The Bleeding Stopped, but His Chest Stayed Hot and Painful with No Appetite?
Opening: the bleeding stopped, but the patient felt worse
Today’s case is a lesson that makes you sweat. A young man was vomiting blood. After two months of treatment, the bleeding finally stopped — the whole family breathed a sigh of relief — but then the patient developed something new: his chest felt stuffy and hot, with a dull ache that came and went, and he had no appetite at all. He didn’t want to eat anything. Was this a cure or a disaster? The family had run out of options, so they called in Doctor Zhang Xichun.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Everyone, this is the point of today’s story — the blood was stopped, yes, but stagnant blood may have been left behind in the body. Stopping the bleeding yet leaving a root of disease behind is more troublesome than the original bleeding itself. This case of Doctor Zhang’s is precisely about teaching us how to see through that.
Who was the patient? A vomiting-blood youth from Datongguan, Fengtian
The patient was a young man surnamed Wang from the Datongguan area of Fengtian — present-day Shenyang in the northeast. What was his illness? Vomiting blood. Vomiting blood was common in the old days. Where did the blood come from? Sometimes from the lungs, sometimes from the stomach. In this boy’s case it most likely came from the stomach. He had been treated by physicians on and off, taking medicine for two months, until at last the bleeding stopped.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Vomiting blood is an acute, severe condition that used to be very common. Blood from the lungs is hemoptysis (coughing blood); blood from the stomach is hematemesis (vomiting blood). The paths differ, so the treatments differ. This boy’s blood very likely came from the stomach — in other words, gastrointestinal bleeding.
Where was the root of the problem? The bleeding was stopped too “urgently”
But the price of “no more bleeding” was enormous. Doctor Zhang Xichun saw it at once on diagnosis: when the boy was vomiting blood, the physicians had prescribed too many forceful blood-stopping herbs — medicines whose whole job was to block and bind the blood. The result? The blood stopped, yes, but the stagnant blood that should have been expelled never left the body. Stagnant blood remained inside. It blocked the channels and settled between the organs, becoming a brand-new focus of disease: hence the stuffy, hot, painful chest and the completely ruined appetite.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This is what we call “stopping the bleeding but leaving stasis” — using powerful hemostatic herbs to force the bleeding to stop, without dissolving the blood that has already left its vessels. Stagnant blood left in the body blocks the circulation of qi and blood and spins off a whole list of new symptoms. The ancients’ lesson: when you stop bleeding, don’t just think about “blocking” — you also have to think about “dissolving.”
The prescription: nourish yin and blood, strengthen the spleen and regulate qi — plus one “great general for dissolving stasis”
How did Doctor Zhang treat it? He wrote a formula to nourish yin, nourish blood, strengthen the spleen and regulate qi — the exact herbs are not recorded in his book, but it was a line of medicines covering yin-nourishing, blood-nourishing, spleen-strengthening and qi-regulating herbs. The real point, though, was not the formula itself but the way it was taken: send down fine sanqi (notoginseng) powder with the strained herbal soup — 2 qian, that is, 6 grams. Twice a day, 2 qian (6 g) each time. The first decoction of the soup accompanied one dose; the second decoction — the soup from the second boiling — accompanied the other.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This method is refined: the nourish-yin, nourish-blood, strengthen-spleen, regulate-qi base builds up the upright qi; the sanqi, ground into a fine powder and taken with the soup, gradually dissolves the stagnant blood bit by bit. Doctor Zhang used sanqi with consummate skill — it can both stop bleeding and keep stagnant blood from remaining in the body.
A twist in treatment: after four doses, he vomited blood again!
After four doses, a frightening scene: the boy started vomiting blood again! The whole family was terrified — after two whole months of finally stopping the bleeding, why was it back?
But wait. Doctor Zhang looked at the blood and felt secretly pleased: this blood was different from before — its color was dark purple-black. And after vomiting it, the stuffy, hot pain in the boy’s chest seemed noticeably lighter.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Everyone, this is the key — what came out was not fresh red blood, but dark purple-black stagnant blood that had been sitting in the body all along! The stagnant blood was being dissolved and expelled; the blocked places opened up, so the stuffy heat and pain eased. Doctor Zhang called this a good omen — a sign of healing.
He vomited blood once more — and the illness was completely cured
Then, still on the same formula, he took several more doses. The boy vomited blood one more time — and after that, the illness was completely cured. Fully recovered, once and for all.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Watch the rhythm: the first vomiting of blood was “dissolving,” the second was “clearing.” The stagnant blood was expelled in batches until it was thoroughly gone, and the person was completely fine. That is why Doctor Zhang said this case is enough to prove the stasis-dissolving power of sanqi.
Doctor Zhang’s verdict: why is sanqi so miraculous?
