A Frightened 4-Year-Old With Seizures Who Went “Dull as a Fool” After Cold Medicines?

Opening scene: a child was frightened — and that is a disease

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Today we look at a case treated by Doctor Luo Tianyi (罗天益) — a childhood seizure from fright, with much to ponder. Children being frightened is something we meet all the time in life.

The patient was the son of Wei Jinfu, 4 years old, from a family that believed in Buddhism. One day the child was taken to the temple, and the abbot performed a blessing ceremony for him — as the monks chanted together, the child was suddenly terrified — the little one was greatly frightened.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Why are children so easily frightened? Because the nervous system is not yet mature. The temple had fierce, glaring guardian statues the child had never seen — a shock; then the chanting burst out with a loud “om” — and he was scared. When I was a child, my family bought a deck of animal flash cards; I turned one over and saw an African lion, all fuzzy, and I was scared out of my wits, crying hard — the adults had to hide the deck on top of the cabinet in front of me before I would stop.

Some children are frightened and nothing happens; others, once startled, their body changes — fever, all kinds of problems. Children who are easily frightened — this is a disease category of its own.

After the fright, this child: startled into convulsions (suddenly seized and twitching), phlegm pouring from the mouth (foaming), eyes rolled up showing the white (eyes rolled back), neck and back stiff and arched (arching backward), a gurgling sound in the throat, waking only after about an hour — by today’s description, very like an epileptic seizure.

What was worse: from then on, every time he saw a person in black clothes (like the monks), the attack would come on.

The wrong treatment: heavy settling “calm the spirit” herbs failed — and added a new disease

Doctors were called, and he was given zhu sha (cinnabar), rhinoceros horn, long gu (dragon bone), she xiang (musk), and other heavy, settling “calm the spirit” herbs — no effect. After forty-odd days the symptoms were unchanged, and a new one had appeared: a dull, dementia-like appearance (his gait and expression like a simpleton).

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The earlier doctors assumed heart fire and used cold, heavy settling herbs like rhinoceros horn to drain fire — but the more they cooled, the more they injured the yang; the upright qi grew weaker, and the child became dazed.

Only then was Doctor Luo Tianyi called in (he was very modest — he always wrote “I was ordered to treat him”).

Pattern analysis: grounding every move in the Huangdi Neijing

Doctor Luo Tianyi took the pulse: deep, wiry, and rapid (chen xian er ji). How did he analyze it? He quoted the Huangdi Neijing — the defining trait of Doctor Luo and his teacher’s school: theory must have a basis, found in the Inner Canon.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The Lingshu says: “When the heart pulse is full and large: epilepsy with convulsions”; and again: “When the liver pulse is small and urgent: epilepsy with convulsions” — epileptic seizures are connected to the heart and the liver, and to the emotions.

When the heart is frightened it easily produces this disease; the liver governs the sinews, so sinew problems seek out the liver. This child was frightened in the temple — the heart and liver received the pathogen.

Why is the child so easily frightened? His spirit qi is still weak, his upright qi insufficient (roughly what we’d call an immature nervous system) — therefore fright and terror, and the spirit has nothing to lean on (the mind has no anchor, and one shock derails it); it also stirs the liver (the liver governs the sinews), hence the twitching and convulsions.

The illness had gone on long, consuming the upright qi further; on top of that, he had taken many heavy, settling, cold medicines (rhinoceros horn and the like) — further damaging his qi — hence the dull, dementia-like state and the bigger problem that followed.

Treatment: moxibustion on the qiao mai points + Chenxiang Tianma Tang

Doctor Luo Tianyi then cited the Neijing on point selection for epilepsy, and added the invaluable experience of his teacher Zhang Yuansu:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The Neijing says that when epilepsy with cramping has “no known cause of the pain,” “the two qiao vessels are primary; yang for males, yin for females” — use the yin qiao mai / yang qiao mai (two of the eight extraordinary vessels, not the regular channel points).

