Sweating Nonstop After Childbirth — Sweating at Every Sound or Hot Drink: Doctor Miao Xiyong Treats Postpartum Spontaneous Sweating by Nourishing Blood and Astringing Sweat, with Chao Suanzaoren (Stir-Fried Sour Jujube Seed) as the Chief Herb

Searched by patients: sweating a lot after childbirth / sweating after having a baby / sweating at the slightest movement / a whole-body sweat at any noise / sweating after drinking hot water / deficiency sweating / sweating both day and night Medical terms for this case: postpartum spontaneous sweating · sweating disorder · heart-blood insufficiency · yin and blood deficiency · postpartum deficiency and depletion

The opening: this famous doctor looked like Li Kui, yet examined patients with astonishing care

In the Ming dynasty there lived a famous physician named Doctor Miao Xiyong, courtesy name Zhongchun, a native of Changshu in Jiangsu. He looked like a knight-errant — a great bushy beard covering his cheeks, and a voice so loud that when he stood up and talked, the pots and pans hanging on the walls rattled and clanged. In appearance he was something like Li Kui or Lu Zhishen from Water Margin. Yet this rough, burly fellow examined patients with the finest of care — a classic case of “bold in judgment, fine in observation” (dan da xin xi).

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Doctor Miao Xiyong was a celebrated physician of the late Ming, author of Xian Xing Zhai Medical Notes (《先醒斋医学广笔记》) and Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing Shu (Commentary on the Divine Farmer’s Classic of Materia Medica), and one of the founders of the warm disease (wen bing) school. He was on very close terms with the Donglin faction of his day — even Gao Panlong (courtesy name Cunzhi), one of the founders of the Donglin Academy, was a good friend of his. Today’s story took place in the household of one of his fellow townsmen — and it is an excellent case for every woman who has ever given birth to hear.

Who is the patient? The wife of Yu Zhongfu, who had just given birth

The patient was the wife of Yu Zhongfu (于中甫). Yu Zhongfu and his brothers were respected men in Jintan, Doctor Miao Xiyong’s hometown — scholars, country gentry of standing. The fact that Doctor Miao Xiyong’s books could be published, and that he had people looking after him in daily life, owed much to them; in time all of them became his devoted admirers, and the friendship was very close.

On this day, the wife of Yu Zhongfu had just given birth — and after the delivery, something went wrong. What was the problem? Breathlessness — she was panting badly after childbirth.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: After Doctor Miao Xiyong grew old and passed away, the Yu brothers were still the ones who arranged his burial and settled his affairs — they were his true followers. Even figures as influential as Gao Panlong were among them. Behind cases like this stand real historical people — that is what makes these records so valuable.

Round one: postpartum breathlessness — three herbs, cured in a single dose

How did Doctor Miao Xiyong read the postpartum breathlessness? Panting means deficiency — after childbirth the qi is depleted, the qi is not enough, and so she panted.

He wrote a very simple prescription: ren shen (Asian ginseng) 5 qian, su mu (sappan wood) 5 qian, mai men dong (ophiopogon root) 5 qian — just three herbs.

• Ren shen paired with mai men dong — this is the Shen Mai Yin (Ginseng-Ophiopogon Drink) idea — tonifying qi and nourishing yin;
• Plus one more herb, su mu. What does su mu do? It regulates qi and dissolves stasis — it activates blood and removes stagnation. After childbirth one must resolve stasis; the lochia (e wu) must be discharged completely, so she was given su mu to help.

And the result? Cured with a single dose — one dose of medicine, and the breathlessness was gone.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Remember this Shen Mai Yin pairing — ren shen with mai men dong, tonifying both qi and yin. Postpartum breathlessness looks like the qi is insufficient; but notice that while Doctor Miao Xiyong tonified the qi, he was also thinking of resolving stasis — the stagnant blood that must be cleared after childbirth could not be left behind. The first round looks simple, but every detail reflects the special considerations of postpartum illness.