How did Doctor Zhang Xichun evaluate this treatment? He said: sometimes we have an external injury, or stagnant blood forms in the body for some other reason; when that happens, if a pile of hemostatic medicines is used and the stagnant blood is not properly expelled, it remains inside — a day or two is no problem, but leave it for many years and it will produce all kinds of new diseases and wreck the body. And sanqi? It stops the bleeding on one hand, and on the other hand it does not leave stagnant blood in the body.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Doctor Zhang summed up sanqi’s miracle in two sentences. First, it stops bleeding without leaving stasis — it halts the bleeding for you, yet leaves no stagnant blood behind. Second, it dissolves stasis without leaving stasis — it breaks up the stagnant blood without creating new bleeding, cleaning the stasis out completely. One herb, both ends covered — that is what makes sanqi truly extraordinary.
Extension story: after the health show, Beijing’s Tongrentang sold out of sanqi
Doctor Luo Dalun once devoted an episode of Yang Sheng Tang (the health program on Beijing TV) to sanqi. After it aired, sanqi sold out at many pharmacies across Beijing — including many Tongrentang stores. Countless people followed the show and took sanqi themselves, and some genuinely cured diseases they had been carrying for years.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Why did it catch fire like that? Because ordinary people finally understood the principle: some illnesses are caused by stagnant blood — dissolve the stasis and the illness is cured. Sanqi is that herb which can dissolve years-old stagnant blood without harming the fresh blood.
Extension story: a grandma’s twenty-year knee pain, cured in four weeks
There was an elderly lady in Shijingshan, Beijing, who wrote a letter to Beijing Television. In the letter she said: “My knees have ached for twenty years. Everyone treated me for rheumatism — twenty years of pain, twenty years of treatment. Rheumatism medicines tend to be harsh, and they ruined my stomach; now I can’t even take medicine anymore, and the knee pain hasn’t improved at all.”
Later she watched Doctor Luo on television talk about Doctor Zhang Xichun — how sanqi can dissolve stasis, not leave stagnant blood in the body, and can dissolve stagnant blood even inside the bones. The lady thought: exactly — isn’t my illness exactly what Doctor Zhang described? She bought sanqi powder herself and started taking it. After two weeks, she felt the pain moving outward from deep inside the bone seams; she applied cupping jars to her knees, and the skin turned green-black — the stagnant blood was being pulled out! She continued for another two weeks, and the pain came out completely, with the skin color returning to normal. Four weeks — and twenty years of knee pain were gone.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: In her letter the lady said this illness “hurts the patient and hurts the doctors” — it hurt the patient by aching for a full twenty years, and it hurt the doctors because so many of them never thought that stagnant blood could be sitting in the body; they misdiagnosed it as rheumatism and tarnished their own reputations. She said: “I’m writing this letter to tell you that Doctor Zhang Xichun was right — stagnant blood left in the body truly causes long-term disorder, and sanqi truly can draw out years-old stagnant blood.” That letter is still kept in Doctor Luo’s home to this day.
Closing: the ancients had already explained the principle
Doctor Luo says he was deeply moved. When ordinary people understand this principle, many of them cure their own illnesses. Why? Because the ancients had already explained the principle clearly — we only need to study a little, and we can use these simple medicines around us to regulate our own bodies.
💬 Note from Doctor Luo: So remember today’s lesson: when you are injured or bleeding, the hemostatic medicines you take may leave stagnant blood behind in the body, and if that stasis lingers long enough, the body will develop all kinds of problems. And sanqi? First, it stops bleeding without leaving stasis. Second, it dissolves stasis without leaving stasis. That is the miraculous quality of sanqi — and the entire lesson of today’s case.
What to take away
- Stopping the bleeding is not the end of the story. Forceful hemostatic herbs can block the blood while leaving stagnant blood trapped inside — and that retained stasis becomes a new source of disease: stuffy chest, pain, loss of appetite, and much more over time.
- Sanqi (notoginseng) is the two-sided hero: it stops bleeding without leaving stasis, and it dissolves stasis without creating new bleeding. Doctor Zhang Xichun considered this its most remarkable quality.
- Dark purple-black blood is a good sign when dissolving old stasis. When treatment causes old, dark, clotted blood to come out — followed by relief — that is the body clearing out what was already there, not new bleeding.
- Long-standing pain may be stagnant blood, not rheumatism. The Shijingshan grandma’s twenty-year knee pain resolved in four weeks once the real cause — stagnant blood in the bones — was addressed with sanqi.
Case source: Records of Chinese Medicine with Western Reference by Doctor Zhang Xichun; commentary based on public lectures by Doctor Luo Dalun (PhD in TCM diagnostics, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine).