to Mrasmm.....re: always waking up at 12midnight and 3am?!

[Guest guest]

thank you so much for your reply. here's my comment/opinion/answer

based on your post...

 

>> Do you by chance know what kinds of things your TCM Doc has

diagnosed you with?

 

there's some minor adjustment every now and then but in general, its

Spleen Qi Deficiency and Dampness.

 

I dont know how it is related to my complaints though

(ovulation problem, insulin resistance and hyperactive immune)

 

the minor complaints such as cold feet, acne, insomnia and depression

was gone though this new dilemna of waking up early morning is coming

more frequently.

 

marilyn

[Guest guest]

It's good to hear that a lot of your complaints have been addressed,

and you are seeing good improvement, although for some major

complaints it sounds like there is still some work to be done.

 

Overall dampness in the body is a very hard thing to deal with and

get rid of, as it tends to be sticky, get stuck easily, and

consequently block passageways. The organ that is most sensitive to

dampness is of course the spleen, which might explain your spleen Qi

deficiency, although it is hard to say which came first, the chicken

or the egg. Most likely they both were brought on at relatively the

same time, and each in turn weakened the other. The spleen is the

yin organ of the earth, where the stomach is the yang (some modern

day people have theorized that the spleen function in TCM actually

has more to do with the pancreas, because the pancreas is

responsible for secreting digestive enzymes and things like

insulin). The spleen channel is responsible for helping the stomach

rotten and ripe the foods. The stomach sends the turbid (cloudy and

thick) fluids down, and the spleen sends the clear fluids and the Qi

of the food up. When the spleen Qi is weak and/or the spleen is in

a damp condition, this mist of pure energy that it is supposed to

send up gets clogged up and it can no longer do so (a good example

of this might be if you took some used motor oil and put it in a

wick style vaporizer, the oil (dampness) would completely clog up

the vaporizer, and it would no longer work, and it would also be

very hard to clean). The spleen is in charge of distributing

nutrition and Qi throughout the body. It is not hard to imagine if

it provides (rather moves) nutrition to (around) the body (clear

fluids are also responsible for moistening some parts of the body,

although I can't remember which ones, I believe the brain is one),

how if it is in a diseased state how it could reek havoc on the

body. It also makes it harder to repair, because nutrition and Qi

is needed for repair, and mostly the spleen is in charge of

delivering that, so there is not as much to go around. Spleen

problems tend to be generally bogged down, heavy, turbid and

lingering. You might also have excessive mucous buildup somewhere

in your body, as this is a sign of dampness. Dampness and spleen

disharmony can also lead to severe weight gain, and usually settles

in the lower portion of the body first.

 

" Dampness may affect the Spleen's Consciousness of Potentials (Yi)

and creates a morass of a different set of " boggy " problems. In

this situation, a person might ruminate easily, constantly worry, be

unable to make a decision, help others in kind of a " clinging " way,

easily succumb to the " holding on " component of jealousy, be over

sympathetic, be trustworthy and nurturing to others to the point of

self-destructiveness, notice that experiences that were once

exciting become burdensome, be unable to " let go " or prioritize

excessive responsibilities, obsess over ideas, be compulsive, or

experience mental unclearness or flabbiness. " The Web That Has No

Weaver, p148, bottom paragraph.

 

While you might not experience everything here, generally speaking a

person with your sort of imbalance tends towards these types of

things. So don't worry, no one is judging you, rather just

educating you about things that you might tend towards with the

condition you have.

 

Now about what you can do with lifestyle to help better your

situation. It makes much more sense to me now that you say you

can't sleep with correlation to the typhoon season. Your body is

already in a damp condition internally, and when you add external

dampness to that, your body would go crazy. Where you can, avoid

damp weather conditions, such as a damp basement. In your case, you

seem to have an overall cold complexion, so damp and cold

combinations would be the worst for you. I do not know the

lifestyle where you live, but what I am about to mention is a big

concern here over in the states. When a woman is on her menses, she

is especially vulnerable to dampness (cold also I believe, but I am

not sure), so it is especially important to avoid during these

times. Here in the states, a lot of women will eat ice cream on

there cycle, which is quite a destructive thing to do over a period

of time, as ice cream is quite damp and obviously quite cold, so

avoid that, especially on your cycle (that is if ice cream is

available over there?). Also greasy or otherwise oily foods are

hard to process for someone with a damp condition and spleen Qi

deficiency, so start cutting down on those if they are present in

your diet. I say start because the change needs to be gradual,

often times (here in the states, and especially with dieting) I see

too many people that want to switch to a " perfect " diet overnight.

