Always Feeling Cold, Like a Cold That Isn’t a Cold?

What people search for: always feeling cold / afraid of cold / like a cold that isn’t a cold / chills all over / catching “colds” at the slightest breeze / elderly overindulgence harming the body

In medical terms: kidney yang deficiency · depletion of essential qi · false cold · harm from overindulgence · crisis caused by mistaken treatment

Opening scene: a seventy-year-old man, one wrong dose, stiff as a board by the next day

In the late Ming and early Qing, the celebrated Jiangxi physician Doctor Yu Jiayan was summoned in a hurry to a household. In the bed lay a man in his seventies, his body already rigid, neck stiff, tongue stiff, his voice gone — from pulse to expression, not a thread of life remained. He was on the point of breathing his last.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Folks, this is a very special case from Doctor Yu Jiayan’s Yu Yi Cao — it is a failed case. In the end, the patient could not be saved. Yet Doctor Yu himself wrote it down solemnly, because it hides a great truth: the better your constitution, the easier it is to overindulge — and the success of a treatment is never only about writing the right prescription. Let’s start from the beginning.

Who was the patient: a thrifty, hardworking old gentleman — except in one matter, “improvident”

The old gentleman was surnamed Liu, styled Yunzhi — Mr. Liu Yunzhi. His family fortune was saved penny by penny: he had built it through hard enterprise, was especially frugal, did not smoke or drink, and hoarded every coin, slowly establishing the household. In the old days this was a character trait everyone praised.

But the old gentleman had one “habit”: at seventy he still fathered children without pause — past seventy, he kept up his marital life and never let it go. The ancients said “from seventy onward, life is a rarity”; a man of seventy-plus gets winded doing a round of tai chi, yet he was still full of enthusiasm. What does this show? His congenital foundation was excellent, his kidney qi abundant — Doctor Yu called it “the congenital yang kept close” (xian tian yuan yang gu mi). This is a gift from Heaven, inherited from parents, not something you train for later.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: There is a crucial principle here. A person born with abundant kidney qi, if he knows how to conserve and hide his essence deep — “concealed, never revealed” — can draw on it for a hundred years without exhausting it, and will surely live long. But this old gentleman? He was thrifty in everything else, and reversed in this one matter — he kept spending his essence, “constantly disturbing his yang.” What is yang for? It guards the exterior and builds the barrier (wei wai er wei gu) — it protects our body surface and sets up the defenses. Once yang is consumed, the barrier leaks, and the first wind that blows catches you.

How the illness began: a small summer discomfort, treated as “summer heat” with cooling herbs

That summer, with yang on the outside and yin within, was exactly the season to guard the yang. The old gentleman happened to feel slightly unwell — note that his eating and daily life were still normal; he was just a little off, probably the first stirring of an exterior invasion. The family called a doctor, who took one look and pronounced it “summer heat”! Following the path for a strong man with summer heat, he wrote out a stack of cold, cooling herbs: mosla (xiang ru), phellodendron (huang bai), gypsum (shi gao), anemarrhena (zhi mu), talc (hua shi), and plantago seed (che qian zi) — treating heat, and draining urine besides.

The medicine went down, and within moments the man was done for — lying rigid in bed, tongue stiff, unable to speak. When Doctor Yu arrived the next day, this was the scene from the opening of the story.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This is drug-induced harm! My judgment is that the old gentleman never really had an exterior invasion — someone with kidney qi already depleted (after years of indulgence) will show cold-like symptoms whenever the environment shifts even slightly. This is false. At such a moment, what should you do? Support the upright qi first. Instead, the doctor poured in cold herbs, and the little yang that needed protecting was wounded on the spot; the body spiraled downward. Advanced age plus severe kidney qi deficiency — put those two together with the wrong medicine, and a person really can collapse overnight.

Doctor Yu’s reasoning: “The illness itself is mild — but this is a drug error, and there is still time”

Facing that “stiff body,” Doctor Yu examined it and said something astonishing: this illness is mild in itself (though it looks critical) — because it was caused by the wrong medicine, and not much time has passed, I can still use medicine to chase this back!