Five days later: suddenly, endless sweating

By rights the illness was cured and that should have been the end of it, right? No. Five days later it came back.

After those five days, the wife of Yu Zhongfu suddenly began spontaneous sweating without interruption (zi han wu jian) — day and night, sweating continuously. And the sweating was severe: by day or by night, the moment she heard any sound, she broke into a sweat; drinking a little hot tea or hot water also brought a whole-body sweat. The sweating was extreme.

That is very strange — why would she sweat so much?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Think about it — why does a noise or a hot drink bring on a whole-body sweat? This is absolutely not an ordinary “deficiency sweat” (xu han). The patient had just given birth, so everyone’s first reflex is qi deficiency — but if it were simple qi deficiency, tonifying the qi should have cured it. Why did tonifying qi fail later? There is more going on here.

Round two: tonifying qi and stabilizing the exterior did not work — the medicine was stopped after two doses

Doctor Miao Xiyong first treated her as qi deficiency. What did he prescribe? Ren shen 5 qian and huang qi (astragalus root) 5 qian — both tonify qi; then dang gui (Chinese angelica root) to nourish blood, and some sheng di huang (raw Rehmannia root).

The result? No effect after two doses. After two doses of medicine, the sweat still poured out.

Doctor Miao Xiyong said at once: Stop drinking it — stop the medicine!

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: See what a temperament this man had — he was a swashbuckler, his voice shaking the walls, yet in his clinical work he was meticulous, and in his prescribing he had firm principles: write two doses, and if the illness shows no response, stop immediately. When the medicine and the illness do not match, you cannot force it. This kind of “decisive stop-loss” discipline is something many doctors never learn in a lifetime — they keep telling the patient “take it a little longer and see” when nothing is working. That is not practicing medicine; that is gambling.

Advance, plan with the illness; retreat, plan with your heart: unable to see the patient, he went home and opened his books

What made it harder was that Doctor Miao Xiyong could not see the patient at all. Local custom in Jintan: a woman who has not completed her month of confinement after childbirth must not be examined and must not receive visitors. The lady had not yet finished her lying-in month, so Doctor Miao Xiyong could not enter the sickroom.

What to do? He came home and thought. As he thought, he looked through his medical books — turning the pages of the classics.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This is exactly the attitude so many Chinese medicine doctors today should adopt: live and learn, to the end of one’s days. You cannot claim to know every illness — the human body is too marvelous, and sometimes the symptoms are simply strange. Go home and open the books; see how the ancient physicians discussed it — whoever described something similar, and it matches what you were thinking, that gives you inspiration; the ancient doctors may well have faced the same illness. And when you find it, you feel extraordinarily happy. What is this called? The ancients had a saying: “Advance, and plan with the illness; retreat, and plan with your heart” (jin yu bing mou, tui yu xin mou) — when you enter the sickroom, you deliberate with the disease; when you step back, you deliberate with your own heart, mulling it over slowly. The more books you have at home, the more inspiration there is to find.

He found Zheng Zhi Yao Jue: “When stabilizing the exterior fails, the method is to tonify the heart”

Doctor Miao Xiyong opened a book — Zheng Zhi Yao Jue (Essential Formulas for Treatment). Who wrote it? Dai Yuanli (Dai Sigong, courtesy name Yuanli), a famous Ming physician, a transmitter of the lineage of Zhu Danxi.

What did Zhu Danxi’s school emphasize? Nourishing yin and nourishing blood. People usually say he taught “nourishing yin” — but much of it was really nourishing blood, nourishing blood and clearing heat: when a person’s blood is deficient there may be deficiency heat, so you supplement the blood and add something to clear the heat, and later generations lumped it all under “nourishing yin.”

In the chapter on treating sweating (zhi han men) of Zheng Zhi Yao Jue, Dai Yuanli wrote this line: “In all treatment of sweating, when stabilizing the exterior (gu biao) fails to work, the method is to tonify the heart.”

