Can Only Get Out Half a Sentence, Chest Feels Blocked, Can’t Catch Your Breath? Doctor Zhang Xichun’s Notoginseng and Raw Malt Cure for Blood Stasis Shortness of Breath
Patient search terms: can only speak half a sentence then stop / qi won’t come up / can’t catch your breath / chest feels like something is stuck / worse after getting angry Medical terms: blood stasis shortness of breath · blood stasis of the liver channel · impeded breathing (blood stasis blocking the network vessels)
The opening: a strong 25-year-old, one heavy lift, and a strange illness
In Bali Village, west of the county town of Yanshan, there lived a young man named Liu Shulin. That year he had just turned 25 — the prime of life, a naturally sturdy fellow. His trade was bricklaying: hard labor, day after day. One day, out on a job, he threw himself into lifting a very heavy object with all his might. He overdid it, and at once felt pain under the ribs — deep inside, around the flanks on both sides of the body. The pain lasted a few days, then faded. It looked as though he had recovered.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Everyone, pay attention — the root of the illness was buried right here. Throwing your strength into a heavy lift, straining and pulling something, is what Chinese medicine calls “excessive effort.” The injury did not show at the moment. A few days later the pain stopped, but whatever happened inside never left — and that is why the illness that followed was so strange.
The strange illness: half a sentence, then the air runs out
The pain was gone, yet Liu Shulin kept feeling that something below his right ribs was interfering with his breathing — as if something was stuck inside the right side of the ribcage, blocking the breath, and the qi could never quite come up. Strangest of all: when he talked with people, he would often stop in the middle of a sentence. The qi would fail to come up; he would cut off halfway, and could only finish the second half of the sentence after catching his breath for a while.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Hearing this, some of our long-time readers might think: “Doesn’t this sound a bit like great qi sinking (da qi xia xian)?” Don’t rush — the two conditions are different, and we’ll discuss exactly how in a moment. This man’s illness had one more feature: whenever he encountered something infuriating, the symptoms clearly got worse — anger makes the liver qi unsteady, and the illness flares. His pulse was fairly calm, only slightly weak, not quite smooth and flowing.
The illness dragged on for half a year. Untreated, the man slowly collapsed — a fellow who had been so strong was now thin and feeble. How could one heavy lift reduce a healthy young man to this?
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The most typical picture of this illness: stops mid-sentence while speaking, feels resistance when breathing, always feels something stuck below the ribs. Now look at the clues: lifting something heavy, the ribs, the broken speech — how do they connect? Let’s see how Doctor Zhang Xichun reasoned it through. This is practically a masterclass in Chinese medical diagnosis.
Doctor Zhang Xichun’s thinking: blood stasis in the liver channel was the culprit
Doctor Zhang Xichun’s judgment was crisp and direct: this was “excessive effort, causing blood stasis that failed to return to its proper vessels (bu gui jing), lodged and obstructing the channels.” In plain words: when he strained to lift that heavy object, something inside was pulled and torn, leaving blood stasis (yu xue) between the channels — specifically, in the territory of the liver channel (gan jing).
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Because the stasis sat in the liver channel, it blocked the ascent and descent of the qi mechanism — the roads along which qi rises and falls were jammed. So every time he breathed, he felt something stuck in there. Doctor Zhang Xichun said: fortunately this man’s pulse was still fairly calm. Thin as he had grown, his upright qi (zheng qi) was still intact — easy to regulate. Just invigorate the blood and dissolve the stasis; as the stasis gradually melts away, the qi naturally flows smoothly again.
Why does blood stasis affect breathing? Ancient theory meets modern anatomy
Doctor Zhang Xichun did not make this judgment out of thin air. He gave two layers of reasoning. The first came from the classical texts: “Exhaling originates from the heart and lungs; inhaling is bound up with the liver and kidney.” Breathing itself is tied to the liver channel. The second layer he connected to Western anatomy: the pathways that air takes in and out, the vessels involved in respiration — all of these pass through the region the liver channel traverses. So when the liver channel is disturbed, breathing is disturbed too.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Feel it from everyday experience: when you breathe, is it only your throat doing the work? Not at all — the whole chest moves, the whole ribcage moves. Same with speaking: say a few sentences and you notice the chest and abdomen are both involved, especially the chest. So if there is an injury or blood stasis inside the flanks, breathing and speech naturally suffer — that is why he could only get out half a sentence, as if the qi would not come up.
Here is the crucial distinction: true great qi sinking (da qi xia xian) is a deficiency condition — the qi truly cannot rise because it is genuinely depleted. Liu Shulin’s illness had an element of deficiency, but the dominant problem was excess (shi): an injury inside, blood stasis, blocking the movement of qi. Speaking took effort, and he needed a pause before continuing.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: And why did anger make it worse? Because anger makes the liver qi unsteady; when that combines with the injured liver channel region, the illness flares — this is layering of disease factors. So remember this diagnostic pointer: if a person has been injured in the flanks — the band from under the armpits down to the top of the ribs — and has blood stasis there, they may speak with shortness of breath, feel the qi won’t come up, feel resistance when breathing, and always feel something stuck inside. That is a very clear indicator.
