Pregnant and Suddenly Unable to Speak at Nine Months? Sweet or Bitter Taste in the Mouth? Headaches That Won’t Go Away for Years — Doctor Ni Haixia on the Qi Bing Lun (Discourse on Strange Diseases, Part One) of the Huang Di Nei Jing

Patient search terms: pregnancy and sudden loss of voice / pregnant woman can’t speak / nine months pregnant and silent / sweet taste in the mouth / why is my mouth always sweet / bitter taste in the mouth / mouth tastes bitter / headache for years / headache that won’t heal / forehead pain / headache with clear runny nose / toothache / toothache and antibiotics don’t help / chest and flank fullness / gas rushing upward / pain circling the navel / swollen painful bones / baby’s navel catching wind / why babies wear belly bands / can’t pass urine / urinating many times a day / peeing a dozen times a day / diabetes / high blood sugar / getting fat from insulin / is diabetes inherited / indecisive / weak gallbladder / lack of courage / vinegar and gallstones / wasting-thirst / spleen-heat disease / gallbladder-heat disease / the Discourse on Strange Diseases / Huang Di Nei Jing

Corresponding medical names: the Su Wen chapter Qi Bing Lun (Discourse on Strange Diseases), part one · feng jue (wind reversal) with ze xie, cang zhu and lu xian cao as a hangover remedy · hua zi jiu yue er yin (loss of voice in the ninth month of pregnancy) — the uterine collateral compressed by the fetus, not a disease · the acupuncture iron rule ‘wu sun bu zu, yi wu yi you yu’ (do not harm the insufficient, do not add to the excessive) · xi ji (accumulated breath) of the san jiao system treated by guided exercises plus medicine · fu liang (hidden beam) — the wind root injuring the huang membrane, protecting the navel (Shenque CV8) · chen jin (chronic sinew disease) with the rapid chi pulse · jue headache from great cold entering the sea of marrow · pi dan (spleen-heat disease) turning into xiao ke (wasting-thirst / diabetes) · lan cao clearing the stale qi · dan dan (gallbladder-heat disease) with bitter mouth, treated at Yanglingquan GB34 · the long (urinary blockage) disease

Opening: sweating as if you just stepped out of a bath, breath too short to catch — Qi Bo calls it wind reversal

Doctor Ni Haixia opens this lecture by finishing the tail of the previous one: a patient has a hot body, no strength at all, sweat pouring off him as if he had just stepped out of a bath, he fears wind terribly — a gust of wind makes him miserable — and his breathing is short and hurried. What disease is this?

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Qi Bo says this is feng jue (wind reversal). How do you treat it? Use ze xie (water plantain) and cang zhu (atractylodes), ten parts each. And clearly this is the herb the deer bites — lu ti cao, now called lu xian cao (pyrola / Chinese wintergreen), also ten parts — mixed at the ratio of two to one. From ze xie and cang zhu combined we get this: it is an excellent remedy for clearing alcohol — an excellent hangover remedy.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Add a little lu xian cao. Boil it as a decoction, or you can use it as powder — take it before meals, that is all. This is how you treat it.

A passage that ‘suddenly appears’ out of nowhere: why Doctor Ni does not teach it

After finishing the wind reversal, Doctor Ni pauses — he says that in the original text of the Huang Di Nei Jing, right after this passage, ‘a passage suddenly appears’ that has nothing to do with what comes before or after.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The original book contains this passage, and I have copied it out for you — it is also in the book that comes with our DVD. But every physician from the past agrees this is not the original text — later hands forced it in, because the original text was lost. It was forced in very clumsily. Yet no one has ever translated it, so the versions circulating in the market simply do not contain these sections.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The original text does have this passage, and I copied it out to show you — it really has nothing to do with the text around it, does it? It deals with acupuncture, and with the twenty-eight celestial star groups and the earthly star groups. So here we will not discuss it or explain it.

The first strange disease: nine months pregnant, and suddenly she cannot speak

Turning to page three hundred and ninety-five, Doctor Ni formally opens Chapter Forty-Seven of the Huang Di Nei Jing — the Qi Bing Lun (Discourse on Strange Diseases). Why is it called ‘strange diseases’? Because it is devoted to the odd, strange illnesses. And the very first case is strange enough: some pregnant women, in the ninth month of pregnancy, suddenly lose their voice.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Qi Bo says: this is because the collateral channel of the uterus is cut off (bao zhi luo mai jue ye). He explains why: the uterine collateral is tied to the kidneys; the shaoyin channel passes through the kidneys and connects to the root of the tongue — it goes through the lungs and then to the root of the tongue. You must understand this system — and that is why she cannot speak. Because of the pregnancy, the child inside presses on the uterine collateral, squeezing it, and so she cannot speak.