Zhang Yuansu’s (the Elder Jiegu’s) experience is especially important:

• Attacks mostly in the daytime → use the Shen Mai point (BL62) of the yang qiao mai (in the depression just below the outer ankle, the starting point of the yang qiao mai)
• Attacks mostly at night → use the Zhao Hai point (KI6) of the yin qiao mai (in the depression below the inner ankle)
• Moxibustion method: 14 moxa cones per point (one cone is a small moxa stick lit and burned to completion)

The yang qiao mai starts at the outer ankle, governs the yang of the left and right sides of the body, and ascends to meet the yin qiao mai at the eyes; the yin qiao mai ascends from the inner side and also reaches the eyes. Problems of opening and closing the eyes, weak/cramped/relaxed lower limbs, and epilepsy all look to these two vessels.

Everyone, remember: for fright convulsions, epilepsy, and cramping, these two points must be remembered — this is the accumulated experience of the ancients. Doctor Luo Tianyi did moxibustion on the qiao mai points for this child.

After the moxibustion, he wrote the prescription: Chenxiang Tianma Tang (Agarwood and Gastrodia Decoction). Three doses, and the disease was cured!

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Doctor Luo Tianyi wasted no time — a child gravely ill for over forty days, cured in three doses.

The prescription: Chenxiang Tianma Tang — warm the yang, dispel wind, open the channels, regulate the qi mechanism

The formula: chen xiang (agarwood), chuan wu (aconite root), yi zhi ren (alpinia fruit), gan cao (licorice), jiang xie (dried ginger), du huo (angelica pubescens), qiang huo (notopterygium), tian ma (gastrodia), hei fu zi (black aconite), ban xia (pinellia), fang feng (siler), dang gui (angelica) — ground into powder and decocted with ginger slices; avoid cold raw foods and avoid sitting or lying in cold places.

Doctor Luo’s reasoning for the formula also came from the Suwen:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The Suwen, “On Painful Disorders”: “fear makes the qi descend” — when frightened, qi runs downward, and when the essence is exhausted the upper burner closes; “when it comes from below and ascends, lead it away from above” — when the disease rises from below, guide it with the body’s momentum and lead it out from above.

This child’s fright injured the kidneys (fear makes qi descend), yet the attack manifested above (phlegm in the head, rolled eyes, convulsions) — the disease was located above. Since the qi had gone down, I must use medicine to make it rise.

Breakdown of the formula:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The whole strategy: warm the yang + dispel wind and open the channels + regulate the qi mechanism. Why was this formula right? Because this child was yang-deficient (wounded by the cold medicines) — people with yang deficiency and weak mingmen fire are easily influenced by the environment when they enter certain places (Chinese folk custom says very young children shouldn’t attend funerals — for exactly this reason: children with weak yang should stay away). The previous doctor used cold medicines — the medicine was applied backwards — and Doctor Luo used warm herbs to repair the damage and warm the child’s yang.

Professor Zhao Shaoqin was also especially skilled at using wind herbs (fang feng, jing jie, bai zhi, du huo) to dispel dampness and open qi and blood in kidney disease — that experience came straight from these ancient masters.

The ancients used medicines with great economy — if one herb could do it, they never added more. Adding a spleen-tonic might have helped further, but the ancients were just this refined.

Modern takeaway: what to do when a child is frightened?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Children who are frightened are very common today — fever and all sorts of problems after a shock, sometimes with nowhere to turn. The ancients’ experience leaves us a precious inheritance:

• Examine from the angles of the spleen-stomach (is it strong?), yang qi (is it weak?), the channels (are they blocked?), and phlegm (is there phlegm inside?)
• Add the qiao mai points for regulation (Shen Mai BL62 for daytime attacks / Zhao Hai KI6 for night attacks)

Emotional and mood-type disorders are extremely common in children. Children today are generally not as robust as in ancient times, and are more easily affected by external stimulation. We must seek answers in the ancient medical texts to protect our children — for this category of disease, Chinese medicine’s results are especially good.

Case source: Wei Sheng Bao Jian (Precious Mirror of Health) by Doctor Luo Tianyi; commentary based on public lectures by Doctor Luo Dalun (PhD in TCM diagnostics, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine).