Child Thin and Pale, With Stomach Pain and Dry Stools? Doctor Luo Dalun Reads the Tongue: Yin Deficiency With Insufficient Qi and Blood — Nourish Yin First, Then Strengthen the Spleen

Opening: today’s tongue photo comes from a 4-year-old boy

In Doctor Luo’s children’s tongue-diagnosis class, one tongue photo is analyzed each day, and parents’ questions keep coming in. Today’s little friend — the parents’ description is very detailed, and the more you listen, the more your heart aches for him.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Dear parents, hello everyone. Today we continue analyzing children’s tongue photos. Many of you have sent in questions. This parent writes: my little boy is 4 years old — a little boy, 4 years old — he is thin, his complexion is poor, his lips are pale, he sometimes has stomach pain, his stools are dry, and he looks malnourished overall.

Thin, poor complexion, pale lips, stomach pain, dry stools — each signal alone seems minor, but put them together and you get the face of “malnutrition.” Yet the child eats every day — so where does all the nutrition go?

A poor complexion: look first at the spleen and stomach — the stomach channel runs across the face

Doctor Luo’s first sentence points out the big direction for reading a complexion.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: A poor complexion — what does that tell us? It tells us this child may have insufficiency of the spleen and stomach. Because the complexion is linked to the face, and the face is linked to the stomach. Remember, this is a theory of Chinese medicine: the stomach channel runs across the face, so when a person’s complexion is poor, the first thing to consider is the state of the spleen and stomach. Being thin indicates that the upright qi is insufficient and digestion may not be good.

Poor complexion → think spleen and stomach; thin build → insufficient upright qi, digestion may not be good; pale lips, stomach pain, dry stools → all gastrointestinal problems. The direction is set — but one crucial step remains: look at the tongue.

First glance at the tongue: this tongue is not oval — it comes to a point

As soon as the tongue photo comes out, Doctor Luo looks at the shape first.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: First look at the shape of this child’s tongue. A normal tongue should be oval. What about this little one’s? It is a bit pointed. So what does that tell us? The child’s emotions may have a problem. What kind of emotion? There may be quite a bit of pressure.

A pointed tongue = pressure. This old friend has appeared again and again in the tongue-diagnosis class, but this time Doctor Luo explains more thoroughly where the pressure comes from.

Where does the pressure come from? An entrepreneur’s story explains the family atmosphere

First, a true story that made the whole room gasp.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: I have mentioned this kind of situation before — it could be that the child’s blood is heavy, or it could be that the atmosphere at home is tense. For example, if the parents have very heavy work, they bring that atmosphere home with them. I have seen many families like this. Once, the wife of an entrepreneur — the wife of a very, very big entrepreneur — told me that whenever this entrepreneur came home, everyone in the family held their breath, including the entrepreneur’s own parents; and in the morning when he left for work, everyone exhaled with relief. So do you think the people in that household can feel the pressure in such an atmosphere? Of course they can.

Adults think they hide it well — but the child’s tongue knows everything. Besides the family atmosphere, there is another layer: the mother’s pregnancy.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What other causes are there? It can also be that the mother had bad emotions during pregnancy — right, stress — and that gets passed on to the child. That is another cause.

Why does constrained liver qi injure yin? Wood generates fire, and the fire dries up the yin fluids

A stressed child is called, in Chinese medicine, having constrained liver qi (gan qi bu shu). But constrained liver qi is only the starting point — behind it comes a chain reaction.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What does Chinese medicine call this? Constrained liver qi. And what problem does constrained liver qi most easily cause? It most easily turns into fire — heat. Because the liver belongs to wood; when wood is constrained for a long time it bursts into fire, it catches fire — wood generates fire, right? So it easily produces fire. And once there is liver fire, it injures yin. Because fire and heat dry up the yin inside the body — yin is the material basis of moistening, the body fluids, all kinds of liquids — they get dried out, and so yin is injured.

Liver belongs to wood → wood long constrained turns to fire → fire consumes yin fluids → yin deficiency. This chain connects “pressure” with “a dried-out body.” Children like this tend to have red tongues.

The raised red thorns on the tongue: the signal light of internal heat

Look at this child’s tongue: the color is on the red side, and many raised red dots cover the surface. Doctor Luo says these red dots are the evidence of internal heat.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: With this child’s tongue, I believe it must have been red before, and it still carries red now — just redder and darker than other children’s tongues. Why doesn’t it look that red now? Because after his upright qi was injured, his qi and blood became insufficient, so gradually it looks like the blood is insufficient and it is not so red. That is why the lip color is not so bright red either. So at the beginning this was yin deficiency; then, as the yin fluids were consumed and consumed, even the blood — blood actually belongs within yin — became insufficient, and that is what makes the color turn pale. Once the blood is nourished enough, the tongue will turn red again right away.

Here is the key: blood also belongs to yin. When the yin fluids are dried up, the blood runs short along with them — pale lips, a tongue not red enough, all come from this.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: And what is the most important trace here? This child’s tongue has many raised red dots on the surface — can you all see them? If his tongue’s blood color came up, these red dots would be very red, standing there like thorns. That is the manifestation of internal heat. So children like this have internal heat.

Dry stools are yin deficiency, stomach pain is constrained liver qi — every signal lines up

Check the symptoms one by one, and the logic is perfectly clear.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: He has internal heat and yin deficiency, so his build tends to be thin. Poor complexion and pale lips mean the blood is insufficient — qi and blood are insufficient. Stomach pain is related to constrained liver qi — people with constrained liver qi often have stomach pain. Dry stools are also yin deficiency — the fluid in the body is insufficient, and that is what happens.

