Sneezing, Clear Runny Nose, and a Stuffy Nose? Allergic Rhinitis and Huang Yuanyu’s Jie Geng Yuan Shen Tang (Platycodon and Scrophularia Decoction) That Regulates the Rise and Fall of Qi — Doctor Luo Dalun Explains

Patient search terms: allergic rhinitis / sneezing in bursts / clear runny nose / stuffy nose / hay fever / Huang Yuanyu / Jie Geng Yuan Shen Tang / regulating the rise and fall of qi

Corresponding medical names: allergic rhinitis of the qi-yang-deficiency and insecure-defensive-qi pattern · cold-type rhinitis with clear nasal discharge · nasal congestion

Opening: the moment autumn arrives, allergic rhinitis sufferers start suffering again

Lately, far too many friends have been asking Doctor Luo Dalun about allergic rhinitis. After the beginning of autumn — especially in the north — lots of people suddenly flare up. And they put it with eerie precision: “It started right on the day autumn began.”

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Let me insert a little Chinese medicine lesson. After the start of autumn, many friends’ rhinitis flares up and they ask me what to do. What exactly is this condition, and can it be cured? Today I’m going to explain it thoroughly.

The three classic symptoms of allergic rhinitis — do you have them?

Allergic rhinitis basically comes down to these symptoms. The first is sneezing — and this sneezing has a time signature. Some people wake up in the morning and must sneeze a dozen or more times in a row, one after another; others sneeze the moment a cold wind touches them. So symptom one: sneezing in bursts, easily triggered by a chill.

The second symptom is a clear runny nose. How bad can it get? Yesterday a friend told me that while she was talking, she had to keep a box of tissues at hand and blow her nose nonstop — the mucus ran like water. Doctor Luo says he has seen patients like this with his own eyes: they really carry tissues, and mid-conversation they dash over to the window. What for? To blow their noses — the discharge just keeps flowing. That is the severe version; the milder version still drips steadily.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Mind you — that clear discharge must be clear. Yellow mucus is a different problem entirely; we’ll talk about that another time. Clear runny nose plus sneezing — that is the classic picture of allergic rhinitis.

The third symptom is a stuffy nose. Such people find their nose blocked when they lie down at night, and during the day it never feels quite clear. These symptoms may be present all year, but many friends flare up exactly at the beginning of autumn — again, they say it with great precision: “It hit me on the very day autumn began.”

How common is this condition? — The prevalence is shocking

Doctor Luo says he has reached the point where, whichever office he visits on business, if there are a few people in the room and just one asks about allergic rhinitis — he says it’s treatable — immediately someone nearby chimes in: “Really? I have it too!” It seems that in any group of people, once you bring up how to treat allergic rhinitis, someone will always speak up and say, “I’ve got this too.”

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: So the prevalence of allergic rhinitis must be extremely high — especially in the north, it’s very common. The streets are full of sufferers. Walk into any crowd and you will find allergic rhinitis patients — that fact alone tells you something.

What does Western medicine do? — Steroid sprays: instant relief, gone in a flash

Is this condition easy to treat? Doctor Luo’s answer: both easy and hard. Western medicine typically uses steroid sprays, sprayed straight up the nose. How well do they work? They work instantly, of course — but the effect vanishes just as quickly. Stop using the steroid and the effect disappears.

The current state of Chinese medicine: many people still aren’t cured — that is on us

And does Chinese medicine cure it? Doctor Luo is noncommittal. But the very fact that so many people in society still carry untreated allergic rhinitis shows that the overall effect of the whole medical system is poor — because so many patients remain, it means we have not effectively explained this disease to ordinary people or brought it under control.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: As far as I know, many practitioners have treated allergic rhinitis without success — there really are doctors who write prescription after prescription and never cure anyone. So over the years I have kept recommending one formula: the Jie Geng Yuan Shen Tang (Platycodon and Scrophularia Decoction) of the famous Qing dynasty physician Huang Yuanyu. This formula works extremely well. Usually after just a few doses patients feel clear improvement; many say they felt it from the very first dose.

Why is this formula so effective? First, meet Huang Yuanyu

To explain the formula properly, you have to start with the man. Huang Yuanyu was a truly unusual physician — genuinely unusual. He was from Changyi, Shandong Province, and in his youth he was a student preparing for the imperial examinations. Then something happened: he contracted an eye disease and called in the local doctors. But those doctors were not skilled, and they treated his eyes worse and worse — they threw bitter-cold herbs at him, and some even jabbed him with needles. In the end his eyes were nearly blind, his vision severely damaged.

