Weak patient with multiple diseases, including delusion, had heart strengthened by Chinese medicine and recovery could be expected
This patient was a busy businesswoman. She was very weak when she first visited me in my clinic in 2006. At only 41 years old, she already had problems all over her body, having more than ten diseases in total. She had seen many Western doctors, but none of them were helpful. As a matter of fact, although she had many different symptoms, they all had one root cause, her extremely weak heart. She was treated by me twice. The second time, when her conditions had gotten better, she stopped coming without letting me know and did not continue with the consolidation part of her treatment, which was a pity. When I saw her the first time, her complexion was pale and green and her body was weak. She often fainted and became tired easily. Since she was small, she frequently had fever, which often recurred after recovery. She also suffered from migraine, with vomiting and dizziness in severe cases. During menstruation, she had unbearable pain with the discharge of blood clots and leukorrhea. Her hands and feet were cold. Her hands sweated a lot, so much that sweat would drip to her wrist and body while talking on the phone. She couldn’t stand cold weather. The patient was severely depressed. She suffered from delusional disorder and had suicidal inclination. When she crossed the road, she often heard a voice telling her to rush off the road, crash into a car and die. Only when she thought of her children that she gave up the thought. Her other troubling problem was confusion. For example, after talking on the phone with a colleague or a client, what she wrote down did not match the contents of the conversation. Sometimes her brain couldn’t keep up with what people were saying. She could see people’s mouths moving but couldn’t hear a thing and her brain was blank.
Patient’s eyes were often dry and her vision seemed to be blocked by a layer of mist. She had undergone laser eye surgery, but the result was unsatisfactory. Her shoulders, neck and back muscles were tight. Her left side was very painful, especially when she leaned forward and backward. For a long time, she had serious constipation, usually defecated once every five days, sometimes even ten, so she ate very little. She had difficulties holding urine and it would seep out if she didn’t go to the toilet immediately. She urinated more than three times a night. These were all signs of kidney deficiency. In addition, her heart was weak, with insufficient blood supply to her brain for a long time, so she had difficulties falling asleep and sleeping soundly. The patient’s face was swollen and there was also edema in her feet. After taking western diuretic pills, she experienced frequent hair loss, which was rather mild fortunately. Her mouth usually felt dry. Her pulse was very weak. Due to repeated tonsillitis, she had a surgery to remove one of her tonsils.
When she described her conditions, her forehead felt heavy and uncomfortable and her body tilted to the left. When asked why, she said if she had talked for too long, her left shoulder and neck seemed to be pulled, causing great pain, so she unconsciously tilted to the left to lessen the pain. She often felt numbness in her hands and feet, and her hands often felt like being pricked. These indicated a weak heart and cerebral ischemia. She also had tinnitus in both ears, and it seemed there were blockages sometimes so she could not hear very clearly. This was due to kidney deficiency, which was related to a weak heart.
Deficiency in vital energy and blood, and stasis in brain
Based on my analysis, an average person begins to enter the period of deterioration at the age of 40. This patient started to deteriorate particularly early, with deficiency in both her vital energy and blood. She had cold uterus, an extremely weak heart, kidney deficiency, endocrine disorder, immune system problems as well as severe brain stasis and hypoxia, which directly affected the transmission of nerve signals. I conducted a test for her, asking her to look around her and my face, remembering the brightness and clarity. I then asked her to turn her head up and down, to the left and to the right, then look forward again. She said she only saw me and a video recorder and couldn’t see anything else around. This indicated her angle of view was very narrow, also caused by her weak heart and cerebral ischemia. After taking the first dose of medicine, the patient felt hot all over her body at night and sweated slightly. The following day, her defecation was smooth, her shoulder and neck muscles were relaxed and her headache disappeared. Two days later, pain appeared in the joints below her waist, her heartbeat accelerated and she felt nervous and slightly dizzy, indicating the medicine was going up to her brain.
At the first follow-up visit, the patient said three days after taking the medicine, leukorrhea disappeared. There was no tinnitus, with only a mild blockage remaining in her left ear. There was no longer abdominal distension. Her migraine reduced and her eye dryness was eliminated and her vision had become clear. Hair falls that could be seen on her pillow had significantly reduced and the hair was nourished and easy to comb. Small pieces of black stool were defecated, which were old feces in her intestines. The numbness in her hands and feet had reduced and the edema in the feet had improved. She continuously talked about her conditions, without leaning to the left, indicating that the pain in her shoulder and neck had eased. She used to have the urge to rush out of the road to commit suicide when she went to work, but it was very strange that after taking the medicine, these weird thoughts and voices disappeared. During our conversation, she was no longer distracted like having a daydream. This time, she fully understood what I said. Her urination had improved a lot without the need to go to the toilet frequently. While she was taking medicine, her heart and chest felt a little tight. She told me that previously when she breathed, air could only reach her throat, but now it could go deep into her lungs or even down into the bottom of her lungs. Her pulse was still weak and her hands sweating had lessoned. The urine samples she brought in were mainly yellow, except for three or four bottles which were orange, indicting the discharge of stasis from her heart, which as a result, had strengthened her heart, reducing or even eliminating many related symptoms.
