I stated in my earlier blog that I will be discussing various Chinese herbs. An interesting concept in Chinese herbal medicine is that some herbs have different properties depending on how they are prepared. A good example of this is the herb rhemannia, which is the root portion of Chinese foxglove. In it’s unprepared state it has a cooling property and can be used for fevers, rashes and thirst. In this state it is called sheng di huang, or “unprepared yellow earth”. When it is steamed with rice wine it has a tonifying property - i.e. it strengthens the body, and can be used for dizziness, weakness and menstrual irregularity. When it’s prepared this way it’s called shu di huang, or “prepared yellow earth”.

People often ask when acupuncture would be used as opposed to herbs. Very broadly speaking, acupuncture moves energy that can be stuck. The most common example of this is pain. By definition we say in Chinese medicine that where there is pain there is stagnation of qi, and moving the qi - with our little magic needles - resolves the pain. If there is not enough energy in the body, if the gas tank is low so to speak, we need to ADD energy, and herbs are the quickest and easiest way to do this. The rice wine cooked rhemannia root, shu di huang, is one of the most powerful Chinese herbs to add energy to the body. In my previous blog the herb he shou wu, Mr. He’s black hair, is also in this category of herbs that strengthen the body. But unlike he shou wu, which is usually taken alone, rhemannia is more typical of Chinese herbs in that it is usually used in a recipe with many other herbs which act together to achieve a specific therapeutic result.