New to ECM? Start with What Is Eight Constitution Medicine? for the basics of the eight body types. Renotonia and Vesicotonia both belong to the Soeumin group, so people tend to understand the two as much the same thing. In fact the differences between them are reasonably clear. In Summary What the two share: abundant […]
Headache in the Gastrotonia Constitution: Strong Fire That Disperses Easily
New to ECM? Start with What Is Eight Constitution Medicine? for the basics of the eight body types. Gastrotonia (토음체질) is the rarest of the eight constitutions. Back when I was in clinical work I came across suspected cases from time to time, but never a confirmed Gastrotonia. Recently someone identified themselves to me as […]
Headache in the Pancreotonia Constitution: Fire from the Stomach, Held by the Liver
New to ECM? Start with What Is Eight Constitution Medicine? for the basics of the eight body types. At bottom, headache is an imbalance of energy — and its form is fire (火). Fire is the shape energy takes when it condenses and rises upward, and that is the root of headache. In Korean Traditional […]
Headache as a Complex System: Why the Cause Is So Hard to Pin Down
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 […]