Thin, pale face, stomach pain, dry stools — four symptoms, two roots: one end is constrained liver qi, the other is yin deficiency, and together they finally gather into insufficient qi and blood.

Mom, don’t panic: this is all disorder, not a serious illness

Hearing all this, the child’s mother’s heart rises to her throat — so many problems, how do we adjust them all? Doctor Luo first gives a reassurance.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: By this point, the child’s mother must be getting scared. Oh my, why has Teacher Luo listed so many problems? Everyone, these are all just disorders — don’t worry, we can adjust them back, little by little.

Rule one of adjustment: with a red tongue and thorns, hold off on Ba Zhen Mi

Many parents’ first reaction is: hurry up and tonify! Doctor Luo says — don’t rush to tonify, look at the tongue first.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: For children like this, remember: a tongue this red means there is heat inside. I introduced Ba Zhen Mi (Eight-Treasure Rice) before, right? For a tongue that is red, hot, and thorned like this, do not eat the Ba Zhen Mi. Why? Because Ba Zhen Mi is mild and contains tonifying ingredients — and at this time you should not tonify lightly. The moment you tonify, the heat gets even stronger.

Method two: avoid hot-natured food, and use sheng di, sha shen and mai dong to replenish yin

If not tonifying, then what? Nourish yin.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: At this time, the best thing is to nourish yin. For example, this kind of child should not eat beef or lamb, and no spicy food; eat duck, pork — things like that are fine — and lotus root, the cooling foods. Best of all, use a Chinese herbal formula to nourish yin: for example sheng di (unprocessed Rehmannia root), sha shen (Adenophora root), mai dong (Ophiopogon root), plus huai shan yao (Chinese yam), yi mi (coix seed), qian shi (Euryale seed) — these are the spleen-strengthening ingredients, nourishing the spleen yin. As long as herbs like sheng di, sha shen and mai dong are in there, the yin can slowly be replenished. Once the yin is adjusted back, the thorns will gradually subside.

Sheng di, sha shen, mai dong nourish yin; huai shan yao, yi mi, qian shi strengthen the spleen yin — nourishing yin and strengthening the spleen together, and the red thorns naturally step off the stage.

The way to nourish blood is to strengthen the spleen: when the spleen is sufficient, blood comes on its own

There is one more account to settle: the blood is still insufficient — how do we nourish blood?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: How do you nourish blood? Everyone, the way to nourish blood is to strengthen the spleen. In this formula, the one that nourishes spleen yin contains sheng di, sha shen and mai dong, and also huai shan yao, yi mi, qian shi and so on. These ingredients strengthen the spleen. When the spleen is strong enough to absorb those nutrients, the blood slowly begins to become sufficient.

Nourishing blood does not rely on red dates and donkey-hide gelatin — it relies on raising the spleen: when the spleen can absorb nutrition, blood generates itself. This is what Doctor Luo calls “nourishing blood means strengthening the spleen.”

Play more, pinch the spine, add a yin-nourishing formula — the child will come around gradually

Finally, here is the complete advice for this 4-year-old boy; parents can follow it step by step.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: First, this kind of child should not eat hot-natured things — no beef, lamb or spicy food. Then take him out to play more, let him relax — at 4 years old, just play a lot. For nie ji (pinching the spine), you can pinch his spine now and then to boost spleen and stomach function. Then add a yin-nourishing formula — for example sheng di, sha shen, mai dong — combined with an approach like Ba Zhen Mi, adding huai shan yao, yi mi, qian shi, lian zi rou (lotus seed) and so on, to strengthen the spleen. In this way the child’s body will slowly, slowly come around.

Going out to play, pinching the spine, nourishing yin and strengthening the spleen — three measures together, unhurried and steady.

Wrap-up: the four tongue-reading points reviewed today

At this point, Doctor Luo strings together the knowledge points of this lesson, and parents can memorize them as a formula.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What did we introduce today? First, the snake-tip point — the pointed tongue shape. Second, the tongue body color is somewhat red. The coating is very thin — what does that mean? It means the stomach qi is very weak, the spleen and stomach are weak. And the red thorns — today we introduced these red thorns; what do they represent? They represent heat inside the body. Parents must learn to recognize these signs. Once you learn them, I think you will have a good sense of what is going on in your child’s body.

Let us string the knowledge points together once more: first, a poor complexion points first to the spleen and stomach — the stomach channel runs across the face; second, a pointed tongue, like a snake’s tip, is a signal of constrained liver qi and stress — the pressure comes from an innately sensitive temperament, a tense family atmosphere, and also the mother’s emotions during pregnancy; third, constrained liver qi turns into fire, liver fire injures yin, and when the yin fluids are dried up even the blood runs short — blood belongs to yin, which is why the child’s lips are pale and the tongue is not red enough; fourth, the raised red dots on the tongue (red thorns) are the signal light of internal heat — when qi and blood are sufficient they stand bright red like thorns; fifth, dry stools are yin deficiency with insufficient fluids, and stomach pain is constrained liver qi; sixth, the first rule of adjustment is dietary restraint — with a red, thorned tongue, do not eat Ba Zhen Mi, avoid beef, lamb and spicy food, use sheng di, sha shen and mai dong to nourish yin, paired with huai shan yao, yi mi, qian shi and lian zi rou to strengthen the spleen; seventh, nourishing blood means strengthening the spleen — when the spleen is sufficient, blood comes on its own; eighth, play more, pinch the spine, relax — and the child will be adjusted back little by little. When parents learn to read these signals, they will know what is going on in their child’s body.

Compiled from Doctor Luo Dalun’s children’s tongue diagnosis lecture series.