Overview
Adrian (pseudonym), a 36-year-old man, visited the hospital for symptoms of heartburn. He often suffered from indigestion, but even though he never overate or was under a lot of stress, the symptoms of heartburn and feeling stuffed would get worse. There were times he felt nauseous and would vomit. He would also often experience diarrhea and watery stools, and these symptoms would get worse when he drank beer or cold food. Additionally, it would take him more than an hour to fall asleep. Morevoer, he would feel angry, particularly more when under stress. If he ever felt anxious, his heart would flutter and his face would blush easily.
Adrian’s symptoms indicated typical inflammatory reactions such as a burning sensation and stomach pain. He also showed symptoms such as diarrhea after eating cold food, which indicated symptoms related to coldness in the large intestine. This happens as blood flow is concentrated onto the stomach to treat the particular inflammation and the blood flow would then be relatively low in the large intestine. Less blood flow causes the large intestine to drop in temperature and causes vibration in the large intestine, which results in diarrhea. The reason why the body shivers in cold temperature is to maintain the current, warm temperature by shaking the muscles. Thus, the same scientific logic is applied to the large intestine.
The reason why a person experiences a feeling of anger, heart fluttering, and redness in the face under stress is because the sympathetic nerves intensify when under stress. Imagine being chased by a bear. To run away as fast as possible, a rapid increase in energy in the heart is necessary to supply more blood to the muscles.
Treatment
Herbal medicine
Combination of Huang Lian and Huang Qin
Treat the inflammation in the stomach to ease symptoms of heartburn.
Huang Lian
Treat symptoms of palpitation by easing the sympathetic nerves.
Ban Xia
Treat nausea by normalizing the discharge from the stomach’s mucous membrane.
Gan Jiang
Treat diarrhea by increasing the large intestine’s temperature.
Acupuncture
Nei Guan (PC6) and Gong Son (SP 4)
A combination of acupuncture points to treat various diseases and inflammations in the stomach.
Zhu San Li (ST36)
Accelerate the peristalsis in the stomach to treat acid reflux.
Qu Chi(LI11) and Hu Gu(LI4)
Normalize the movements in the large intestine to treat diarrhea.
