Painkillers and food: why the same dose works quickly on one day and barely at all on another. How ingredient, formulation and your own gastric motility decide when relief arrives.
Pain Is How the Body Distributes Energy: Four Types of Pain and the Two Behind Them
Modern medicine sorts the types of pain into four mechanisms; Korean medicine into two states of qi. The two overlap — and together they show pain as a device for distributing limited energy.
Headache in the Cholecystonia Constitution: A Cold Lower Belly and Stagnant Qi
New to ECM? Start with What Is Eight Constitution Medicine? for the basics of the eight body types. Headache in the Cholecystonia constitution (목음체질) can be thought of along two lines: headache arising from a cold, sensitive lower abdomen, and headache arising when qi cannot disperse and stagnates — the headache that travels with low […]
Headache in the Hepatonia Constitution: When the Liver Gathers Too Much
New to ECM? Start with What Is Eight Constitution Medicine? for the basics of the eight body types. When you call to mind the average picture of each constitution, Hepatonia (목양체질) seems a long way from chronic headache. This is the most easygoing of the types, and the least given to minding how others see […]
Headache in the Vesicotonia Constitution: When a Weak Stomach Cannot Feed the Head
New to ECM? Start with What Is Eight Constitution Medicine? for the basics of the eight body types. Many people of the Vesicotonia constitution (수음체질) carry entrenched digestive disorders, and a good deal of their other illness derives from that source; minor ailments are frequent too. Having many small complaints is wearing — but it […]
Headache in the Renotonia Constitution: The Soeumin Who Lets It Out
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 […]