Now, Qing dynasty law decreed that a man whose face was not whole and regular could not sit the imperial examinations. So Huang Yuanyu could never take the exams; every road he had paved for himself was demolished overnight. He was furious: because of this eye problem, his entire life plan had been upended! So he threw himself into study — he shut himself in a small room, found a quiet spot, and read the classics seriously: the Shang Han Lun (Treatise on Cold Damage) and the rest. As he read, his skill gradually grew.

He figured it out himself: why had his eyes been ruined?

And as he read, he kept thinking: why did my eyes fail? The doctors of that time assumed that any eye problem meant “fire” — so they cleared fire with bitter-cold, heat-clearing, toxin-resolving herbs. But use too many bitter-cold herbs and you damage the upright qi of the spleen and stomach. Do you see? The spleen and stomach come up again! Once the spleen and stomach’s upright qi is wounded, the rise and fall of qi is thrown off — and in the end the eyes develop even more problems.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: He said this was a mistake he would not repeat. He followed that line of thinking further and further, and eventually created a remarkably complete theoretical system — he proposed the crucial importance of the rise and fall of the qi mechanism (qi ji sheng jiang). That is his distinctive theory. He attributed every disease to the rise and fall of qi — a very interesting way of working.

The core theory: spleen rises, stomach descends, water and fire nourish each other — that is the balanced person

What is Huang Yuanyu’s theory? He said the spleen and stomach sit at the center of the body — like the four directions of the earth, with the middle being soil. Spleen qi rises on the left; stomach qi descends on the right. When we eat, food travels down with stomach qi to the lower body and reaches the spleen, which absorbs it. The refined essences and the clear, light qi absorbed from food should rise upward, reach the lungs, and with the lungs’ power be distributed throughout the body — that is the spleen-stomach pattern of rising and falling.

Once the spleen and stomach rise and fall, they pull the qi movements of the other organs along: liver qi rises on the left together with spleen qi — “the liver rises with the spleen”; gallbladder qi descends on the right together with stomach qi — “the gallbladder descends with the stomach.” So there is rising and falling on both sides. On the left, things rise clear and light like spring; at the top sits heart fire; by autumn, lung metal descends, and lung metal follows the gallbladder and stomach downward — and as lung metal descends and purifies, heart fire follows it down. Heart fire travels into the kidneys; the kidneys are the water organ, so heart fire warming kidney water keeps the kidney water from turning too cold. Kidney water, in turn, rises on the left along with liver qi and spleen qi, reaches the heart, and cools the heart fire so it never burns to an extreme.

This is called shui huo ji ji — water and fire in mutual harmony. Above, not too hot; below, not too cold; the body’s temperature in balance. That is the “balanced person” (ping ren).

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: If the spleen-stomach rise and fall goes wrong, then heart fire blazes fiercely on top while kidney water below turns icy — water and fire no longer meet. The resulting pattern is called “heat above, cold below” (shang re xia han). Yin and yang are split apart, and the person is certain to fall ill. Huang Yuanyu traced countless diseases back to this: spleen qi failing to rise, dampness too heavy, damage from cold and cold-natured things, spleen qi sinking; stomach qi failing to descend. When the spleen and stomach can no longer raise the clear and lower the turbid — turbid qi above, clear qi below — the rise and fall of liver and gallbladder goes wrong, heart and lung qi cannot travel downward, kidney water cannot rise to meet them, the whole qi mechanism falls into chaos, and all kinds of diseases are born.

Is the theory right? — It works, but it is a bit absolutist

Doctor Luo’s assessment: for many diseases, there genuinely is a pattern in which the rise and fall of qi has gone wrong. When an illness is too complicated, regulating the qi mechanism can genuinely help the body gradually recover and resolve the problem. So Huang Yuanyu’s approach is an effective one.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: But there is a problem: Huang Yuanyu thought every disease had this one cause, and that is indeed absolutist — a bit excessive. That’s the first point. Second, because of the grievance he suffered in his youth, once he became a physician his temperament turned somewhat extreme: he declared that all previous doctors were talking nonsense — except Zhang Zhongjing and the Huang Di Nei Jing (Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon), everything else was rubbish. He cursed ferociously, calling the Jin-Yuan physicians Zhu Danxi and Liu Hejian (Liu Wansu) “bandits of cold and coolness,” saying they were worthless — he was not even polite to a great physician like Li Dongyuan. That is why, when the Siku Quanshu (Complete Library of the Four Treasuries) later included his works, the editors noted that he was “overly self-regarding” — he thought he was too brilliant, and overstated his case.