One more piece of experience for you: when this kind of stasis has gone on for a long time, the face will turn greenish (qing). Anyone who has lived in the countryside knows: many people don’t treat their ailments, they drag on and on; when stasis accumulates long enough, the face turns green and dark. See a greenish, dusky face, combine it with flank pain and obstructed breathing, add the tongue picture, and you can basically fix the diagnosis. And why does a person with blood stasis gradually grow thin? Because stasis blocks the movement of qi and blood and consumes upright qi — the body naturally wastes away.
The prescription: one herb, notoginseng, sent down with raw malt decoction
Doctor Zhang Xichun’s prescription was extraordinarily simple: four liang of notoginseng (san qi), ground to powder. Each dose: one and a half qian (about 4.5 g), sent down with a decoction of raw malt (sheng mai ya), three qian (about 9 g). Take twice a day — that is about 9 g of notoginseng powder per day, a decidedly large amount.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Don’t be alarmed by the dose — normally we recommend one or two grams of notoginseng powder, and that’s enough. The dose went up to four liang here because this man’s stasis came from an injury: internal trauma demands a heavy dose. In this case record Doctor Zhang Xichun says: notoginseng is the holy herb that stops reckless, runaway bleeding — when there is bleeding, it stops it; and it is also the holy herb that dissolves blood stasis — when channels are blocked with stasis, it breaks it up. What is more, dissolving stasis with it does not harm heart blood, and it can be taken alone for a long time without harm. Doctor Zhang Xichun’s own words: “This is a special product among medicines — its wonders are truly beyond imagination.”
Why is notoginseng a “holy herb”? The story of Guang san qi and Tian qi
Let’s first explain what Guang san qi means. Notoginseng was originally produced in Guangxi, in the district of Tianzhou — hence its other name, Tian qi. Today Guangxi notoginseng is extremely rare, almost gone; modern cultivation is essentially centered in Yunnan.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Why have I been recommending notoginseng powder all these years? Because I read Doctor Zhang Xichun’s books, used it bit by bit, and found it really works — so many patients have used it and felt markedly better. This shows that what Doctor Zhang Xichun wrote was truly hammered out in clinical practice. I have talked about notoginseng for many years and helped make the powder widely known among ordinary people; now you walk into any pharmacy and ask for notoginseng powder and it’s right there. That is genuinely gratifying. Doctor Zhang Xichun said he constantly used notoginseng to dissolve blood stasis, and in time even old, long-settled stasis would yield. In this case, he used the single herb notoginseng to dissolve the stasis below the ribs — at a somewhat generous dose, and it fit the situation perfectly.
The wonderful use of raw malt: soothing the liver, and shielding the stomach for notoginseng
You might ask: I can understand notoginseng, but why the raw malt? Doctor Zhang Xichun said raw malt is no small thing either. The malt most of us know is fried malt (chao mai ya), excellent for dispersing food stagnation. But malt used raw, boiled into water, can soothe the liver and regulate qi, and promote the growth and ascent of liver qi — a favorite trick of Doctor Zhang Xichun’s; in many formulas we’ve discussed before, he added raw malt.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The stasis sits right in the liver channel’s territory, so raw malt to soothe the liver and regulate the qi hits the mark exactly. Doctor Zhang Xichun also believed raw malt has the power to dissolve stasis — and his evidence is delightful: take a block of gypsum, set barley on it to sprout, and the malt roots grow tangled and interlaced, actually denting the gypsum. If a root can pierce gypsum, its stasis-dissolving strength speaks for itself. So whenever he met a patient with blood stasis, he often added a measure of raw malt to the formula to assist the blood-moving, stasis-dissolving action.
And so, in this case, Doctor Zhang Xichun had the patient brew raw malt in water and send down the notoginseng powder with it — which adds a new way to take notoginseng powder. Doctor Luo adds one insight Doctor Zhang Xichun did not write down: some people feel discomfort in the stomach after taking notoginseng powder; raw malt protects the stomach qi. Taken together, the effect is better — if you use notoginseng powder, this is a method worth trying.
The result: after four days, a purple blood came out of the nose
The prescription was given. What happened? Four days into the treatment, a purple blood clot came out of Liu Shulin’s nostril — a single string of purple blood. The moment it came out, his breathing began to feel smooth. He then finished the entire supply of medicine, and his body recovered suddenly and completely. In total, he had taken four liang — 120 grams — of notoginseng powder.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This is a fascinating case. See where the dissolved stasis went? It left through the nostril as a string of purple blood — tangible proof of stasis dissolving and draining out. The moment the purple blood came out, the blocked airway opened, the breath smoothed, and the illness was cured.
What to take away: two things to remember from today’s case
Two lessons from this case. First: if the body carries blood stasis, and the stasis sits in the liver channel, in the region of the flanks, it can obstruct breathing — the breath feels blocked; speaking feels like the qi is insufficient. In that situation it is not necessarily great qi sinking — an excess pattern with blood stasis can produce exactly the same feeling. Second: there is an excellent way to take notoginseng powder — brew raw malt in water and use that water to send it down. The stasis-dissolving effect is even better.
Based on the lectures of Doctor Luo Dalun (PhD in TCM diagnostics, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine) explaining the medical cases of Doctor Zhang Xichun; the case is from Yi Xue Zhong Zhong Can Xi Lu (Records of Integrating Chinese and Western Medicine).