A headache is the phenomenon of pain in the head, and there is usually some underlying illness responsible for it. It is also, however, the symptom whose cause is hardest of all to identify. In Summary Headache divides into primary and secondary types, and it appears across an unusually wide range of disease systems. Neurological, […]
Headache Is Heat Above, Cold Below: Warming the Lower Body to Cool the Head
Setting constitution aside for the moment, let me continue with headache in general. In the previous article I explained that headache can arise from either an excess or a deficiency of energy. There is, however, one pathological feature common to both cases: sangyeol-hahan (上熱下寒) — heat above and cold below. In Summary Sangyeol-hahan means the […]
Is a Headache Too Much Energy, or Too Little? The Korean Medicine Distinction
Movement of the arms and legs keeps declining while the volume of information we are exposed to keeps rising, so mental and emotional labour increase. The head therefore carries a heavier load than it once did, and headaches inevitably multiply. It is a companionable sort of ailment for me personally, and a great many people […]
Is Cutting Out Meat Enough? Cholesterol and Dameum in the Gold Types
New to ECM? Start with What Is Eight Constitution Medicine? for the basics of the eight body types. Earlier articles looked at what dameum actually is — the metabolic residue of the body. In Korean Traditional Medicine (KTM), the traditional healing system of Korea also known as Hanbang (한방), dameum (痛飲) is the pathological waste […]
Vegetarian and Still Hyperlipidemic: The Taeumin Paradox
New to ECM? Start with What Is Eight Constitution Medicine? for the basics of the eight body types. An earlier article dealt with managing dameum in the Pulmotonia and Colonotonia constitutions. Today I want to take up something important about the types at the opposite pole: Cholecystonia and Hepatonia (목음·목양체질, the Taeumin types). If you […]
The Small Eater’s High Cholesterol: Why Soeumin Types Still Get Dameum
New to ECM? Start with What Is Eight Constitution Medicine? for the basics of the eight body types. Earlier articles worked through dameum (痛飲), the fluid stagnation that Korean Traditional Medicine (KTM) — the traditional healing system of Korea also known as Hanbang (한방) — regards as the root of many illnesses. Dameum goes beyond […]
Why the Best Digester Still Gets Dameum: The Pancreotonia Paradox
New to ECM? Start with What Is Eight Constitution Medicine? for the basics of the eight body types. Earlier articles looked closely at dameum (痛飲), the fluid stagnation that Korean Traditional Medicine (KTM) — the traditional healing system of Korea also known as Hanbang (한방) — treats as the root of many illnesses. Dameum is […]
What Swelling Actually Is: The Nature of Edema and How Anti-Swelling Creams Work
What is swelling — edema — actually made of? Edema is a phenomenon of stagnant water and fluid; more precisely, it is fluid such as lymph leaking out of the blood vessels into the surrounding tissue. The reasons lymph escapes the vessels are varied, but they are usually bound up with inflammation. In Korean Traditional […]
Which Constitutions Get Diabetes? All of Them — but by Different Roads
New to ECM? Start with What Is Eight Constitution Medicine? for the basics of the eight body types. Which constitution is most prone to diabetes? The short answer is that diabetes can arise in every constitution. What differs is the road each type takes to get there. In Korean Traditional Medicine (KTM), the traditional healing […]
Can You Replace Meals with Herbal Medicine? Only If You Have Dameum
A question I am often asked runs like this: “I have no appetite and my stomach feels bloated — can I just take herbal medicine instead of meals?” Or: “I’m too busy to eat properly — can I get by on pills instead?” To answer it, we first need to understand one of the important […]