The Yellow Emperor asks: then how is it treated? Qi Bo’s answer is crisp and final —

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Don’t treat it! When she gives birth, when the child is born, she will be fine. Because it is not a disease — so if a woman suddenly loses her voice in the ninth month of pregnancy, do not treat her. It is perfectly normal. Do not touch her. Once the child is born from the womb, she will recover.

‘Do not harm what is insufficient, do not add to what is excessive’: why a depleted person must not be needled

From this case, Qi Bo draws out a classic rule of acupuncture — ‘wu sun bu zu, yi wu yi you yu, yi cheng qi chen’ (do not harm what is insufficient, do not add to what is excessive, lest the illness linger). Doctor Ni says this ‘chen’ means the illness clinging on and refusing to leave. This is the mantra of acupuncture, and you see it all the time in the clinic:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: When qi and blood are insufficient, I do not needle. Some patients come in weak and feeble, thin and dried up, talking as if they had no qi left at all — then do not needle. They have no qi to spare. Do not needle. It is troublesome to explain all this in words — it never comes out clearly. So I say to them: because your condition is too deficient right now, needling will not cure you anyway, let me save you some money — and the patient’s mood turns perfectly fine.

And what is the principle? Doctor Ni says it plainly:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: In fact it is ‘do not harm what is insufficient’. When you needle, if the patient’s yuan qi (original qi) is itself deficient and the disease inside is stronger than the yuan qi, then your needle will not move the qi — instead the yuan qi will leak out, because the yuan qi cannot prevail against the disease qi, and you will wound the deficient person. And if the patient has excess (shi) and you tonify it, you make him more excessive — that is bad too.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Hence the text says: ’for the body that is emaciated (shen li shou), do not use needle or stone; as for not adding to what is excessive — when the belly contains something solid and you drain it, draining it makes the person’s essence leak outward while the disease evil stays alone inside — and it becomes worse.

When may you use attack herbs at all?

From ‘draining wounds instead’, Doctor Ni moves to the great principle of using attack formulas — a clinical sense of proportion he repeats constantly:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: When we use attack herbs to break up accumulations we must be careful — we do not use attack formulas all the time. Never keep using attack formulas and imagine you are always attacking accumulations — no. Attack formulas are taken for their quick results, and that requires a certain foundation: you attack when the patient’s yuan qi is flourishing — while the strength is there, take it down in one go, finish the illness off, do not let the patient drag on and on. When the patient is very deficient, we do not attack; we nourish and tonify first, let his strength recover to a certain level, and then we watch for the right moment and strike. So we never attack recklessly — that is not allowed.

And what happens if you attack recklessly? The disease simply stays inside the body and refuses to leave — that is exactly what ‘yi cheng qi chen’ means.

Chest and flank fullness for two or three years, qi rushing upward — xi ji (accumulated breath)

Page three hundred and ninety-seven, another strange disease: the Yellow Emperor asks about a person whose flank region is full of rebellious qi, extremely distended in the chest and flanks, two or three years without recovery, often with qi rushing upward — why?

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Qi Bo says this disease is called xi ji (accumulated breath). We often have things accumulating inside — sometimes it is a real thing (a tumor swelling inside), sometimes it is qi trapped inside. This one does not block food — the person can still eat. How is it treated? Guided exercises plus medicine — we prescribe herbs, and at the same time the patient must practice internal cultivation, practice the exercises, use the methods of guided stretching (dao yin) to lead the qi out, and it will be cured.

Why can a person with chest and flank fullness still eat normally?

The reason lies in what the chest and flank region belongs to:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The chest and flanks of the body are collectively called shaoyang. Because the chest and flanks contain the san jiao — many networks of the san jiao gather here — so the flank-rib region belongs to the san jiao system. When disease is here, it will certainly cause distention and fullness of the chest and both flanks, very uncomfortable. But it hides inside the san jiao system — the san jiao lies in the middle of the intestines and stomach, not inside the organs or the digestive system; it is between the organs, not inside them — and that is why things turn out this way: the person eats as usual.

The treatment is then clear: you may take medicine, and also use guided breathing to disperse it, so it does not accumulate here.