Stopped medicine suddenly and sought medical treatment again
At the second follow-up visit, her conditions regressed a bit, probably due to pseudo fever syndrome. Her shoulders and neck became strained again, her headache reappeared, her thoughts began to be confused and she had suicidal inclination again. Her defecation was worse with diarrhea for a few days. Her feet had edema and the clarity of her vision had greatly reduced. She had a mild fever, but her energy level was not bad. It was unfortunate that she stopped taking medicine for three days for no reason, which affected her progress. After resuming medicine, the situation quickly improved. Later, she no longer heard a voice telling her to rush off the road. She slept well at night, was able to control her urination and had a clear vision. Her shoulder and neck muscles were relaxed, and she had defecation every other day. She stopped imaging things and her words and behaviours became consistent. She could express herself accurately with very few mistakes. Despite satisfactory progress, she discontinued taking the medicine after nine visits. However, five months later, she came back for follow-up visit again.
This time, her conditions had improved a lot compared with the time when she first came here. Some old symptoms had disappeared, with only problems with her memory. For example, she would forget everything shortly after doing something or working on some documents. She would have a feeling that something had not been done but couldn’t remember what it was, a situation which happened before. She felt something strange with her right foot recently. There was pain in her toes when she sat and it hurt even more when she walked for unknown reason. Feeling that her pulse was weak, I explained to her that “these are all related to your weak heart, which cannot supply sufficient blood to your brain. The problems were all caused by the accumulation of blood stasis, which hinders blood circulation, presses on yours nerves and causes pain.”
A week later, at the eleventh visit, she felt her memory slowly recovering and her mind was clear. Before, when she typed, she could not type what she was thinking or typed something wrong. Now it had improved, she could type without errors. However, when teaching her daughter to read, a new problem arose. She was not confident to read out loud as she was worried she would read it incorrectly. That was caused by the same cranial nerve disorder, I believed this would improve after her brain stasis was discharged.
The patient had always suffered from nasal allergy, sneezing more than ten times in a row, with painful eyeball and twitching eyelids. After drinking medicine, the conditions began to alleviate. By the fourteenth follow-up visit, the pain in her toes had completely disappeared. However, probably because she was too busy, her thoughts started to become confused again and she often did things wrong. She would go to the sixth floor though her company was on the eighth floor. Her speech was incoherent, for example saying “he” when she wanted to say “I”. After putting something on the desk or finishing one task, she would forget everything after a while, showing obvious deterioration in her memory. I thought this was due to the disruption of the neural network in her brain by stasis and blockage, which led to failure to store memory. I suggested that she took an iron pill every day to enhance the transmission of electromagnetic waves. After taking it for a few days, her memory had greatly improved. During the treatment, her hands sweating had also greatly improved, with her palms being dry and warm most of the time, demonstrating her heart had been strengthened.
Excruciating headache and frequent nausea
A week before the 22nd follow-up visit, the patient had a headache that was excruciating. With something important to do, she took western medicine to temporarily suppress the pain. Later, the situation got worse. It felt like the top of her head was tightly squeezed and locked by a metal cover, along with feeling nausea. The symptoms disappeared four weeks later. During the period, she had a cough. I thought it was a cold cough resulting from her weak heart and lungs which caused the contracting of her trachea. I added some medicine to her prescription to expel pathogenic influence. Her whole body warmed up shortly after drinking the medicine, with the heat going straight to both ears. The warm current then went from her waist down to her feet, gradually warming up her whole body and cured her cough.
During the treatment, the patient had toothache. Since the root of the tooth had been removed, there should be no feeling. I thought it was just a neuralgia. After her business trip to the United States, the toothache disappeared. For her flatulence, she saw a gynecologist who took a colonoscopy for her. Results showed many air bubbles in her intestines, so she often farted. Continuous farting indicted the promotion of qi circulation, which would gradually reduce the bloating at the end. At the 40th follow-up visit, most of her illnesses had been cured, with only problems with her defecation, which happened every other day, frequent recurrence of nasal allergy with a runny nose and a blockage in her left ear, which made her very uncomfortable.
The patient continued the treatment until the 63rd follow-up visit when she told me that she was going to the United States and had no time to boil the medicine. She wanted to stop the medicine and see how her body would react. By then, the patient could defecate every day, hearing in her left ear had improved and her nose allergy had also improved a lot.
Six years later, the patient came to me for treatment for the second time, mainly for migraine, Ménière’s disease, constipation, night dreams, excessive sweating in hands, tightness in chest, back pain and other symptoms. After taking a few doses of medicine, the situations had improved. Her back pain and tinnitus had largely disappeared, tightness in her chest had been relieved, and her frequent enuresis nocturna had reduced from once every hour to three times over the night. The tensions in her shoulders and neck had become relaxed and her physical strength had gradually recovered. The only problems remaining were constipation and hand sweating.
At the third follow-up visit, the patient said her defecation had become smooth, but soon after it became worse again. Hand sweating and hair loss continued to improve. Before the fifth follow-up visit, the patient was annoyed by something and her left face felt numbness. Feeling anxious, she went to a private hospital and took an MRI, which cost her tens of thousands of dollars without any findings. I told her it was caused by her weak heart and cerebral ischemia. After her heart had recovered, she would become fine soon. As I expected, the numbness on her left face disappeared soon after. I also suggested taking ginseng to strengthen her heart. The effect was good and her conditions greatly improved. After the 26th treatment, she stopped medicine without saying a word. Most of her problems were basically solved, but I still hoped she would continue the treatment to strengthen her heart function and cure the multiple symptoms derived from her heart weakness.
The first treatment started on 16 March 2006 and ended on 24 January 2008, spanning one year and ten months with a total of sixty-three visits, during which medicine was stopped for about five months. The second treatment started on 5 September 2014 and ended on 27 March 2015, spanning a total of seven months with 26 consultations.
This article was written by Dr. Sik-Kee Au
June 27, 2017
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Medical case number: 060316