This switch is not healthy in this condition (although the " diet "

they want to switch to is perfectly healthy) because the body needs

time to change and adapt. So overall (especially due to your

weakened condition), start slowly and just make a few changes, few

enough that you can stick with it over the long term, as this will

be much better for your condition and for your body. It will also

make it easier on you (ie you don't have to worry about changing

everything all at once, and how you are going to do it.) Also it is

said that rice is very good for drying out and strengthening the

spleen, so you might try slowly adding more rice to your diet (I

can't remember, but soy might also have some beneficial effects

here).

 

If you have had ice cream in your diet, especially around your cycle

(this advice might mostly be in the states and Europe, I don't know

where else ice cream is available), then chances are what you have

has to do with a blood stagnation and coagulation in the uterus, and

with your condition, it might even be that even if you have not

eaten ice cream. It sounds to me that you have been on her medicine

over the course of about 2 very long cycles, and a very short

cycle. I do not know how well you are keeping to taking her

medicine, but if you are not this could be the reason (this again

isn't judgmental, just an observation, as you might have

discontinued it due to effects that were intolerable). Also with

stagnation and coagulation problems of the uterus, it is not

uncommon for it to take 2 or 3 or more cycles to clear out the

coagulated blood. This will mean that your flow could be more

clotty, irregular (ie more than 2 heavy days and 3 light every 28

days, like you said bleeding 3x in a month), and heavy while

clearing out the imbalance. Also it is important to note, if your

body is telling you that what is happening is not working, then find

something else that your body agrees with. If you are just

concerned about bleeding 3 times in a cycle (like as in an

inconvenience) , then if you want the imbalance corrected, you might

just have to go through it for a few months while your body is

clearing out. I just read your other post noting that you have

PCOS. PCOS as far as I know is definitely a blood coagulation

problem, and it may take some time to clear out the blood stagnation

and the energy stagnation. Once that is cleared out, your Dr can

start unifying the energy of the uterus, and have more balanced more

normal cycles. Again, all of these are just suggestions based on

the limited information I know about you, and of the little I know

about TCM, and I hope it can somehow help you with what you are

going through.

 

On another note, have you talked to your TCM Dr about why she says

there has been a difficult time correcting your cycles? If you

have, it might be helpful to know what she has said to you

concerning this.

 

About the insulin resistance and the hyper-immune-system, I am not

exactly sure how these details integrate into TCM, so I am not of

much help there. If indeed the spleen function in TCM includes the

pancreas, then it is likely that the dampness and weakness in the

spleen has a great deal to do with the insulin resistance (this is

just speculation, I don't really know). I will leave these

questions to those who know more about the subject, and hopefully

they will have some good answers for you.

 

Another thing to note, the conditions you have mentioned are of the

more serious nature by TCM and western medicine alike, but

especially by TCM. A lady that I know went through TCM treatment

for 5 years before she got to the point where she was as healed as

she was going to get. It was a miraculous achievement for her and

has really changed her life. I am not sure of your age, but you've

had that many years to create the condition, it might not be able to

go away in 6 months. A lot of it depends on what your body is able

to do, what your TCM Dr is able to do, and how good your

communication is. It does sound like a lot of your smaller

complaints are getting much better, and this is a great sign, but

some of the bigger problems that have been building up over a long

period of time, can be difficult and take a long time. So it does

sound like you are getting somewhere, just maybe not quite as fast,

or maybe just not quite in the way you are looking for (ie your

cycle has gotten worse instead of better). I would say if you feel

that your communication is good with this Dr, and you trust her, and

you feel like she can get you where you need to go, I personally

would just stick it out for the duration, because your Dr might have

a good handle on what is going on, but it just might take time. On

the other hand, if you don't, you may want to look at getting a

different Dr, or look at other forms of treatment, or whatever you

feel is right. Again it goes back to if it is more of an

inconvenience thing, or if it is something that you feel deep down

is not going to work. Overall to me it sounds like you are on the

right path to learning about your health, and you will make a good

decision on how to learn about it and deal with it, and ultimately

end up at the right answer for you.