So although Huang Yuanyu’s theory has value, later generations found him irritating — he insulted everybody — and did not pay him much attention; some practitioners actively disliked him. He also died fairly young. Why not long-lived? Because of his temperament. But does his theory have no value? No — it genuinely does. In the rise and fall of the body’s qi mechanism he has a unique theoretical contribution. Many diseases that no one knows how to treat, that have already degenerated into chaos, will gradually recover if you slowly sort out the qi mechanism.

His heir: the old physician Ma Ruiting of Xi’an, who used one formula for a lifetime

The first of Huang Yuanyu’s heirs Doctor Luo encountered was the elderly physician Ma Ruiting of Xi’an. Old Doctor Ma took one of Huang Yuanyu’s formulas, the Xia Qi Tang (Descending Qi Decoction), added and subtracted from it, and used that single formula to treat diseases for his whole life — he treated enormous numbers of patients, and his practice was crowded. The old man lived to the age of 97; even in his nineties, when his son went out on house calls, he would still be collating and proofreading Huang Yuanyu’s books.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: When I first started learning Chinese medicine, I actually found a book by old Doctor Ma Ruiting on a street-side bookstall. I thought it was amazing, picked it up, and studied it — that is how I first learned of Huang Yuanyu. Later, after I wrote up Huang Yuanyu’s story, he became widely known. Now that many people know of Huang Yuanyu, I think we should judge him fairly — his temperament was extreme, but his theory has value, and his formulas work very well for many conditions. Nowhere is this more evident than in the treatment of rhinitis.

Real success story 1: a Beijing friend who was anti-Chinese-medicine became the savior of rhinitis patients

How good is Huang Yuanyu’s formula for rhinitis? Doctor Luo has a close friend in Beijing who once had severe rhinitis — and he was anti-Chinese-medicine, the type who says “nonsense” the moment you mention it. But his rhinitis was unbearable, and since he and Doctor Luo were close, he asked what to do. Doctor Luo gave him the formula — didn’t even write it out properly, just said: “I’ll send you my article; take the formula in the article and use it.”

So he tried it. And from then on, that guy became the savior of every rhinitis patient around him! Whenever someone had rhinitis — clear runny nose, sneezing, “just like mine used to be” — he’d say, “Here, use this formula!” And they got better! The fellow actually gained a small reputation among his circle of friends.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: He still doesn’t understand Chinese medical theory, and he always says, “The theory — I won’t even go there, it’s insupportable; but Doctor Luo’s formula really works, it’s a genuinely good formula.” And I say — it isn’t my formula, it’s Huang Yuanyu’s! Whenever I encounter allergic rhinitis — which is actually one pattern within Chinese-medicine rhinitis: yang qi insufficiency, defensive qi failing to secure the exterior, the rise and fall of qi blocked and stagnant — the presentation is clear runny nose, sneezing, stuffy nose. In this situation, using Huang Yuanyu’s formula to raise the yang qi and regulate the qi mechanism is very effective — it hits the pattern exactly.

It’s a strange thing: a disease name from Western medicine lines up with a certain pattern in Chinese-medicine rhinitis, and Chinese medicine happens to have a formula that treats exactly that pattern — so it can treat the Western-named disease. Doctor Luo says the Jie Geng Yuan Shen Tang really should be made into a ready-made patent medicine — for allergic rhinitis, over 80% of patients respond extremely well. This is an extreme case of pattern differentiation: for this one pattern I use this one formula, and when that pattern corresponds to a certain Western disease, the medicine treats that Western disease.

Real success story 2: the Korean girl in Singapore — even with the ban xia missing, it worked

Doctor Luo once taught a class in Singapore, and one of the business-school students had a Korean friend — a girl — with allergic rhinitis. The Singaporean student passed the formula to the girl, who had the herbs filled in Korea. It even seems the ban xia (Pinellia) was missing from her prescription — and yet the result was excellent.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The girl recovered and sent me a message: “I have never had any result from Chinese medicine before, but this time it worked — amazing!” You see, even a Korean girl finds it amazing. People all over the world find it amazing. So if this medicine were made into a finished product, I believe it could help a great many people. Chinese medical formulas contain many treasures. It is a great pity that we currently do not invest enough in developing Chinese medicine — could a formula like this earn foreign exchange if exported? Of course it could! So why doesn’t any factory produce it? I think that is a real shame. Let us keep spreading the word, shall we?

Breaking down the formula: the three-horse team at the base — one rises, one descends, one harmonizes

What are the core ingredients of this Jie Geng Yuan Shen Tang? The core of virtually every Huang Yuanyu formula is the same three herbs — fu ling (Poria), ban xia (Pinellia), and gan cao (Licorice).