What does it mean? You use herbs that stabilize and protect the exterior (like huang qi) to treat the sweating, and they cannot hold it, they have no effect — then the method is to tonify the heart (fa dang bu xin) — you should proceed from nourishing the heart.

When Doctor Miao Xiyong read this — “That’s it!” (shi ye) — he was suddenly completely enlightened.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: And the line is right! Why? Sweat is the fluid of the heart (han wei xin zhi ye) — sweat is the heart’s liquid. The wife of Yu Zhongfu had always had a fiery temperament; she was not one of those weak, depleted people. After childbirth her yin-blood suddenly collapsed — giving birth means bleeding, and the yin-blood is suddenly lost in great quantity. The heart governs blood and the blood vessels; when the heart-blood suddenly loses its source, the heart is left without nourishment (xin wu suo yang); and when the heart is un-nourished and there is still some heat, the heart can no longer control the body’s fluids — so the sweat pours out. That is why at this point the treatment must be to nourish blood and astringe yin, to draw things inward and restrain them: once the heart-blood is replenished and the heart has strength again, it can control both the fluids and the blood, and the sweating naturally stops. Her condition was blood and yin deficiency with deficiency heat — the heart-yin and heart-blood were insufficient, the heart was left without nourishment, and so the sweating would not stop. This was a pathological sweat.

Breaking down the formula: chao suanzaoren, 1 liang, as the sovereign herb, followed by a train of blood-nourishing, yin-astringing herbs

The direction was set, and Doctor Miao Xiyong wrote the prescription. Doctor Luo Dalun says this formula made a deep impression on him — he has taught it in many places, and much of his experience comes from this very case.

The sovereign herb (jun yao) at the head: chao suanzaoren (stir-fried sour jujube seed), 1 liang (30 g) — 30 grams in a single dose, as the chief herb.

Then a string of herbs:

• Sheng di huang (raw Rehmannia root) and mai men dong (ophiopogon root) — nourish yin and draw the deficiency fire back in; mai men dong nourishes yin fluids and also cools the blood. Postpartum does not mean you may never use cooling herbs — she had deficiency fire and had always run warm; this is prescribing unfettered by rigid rules (bu ju yi ge);
• Bai shao (white peony root) — astringes yin (for postpartum patients, stir-fried bai shao is the usual form);
• Wu wei zi (schisandra berry) — astringent. Bai shao and wu wei zi are both sour and astringing (suan shou), restraining the sweat;
• Gou qi zi (wolfberry fruit) — tonifies the liver and kidney, nourishes yin and blood;
• Niu xi (achyranthes root) — tonifies the kidney; the new mother may have some low back soreness, and it strengthens the lower back and bones;
• Dang gui (Chinese angelica root) — nourishes the blood;
• E jiao (donkey-hide gelatin) — nourishes the blood and also stops bleeding;
• Mu li (oyster shell) — astringent, drawing things back in;
• Long yan rou (longan pulp) — at a very large dose. This herb has much to it: dried longan is reddish in color, and red enters the heart, nourishing heart-blood; its sweet flavor enters the spleen and tonifies the spleen — and the spleen is the source of blood. So long yan rou is a blood-nourishing, spirit-calming herb.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The most important herb in this formula is the chao suanzaoren leading the list — used at more than 1 liang to nourish the blood. This was Doctor Miao Xiyong’s hard-won insight: years earlier, in discussion with another great physician, Wang Kentang (the author of Zheng Zhi Zhun Sheng, Standards of Patterns and Treatment), the two of them arrived at the principle — “To nourish blood, one must use suanzaoren.” And as you all know, the Yu Ling Gao (Jade Cream) we often talk about is made chiefly of long yan rou. The whole formula: chao suanzaoren leads, nourishing blood; then sheng di huang, mai men dong, gou qi zi, dang gui, e jiao and long yan rou are all yin-and-blood nourishing; and bai shao, wu wei zi and mu li are all sour and astringent to restrain the sweat — one single idea: nourish blood and astringe yin, use sour astringency to stop the sweating.