He wrote: large aconite, dried ginger, ginseng, and atractylodes, 5 qian each, plus 3 qian licorice. Those in the know have already seen it — this is exactly the line of Fuzi Lizhong Tang (Aconite and Center-Regulating Decoction).

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The intention of this formula is perfectly clear: everything before was cold and cooling, so now we must use yang-warming herbs to dissolve the cold medicine’s effect — this is “walking in the opposite direction,” first treating the error of the previous prescription. At the same time, ginseng supports the upright qi, atractylodes strengthens the spleen, and aconite and dried ginger warm the yang, protecting the patient’s yang as fast as possible. It is exactly the opposite of what was used before.

The treatment struggle: the sons could not make up their minds, so Doctor Yu bought the herbs himself

The prescription was written, and the trouble began — the old gentleman’s sons debated back and forth and could not decide: can this medicine really be drunk? Doctor Yu was frantic: there is no time to waste on this! So he went himself to buy the herbs and decoct them with his own hands.

While it was boiling, the family said: first decoct a quarter, try it, and if nothing happens, boil the rest. When the medicine was ready and brought in, the previous doctor arrived again, went in and examined for a long time, then came out and said: this medicine cannot be drunk! Doctor Yu flew into a rage on the spot, publicly rebuked this quack to his face, then went into the room, supervised personally, and poured the medicine into the old gentleman’s mouth.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Look at this — Doctor Yu’s character: burning with earnestness for the patient, buying the herbs himself, boiling them himself, administering them himself, to the absolute limit. And yet reality is this absurd: the man trying to save lives is spinning in circles with worry, while the doctor who harmed the patient still gets listened to. Treating illness has never been only about writing prescriptions.

The turnaround: in the time a stick of incense burns one inch, the old man roared and woke

The medicine went down, and in the time a stick of incense burns one inch — the old gentleman suddenly roared out once and woke! He could speak! The voice was small and trembling, but he could truly open his mouth. He called his sons by their baby names and said: “I just went to see the prefect, and I’ve just come back.” — like waking from a dream. They asked him: “Who is treating you?” He answered: “Yu Jiayan of Jiangxi.” And he raised his hand and made a bow. Then he added: “There’s wind coming through the crack in the door — go stuff it.”

Doctor Yu was overjoyed and quickly boiled up the remaining three quarters of the medicine, wanting to strike while the iron was hot. But just then —

The most heartbreaking stroke: relatives talked every which way, and “sent home” the physician who could save him

The in-laws, the aunts, the whole extended family arrived, all talking at once: “Doctor Yu, please go home first! The old gentleman is fine, he’s doing well, let’s talk tomorrow!” — In truth they were afraid Doctor Yu would quarrel again with the previous doctor and cause a loss of face. Doctor Yu was “escorted” away, and the remaining three quarters of the medicine was never drunk.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: I tell you, seeing a patient is a terribly complex social act. When there are many people in the family, with too many opinions, and the aunts and uncles start shouting, even the best medicine never reaches the patient’s mouth. Sometimes the patient’s own mind wavers and the medicine cannot be continued. At the critical moment, a steady heart and someone in the family who can take charge matter more than anything. Unfortunately, this family had neither.

The ending: the old man passed away, and Doctor Yu grieved long

After Doctor Yu left, the previous doctor resumed his herbs. The old gentleman’s voice went hoarse again, he could not speak, his senses clouded once more — and two days later, he died.

Doctor Yu sighed without end. He summed up the case: within — fathering children at seventy without pause, steadily draining kidney essence and yang; without — hiring a quack to hold the power of prescription. His eldest and second sons had both been killed by quacks’ wrong medicines; and now the old gentleman himself had hired another quack. The great axe was chopping from outside, the family was chopping from inside, and with relatives shouting on every side, every hope of life was cut clean.

Lesson one: those who can overindulge are usually those with the best constitutions

Doctor Luo Dalun draws three lessons from this case, each worth remembering.