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Fu ling clears dampness from the spleen; once the spleen sheds its burden it can rise, so fu ling is the herb that dries dampness and lifts spleen yang. Ban xia moves downward, sending stomach qi down. In the middle, gan cao fortifies the spleen and stomach and harmonizes the middle. One rises, one descends, plus the licorice — I call these three the “three-horse team.” They are the core of nearly all Huang Yuanyu’s formulas, a very simple design.

Then add jie geng (Platycodon root): its action moves upward — it opens the lungs, clears the throat, and helps stop cough. Jie geng lifts the medicinal qi upward, diffuses lung qi, and expels the turbid, filthy qi stuck in the nasal passages. So jie geng rises.

Yuan shen — the “yuan shen” in the name of the formula is xuan shen (Scrophularia root). It was renamed because of the taboo on the given name of the Kangxi Emperor, Xuan Ye (玄烨); these days you may call it xuan shen again. What does it do? It clears the throat, benefits the voice, and resolves toxins; it also lifts kidney water upward — when kidney water is insufficient and yin deficiency produces a little fire, it draws kidney water up to the throat region. That is its action across the whole body.

Paired with xing ren (Apricot kernel): xing ren sends lung qi downward. Because your qi mechanism is stagnant, blocked right at the nasal cavity, that is why the nose misbehaves — so I give you something that rises and something that falls: xing ren descends.

Then chen pi (aged tangerine peel): chen pi opens lung qi — if your qi mechanism is stuck, it helps you diffuse and release it. Chen pi disperses cold, stops cough, and diffuses lung qi, so adding it is also about regulating the lungs. Then a little fresh ginger (sheng jiang): ginger warms the middle and disperses cold — because the root cause of this condition is yang qi insufficiency, yang qi failing to spread, and the rise and fall of qi going wrong, so while we regulate the rise and fall, we also stir the yang qi open and disperse the cold from the body surface. Ginger at 9 grams.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The formula is very simple — it regulates the rise and fall of the qi mechanism and the rise and fall of lung qi. The whole formula looks extremely gentle: no fierce herbs, nothing toxic. Everyone can use it with confidence. It lightly helps you regulate the qi mechanism and its rise and fall — once the qi mechanism opens up, warm qi and yang qi spread freely, upright qi circulates, and the pathogen is pushed out.

Why does it cure the condition? — Gently pushing out a cold pathogen locked in a standoff

What we call allergic rhinitis is, in many cases, yang qi insufficiency: cold pathogen tries to enter, half in and half out, and the two sides are locked in a standoff — that is when the sneezing bursts come, because the body is straining to expel the cold. Use this formula to adjust things lightly, the cold pathogen gets pushed out, and the allergic rhinitis problem is solved.

Cautions: pregnant women, children, and telling a cold apart from rhinitis

What should you watch out for with this formula? Pregnant women should not use it — the rise and fall of qi is a serious matter during pregnancy and requires a doctor’s guidance.

Can children use it? Yes, in reduced dose — one-third, or half, of the adult amount. Many parents have indeed reported that their children’s allergic rhinitis responded very well.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Pay special attention here: many parents cannot tell allergic rhinitis from a common cold. A child is still in the middle of a cold with fever — nose blocked, sneezing, clear runny nose — and the parent asks, “Could this be allergic rhinitis?” and matches it to the formula. That is not allowed! You don’t use it during a cold. When, then? Only for someone who has these allergic rhinitis symptoms on a regular basis — the qi-yang-insufficient, deficient-cold type. Only then is it appropriate.

And while using the formula: don’t get chilled. Don’t sit in air conditioning while taking it — that won’t do. Don’t drink iced beverages while taking it — that won’t do either. You must protect yourself and guard your yang qi; this is very important.

Course of treatment and aftercare: clear results in five doses, then boost yang qi to finish

After using this formula, five doses usually bring obvious improvement — most people are nearly well within five doses. You may continue for two or three more doses, and after finishing, take a little Jin Gui Shen Qi Wan (Kidney Qi Pills from the Golden Cabinet) — the kind of formula that supplements yang qi — or, if you prefer, some Bu Zhong Yi Qi Wan (Tonify the Middle and Augment Qi Pills). Either supports the yang qi as aftercare, and the effect is even better.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Because so many people have been asking me about allergic rhinitis lately, I want to say: we truly do have methods, and we have a great deal of experience — countless people have used this and gotten well; the cases are too many to count. I hope friends with this problem can get their bodies adjusted. Such friends must pay attention to protecting their yang qi — that is your path forward. And if friends around you have this problem, I hope you will reach out and help — it is very simple, and the results are excellent.

Compiled from Doctor Luo Dalun’s commentary.