The setback: thirty-two doses with no response, and the patient’s husband began to panic

The prescription was written, and the wife of Yu Zhongfu took it every day. What happened? Up to thirty-two doses, no effect — the sweat still poured out.

Yu Zhongfu began to worry: thirty-two doses and not the slightest response — could his wife’s illness be far more serious than they thought? Could she possibly… never get up again? He went to Doctor Miao Xiyong: Master Miao, shouldn’t we change the prescription, try something different?

Doctor Miao Xiyong said: No! Not at all!

He explained it to Yu Zhongfu: have you noticed — the qi-tonifying formula I gave earlier (ren shen and huang qi), no effect after two doses, and I stopped it at once. Why? Because when a medicine works right away, that means it matches the pattern (dui zheng); when a medicine has no effect, that means it does not match the pattern — the medicine and the illness do not fit, it was not prescribed right, so I stopped it immediately. But now I already know what this is: it is blood deficiency, and blood must be nourished; the blood is deficient with a little deficiency heat, which is why the sweating is so heavy. I have already found the root of the illness — so keep taking it, and do not be confused.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Why was Doctor Miao Xiyong so confident? Because yin-blood is slow to form (yin xue nan cheng). Think about it — tonifying qi is fast: eat some ren shen and within days the spirit is up. But nourishing blood is hard — yin-blood is slow to form and quick to be lost; losing it is easy, replenishing it is difficult, and it must be done little by little. One cannot demand results in a morning or an evening (bu ke ze xiao yu dan xi). To demand quick results would be impossible. So as long as the direction is right, settle in and nourish it slowly and steadily.

Yu Zhongfu heard this — this was the great physician he worshipped; being a devoted admirer, of course it was “whatever you say, we will take it” — he kept taking it, kept taking it.

The turning point: after forty-two doses, four days of deep sleep — waking completely cured

He took the medicine for ten more days, bringing the total to forty-two doses — almost a month and a half. Suddenly, the wife of Yu Zhongfu became extremely sleepy, sleepy beyond measure, and she fell asleep. The moment she slept, the sweat stopped; the deeper and sounder the sleep, the more the sweating receded.

How far did the sleep go? She slept for four days and four nights (the original text says “slept until the fourth day”) — probably waking now and then to eat a little and then sleeping again. After four days of sleep, she woke — and the illness was gone at a stroke: no more sweating, everything normal; and her complexion was rosy, her face unusually beautiful, even better than usual!

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Why? When the blood is sufficient, the complexion is good (xue zu ze mian se hao) — once the blood is properly nourished, the complexion naturally becomes radiant. It is like the many women who take Yu Ling Gao and after a while report “my complexion is better” — why? Because the blood is nourished, and the face gradually turns rosy. This case confirms it from the inside out.

Bonus one: outer beauty and inner beauty — two hours of makeup cannot match nourishing the blood

Taking this case as a springboard, Doctor Luo Dalun shared a “beauty lesson.”

Many women today have a poor complexion — blood deficiency, sallow faces. What do they do? They buy cosmetics: foundation, blush, elaborate routines — some girls spend two hours on makeup before leaving the house, talking about contouring and layering, where to draw what, until the face looks like a painting with depth and dimension. What is this? Outer beauty (wai mei rong) — the flower has withered, and instead of watering it, you paint it every night to look beautiful, spending two hours a day daubing and brushing until the color is strikingly lovely. Yet that very striking color is what is truly abnormal. We would never do that to a plant in the garden — but to ourselves, we all do it.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The truly superior approach is inner beauty (nei mei rong) — nourish the blood inside until it is sufficient, and the complexion naturally improves. This is a concept my mother put forward; she once collected many formulas and planned to publish a book, and she coined the term “inner beauty.” I think that is the real beauty — beauty from the inside out, genuinely healthy beauty. It beats spending two hours on makeup every morning and another age taking it off at night. Better to take the money and time you would spend on thousands of yuan of cosmetics, and use them to nourish your blood properly.

