next time.

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夏天已然远去，秋天亦已过半；寒露已过，霜降将至。孩子们经过两个月的假期也都恢复到正常的学习当中。我们诊所两位医生的日程亦是越来越满，已经没有多余的时间再接受预约。这段时间，由于正值季节更替之时，一些季节性疾病患者不断出现在诊所里，如哮喘、忧郁症、风湿性的疾病，甚至心脏病。

近一个月左右，诊所的疑难杂症较多。举几个例子吧，有一位九十八岁的老病人Neil因为身体多处疼痛、背痛不能入睡再次前来求诊，这次是我见过她最痛苦的一次。除了疼痛，我发现她还伴随惊恐、言语不休、记忆力下降的症状。她背部的痛点不确定，但在T7-T10处有肿胀，诊断同以前一样，骨质疏松（可能伴随微细骨折存在）。

我尽量安抚病人，她很信任我，过了几分钟她就开始恢复平静了。我开始在她手上施针，并让她略微活动了几下，几分钟后疼痛减轻了一些，她再次露出了可爱的笑容，可以趴下去了。然后我又在她背部用针取夹脊穴10分钟，梅花针叩刺，加火罐。病人在经历30分钟的治疗后，面露笑容对我说：“我就知道你能帮助我（I knew you can help me）!”

还有一个哮喘病人，我不得不提一下他的就诊故事。我并非治疗哮喘的专科医师，但我为什么可以看这个病人呢？一是中医本来是不分科的，二是凡是哮喘必与肾相关，而我研究过的所有病症都是与肾相关的疾病，三是近来对某些穴位我有更多的自信和认识了。这个病人本为哮症，以哮鸣为主，晚上5点左右开始加重。经其他针灸医生治疗后，迅速变为喘症，没有哮鸣音了，用puffer无效，发作时自觉有物堵在肺里，气吸不进肺里，曾数次欲去急诊求治，但家庭医生已无技可施。现在除了存在喘症，还有手足发热、皮肤汗出、面黄、腰痛、痰少且粘稠、舌脉、寸脉均大、尺脉弱，诊断为肺肾气虚。

治疗以孔最、龟际、气海、膻中为主穴，以背部T1-T12叩刺，并让病人自服知柏地黄丸及金匮肾气丸2:1混服，令加服用核桃数枝。在病人急切等待四天后，第五天开始症状基本消失，同时手足心发热减缓，汗出减轻。现施以中药调整治病情根本以图全效。

近期有很多脱发病人，有两位女病人均为白人，年龄相近，60岁左右，都患脱发，肾功能不足，并有明显的手足冷、怕冷现象。其中一位的肾功能只剩下一半（56%），因此可以说脱发绝对与肾功能有关。我在治疗上增加了对肾的调节，然后L.F的脱发数量已从每天360根降到了每天70根，D.T的手足发冷病症也有明显改善，希望尽快有正效果。

另有一位中风后复视及左眼外斜视的病人，是我的同行老友Michael介绍来的。每次治疗后都有明显改善，经四次治疗后，复视已明显减轻，已经不用佩戴右眼的屏蔽物了，左眼球的外斜也已纠正过半。这是采用了眼三针并且深刺睛眼明为主的疗法。

还有一些很有趣的病例，一时也写不完，下次再与大家分享。