Swollen thigh and shin bones, pain circling the navel — fu liang (hidden beam), the wind root

Another strange disease: some people have the bi bone — the bone outside, by the hip — and the bone above the shin, both swollen; the bones ache; and pain circles the navel all around. Where does this disease come from?

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Qi Bo says this disease is called fu liang (hidden beam) — it is the ‘wind root’ (feng gen). How does the wind get in? From ancient times to the present, on the mainland, when a child is born we make him a belly band (du dou). If you have never seen a belly band, look at the Red Boy in the temple — he wears a belly band. His four limbs are bare, but his belly is covered. Even the gods cover their bellies! Arms and legs can hang out — you could even let the little bird hang out — but the navel must always be covered.

Why must children wear belly bands?

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Because the navel can catch wind and cold — the navel is Shenque CV8, the ren channel passes right here; it is a yin place, and it is just hollow — the hollow is exactly the spot where wind can be received. So no matter how hot our children get, no matter how hot the weather, the belly must always be looked after. So do not look at the belly band and say it is old-fashioned, we all wear diapers now — the belly band is best! Your belly, your navel, must be a little thicker — the navel must be well covered. You can let the little baby’s bird hang out, as I said — but the belly must be covered.

And if it is not covered and the wind gets in, that is the ‘root of wind’:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Its qi overflows into the large intestine and lodges in the huang (the huang membrane). Our kidneys — between them is the mingmen (gate of life), and the san jiao originates here. Running to the front, some say shimen, some say qihai — it differs by a hair — but in fact the huang membrane is very large; touching it here, it also connects to the middle jiao and the diaphragm — it all connects to the oily network of the san jiao: the oily membranes of the body contain yellow oil, and the san jiao is where qi moves. Because the san jiao lies right against the kidneys, when I treat the kidneys I will certainly treat the san jiao too — these two must be treated together. Treating only the kidneys will not cure it; you must treat its san jiao at the same time.

Why must you treat the san jiao whenever you treat the kidneys?

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The san jiao is the official of drainage, and the waterways issue from it (san jiao zhe, jue du zhi guan, shui dao chu yan) — the water that flows through the san jiao, because of the oil inside, moves very fast; the water is warm and runs swiftly — that is the normal state. The source of the huang is below the navel, at shimen (CV5) — you may also say qihai (CV6), they are very close. Pain circling the navel means the huang has been injured — frozen, the water runs against the current and becomes sluggish (shui ni se), urination becomes difficult; people with this disease have urinary problems, exactly as I just said, because the san jiao has been hurt.

What sort of place is the san jiao? A place of warmth. And when the wind blows — anything at all: a thing is very hot, and you want to cool it down, the wind blows on it and it cools:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: So you see, wind can cool things down. But do you think wind harms the liver? It does — you cannot blow wind at a person with liver disease — blow it continuously and you drive him from hepatitis to liver cancer — that is terrible, that is harming people! This is one of the ways a doctor can harm people, and you must know it so that you never harm anyone.

The chi pulse beating fast and hard — chen jin (chronic sinew disease)

The Yellow Emperor asks again: some people have a chi pulse that is extremely rapid and sinews that are tense and visible — what disease is this? Doctor Ni stops to teach the method of reasoning:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Remember, you must reason. The moment the pulse comes to mind, immediately the cun, guan and chi appear: guan is yang, cun is yang, chi is yin — that picture appears instantly. Then look back: the chi pulse is deep, lying at the bottom; the yin pulse is deep, relatively slow and calm. Now the yin pulse is not like that — the yin pulse is beating fast, and standing up stiff — what disease is this?

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Qi Bo answers: this is what is called chen jin (chronic sinew disease). Whenever you see this character ‘chen’, it means a long illness — a chronic disease that has already injured the sinews. This person’s belly is taut. Take the horizontal diaphragm in the middle of the body as the reference: the yang of the cun pulse refers to the chest, the chi refers to the lower abdomen, and the diaphragm in the middle is where the guan pulse sits — it corresponds exactly to the body: the moment you speak of the pulse, you match it up. This person’s pulse beats very fast — it should be deep and slow, but now it beats fast, rapid and urgent — the problem must lie in the lower abdomen, and the belly wall is tense.