Bonus two: childbirth is a woman’s “great slide” — and nourishing blood is slow work

This case also reminds us: giving birth is, for many women, a great downhill slide for the body.

Childbirth generally involves blood loss. After the delivery the blood is suddenly deficient, and many women do not know to nourish it — Doctor Luo Dalun has seen far too many examples: blood deficiency left un-nourished, the body slides downhill, and from then on it never recovers. Many women reach middle age and feel something is off with their body — when did it start? It started after childbirth — they did not nourish themselves properly after giving birth, and the body collapsed. It is a pity so many women do not understand that this is something that must be nurtured back.

The case of the wife of Yu Zhongfu shows us a way and a process of “nourishing”: in round one, breathlessness — tonifying the qi cured it, but that made the yin-blood deficiency all the more obvious — quite likely Doctor Miao Xiyong could not enter to see the mother (custom forbade it), so he judged qi deficiency from what the family told him; the qi was tonified and recovered, but at the same time the yin-blood that also needed replenishing was not replenished, and so it became deficient. Then came the sweating: heart-channel blood deficiency, yin-blood insufficiency, with deficiency heat — the heat steamed the sweat out, and the heart had no strength to gather it back in.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Let me end with a common phenomenon in the course of nourishing blood — sleepiness. Many friends, after nourishing blood or tonifying qi, feel an overwhelming urge to sleep. Some people get sleepy after ren shen, others get sleepy when nourishing blood — this is the body asking for rest: once the body starts to adjust, it discovers the ammunition is low and the provisions are short, so it hurries you into rest to let it rebuild. This is the body’s instinctive response. I have had people ask: Doctor Luo, did you put sleeping pills in the Yu Ling Gao you recommended? Why am I so sleepy? I say, no, you have it backwards — being sleepy is right! When you are sleepy, be sure to sleep well; every sleep is a session of nourishing blood — this is the body giving you an opportunity. When you feel drowsy at night, go to bed early; especially on weekends, a long sleep until you wake naturally is best. As for the wife of Yu Zhongfu sleeping four days and four nights — that is an extreme case. Lying there sleeping soundly — that is nourishing. After four days and nights she woke with an extraordinary color, a rosy face, cured at a single stroke.

What we can take away from this case

Doctor Luo Dalun closed the case by summing up three points:

• What blood deficiency, especially heart-blood deficiency, can do — when the heart is left without nourishment, the sweat can no longer be held back; so “sweat is the fluid of the heart” is no empty saying;
• How to nourish the blood — long yan rou, chao suanzaoren, dang gui and e jiao are all blood-nourishing herbs; keep the direction right, nourish little by little, do not rush — yin-blood can only be replenished slowly;
• There will be reactions during the nourishing process — sleepiness is the body’s instinctive response; the process needs it, and when you are sleepy, sleep well.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Doctor Miao Xiyong looked like a knight-errant — the great beard, the thunderous voice — but his clinical care was astonishing: two doses with no effect and he stopped the medicine at once; unable to see the patient, he went home and opened his books; he found in Zheng Zhi Yao Jue the line “when stabilizing the exterior fails, the method is to tonify the heart” and was suddenly enlightened; and he remembered the principle he had discussed with Wang Kentang, “to nourish blood, one must use suanzaoren” — step by step, every move was the work of a careful mind. With the extreme practice of forty-odd doses, he showed us the entire process of nourishing blood. Friends, in your own recovery, you may draw on this appropriately. Every day I talk with you about one medical case, adding a few small points of knowledge — these are all true stories from ancient times, and I hope they bring you some help.

Compiled from Doctor Luo Dalun’s commentary on Doctor Miao Xiyong’s case, originally recorded in Xian Xing Zhai Medical Notes (《先醒斋医学广笔记》, Ming dynasty, by Doctor Miao Xiyong).