First, the people who can overindulge are usually the ones with excellent conditions. Have you noticed: the sickly, ailing people sometimes live very long; while the people with superb constitutions, when a serious illness comes, collapse in an instant.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Why? Because he indulges more easily than others! Some indulgences you never see — on the surface he exercises and looks great, but the private drain, he knows. People who drive battered old cars rarely have accidents, because they drive slowly; people with luxury cars floor the gas pedal. A good constitution is never a license to overindulge.

Lesson two: why were the ancients so careful about marital life? The oil lamp and the rhythms of nature

Second, on marital life, the ancients were far more serious than we are. Chinese people are embarrassed to talk about it, but the ancients cared deeply. In high antiquity there were dedicated books on “the art of the bedchamber” — note that it did not teach indulgence; it taught how to arrange life more scientifically and reasonably — it was a way of preserving health.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The ancients drew a wonderful metaphor: a person is like an oil lamp. The oil is finite. You cannot burn it recklessly; burn fast, and you die early. Look at nature: animals follow rhythms — they reproduce in spring and live normally in other seasons. People with good conditions can, in principle, do it year-round… but if you use it hard because you can, you are spending not just a little protein but the accumulated strength of the whole body. Nowadays people say “semen is just protein, it doesn’t matter” — I have seen too many young men who overindulged: at fifty their bodies are a wreck, some of them worse than dead. The ancients were right.

Lesson three: people with insufficient kidney qi often have “false colds”

Third, people with insufficient kidney qi and depleted kidney essence frequently have cold-like symptoms. They always feel cold; the wind makes them colder than others; the nose sounds stuffy; chills run over the whole body — it seems like a cold — but it is a false cold.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Because kidney yang is insufficient, the yang that guards the body surface weakens and the barrier leaks wind. At such a moment, to treat it as a cold — cooling it, sweating it — is a grave mistake; that is exactly how the old gentleman was mistreated. The correct approach is supporting the upright qi first, building the kidney qi back up. Doctor Yu’s prescription had one more refinement: first use warming yang to dissolve the previous medicine’s effect and lock the yang in place; once the patient had stabilized, the next step would have been to add cooked rehmannia (shu di huang) and cinnamon (rou gui) — herbs that replenish kidney essence and gather the floating deficient yang (this is Doctor Zhang Jingyue’s approach). But there was no time: the family would not allow it.

Epilogue: wounded and wiser, the transformation of Doctor Yu’s later years

This case pained Doctor Yu for a long time. In his early practice his technique was already outstanding, but because his manner rubbed people the wrong way and his reputation was not yet great, patients often did not trust him, and his rescues were constantly discounted — he met many such failed cases in his early years. Wounded and wiser, Doctor Yu made a decision for the second half of his life: open schools, give lectures, spread medical knowledge — to enlighten the public.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Why should ordinary people learn a little medical common sense? At least you should be able to tell yin from yang and cold from heat, and never get the big direction wrong; have someone in the family who can take charge, recognize a good physician, and cooperate with treatment. When several sons cannot agree, and relatives make trouble on top of that, even a good disease cannot be cured. A good constitution is a blessing; but the better the foundation, the more you need restraint — spend your essence sparingly, hide it deep, and it will last a hundred years without running out.

What to take away

• Feeling cold all the time, with a stuffy nose and chills, is not always a real cold. In elderly or kidney-deficient people it is often a false cold — the exterior barrier of yang has leaked. Support the upright qi (warm the kidney yang); do not pour in cooling herbs.
• Cold, cooling formulas (gypsum, phellodendron, mosla, talc, plantago) are dangerous for the frail and elderly. When someone’s constitution is already depleted, a single wrong dose can be fatal — literally overnight.
• A good constitution is not a license to overindulge. The ancients’ “art of the bedchamber” was about reasonable restraint; the oil lamp burns its finite oil — burn it recklessly and you die early.
• In a crisis, someone in the family must be able to take charge. Too many opinions, relatives shouting, and the best medicine never reaches the patient’s mouth. Know enough to tell a real physician from a quack.

Compiled from Doctor Luo Dalun’s commentary on Doctor Yu Jiayan’s case, from Yu Yi Cao (Records of Ideas and Intentions).