Reading cold and heat from the face: white plus black means cold with pain

Then comes color diagnosis — a crucial link in the discrimination:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: If you see both white and black on the face — do you all remember: yellow and red are heat signs, green and black are pain signs, white is a cold sign? Right. Then if you see white and you also see black — is it not cold with pain? Black is pain, is it not? So there it is: cold-damp — cold together with pain.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: So when we compose the main formula, if there are pain-relieving herbs — opening only with pain-relieving herbs is not good; you must treat the cold: try to put cold-dispelling herbs together with pain-relieving herbs, and then it will heal. This is where you must discriminate. This is why we must know cold and heat, know yin and yang, know whether the disease is at the surface or in the interior — because the surface has surface herbs and the interior has interior herbs, so that you do not prescribe wrongly. Discriminate this way and everything is clear.

A headache that will not heal for years: great cold drilled into the marrow

The Yellow Emperor asks again: some people have headaches that do not improve for several years — how did they get this?

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Qi Bo says: they must have encountered great cold — in cold weather, because the cold is severe, the cold enters the head; and if it still cannot leave, it pushes deeper into the marrow, growing slowly, slowly more severe. This cold never leaves; it extends onto the bones — then the headache lasts several years without healing. The brain is the sea of marrow; with the brain as the main seat, the head fixed, headache reaches into the teeth as a hard pain — because the kidneys govern the bones, the bones contain water, the brain is the sea of water, and the teeth are the surplus of the bones — so the pain runs a year, all the way down to the teeth. That is certain — definite.

Headaches are not just one kind: cold pain, heat pain, damp pain

But Doctor Ni immediately adds: what Qi Bo describes is the great principle — most headaches are cold pain, yet there are many kinds:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: There are people with heat pain — for instance, heat in the stomach. When the stomach is very hot, the stomach has trouble. The stomach channel normally runs along the side, does it not? When the stomach has a problem, it rushes straight up, straight to the brain — this is what is called rebellious qi: when the evil qi rebels, instead of following the proper channel it runs against it, producing forehead pain. So when we see forehead pain, we put one needle in the stomach. So headaches come in many kinds.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Fundamentally, what Qi Bo states is the great principle — most are cold pain. Some people tell you: I have a runny nose, I keep blowing my nose, my head hurts badly — your nasal discharge is clear, is the headache a cold pain? It is a cold pain. We put pain-relieving herbs and cold-treating herbs in the formula together, and then it will heal.

And what about things accumulated in the nose?

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: If the nose is stuffed with a lot of material, with phlegm fluid accumulated in the nasal mucosa, then we use herbs that clear and open — for example, in acupuncture we needle Yingxiang LI20 and Neiyingxiang; or we prescribe some opening herbs, using a little musk and alum, to clear it out. Once that accumulation is gone, the pressure is relieved.

What is pain, after all? — accumulated pressure, not inflammation

Doctor Ni then throws out an idea that overturns common assumptions:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Remember, in the Chinese medical view, pain is accumulation — cold accumulates, deeper and deeper, and that produces pain. This differs from what most people think: I have a toothache, so I take painkillers and antibiotics — this pain has nothing to do with inflammation! It is not inflammation — inflammation does not hurt; it is things accumulating inside that hurt.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: You can see it from this case: say you have a toothache — antibiotics are useless. You go to the gum, drill a hole in the tooth; the moment you drill, the pus comes out, the pressure drops, and the pain is gone — so you know the pain comes from pressure. The pain is gone, the pressure is relieved, but the inflammation inside is still there — so after cleaning it, when they do the root canal they still give you antibiotics — because the inflammation is still inside. Inflammation itself does not cause pain; pressure causes pain.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: So if you have an abscess swelling here, large and very painful, it is because the pus is trapped inside and cannot come out; drain it and it stops hurting. With an abscess here, you take antibiotics for half a day, the pressure is still inside, the pain is still inside, nothing changes — so pain has absolutely nothing to do with inflammation.

And there is one more kind — damp: when the spleen is so damp it wounds the head — severe damp injures the spleen, and the head feels as if it wears a cap, a ring around it, like the Monkey King’s golden headband — that is the headache of spleen dampness, already introduced earlier.

A mouth that is always sweet — pi dan (spleen-heat disease), the forerunner of diabetes

Starting at page four hundred, Doctor Ni says ‘this is interesting, you will meet it often’: the Yellow Emperor asks about a patient who says — strange — my mouth tastes sweet every single day — what disease is this?

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Think, everyone: sour is the liver, bitter is the heart, sweet is the spleen — right? Pungent is the lungs, salty enters the kidneys. When the mouth is very sweet, when a special flavor suddenly appears, Qi Bo says: this is the overflow of the five qi (wu qi zhi yi) — too full. This sweet flavor we call pi dan (spleen-heat disease). This ‘dan’ means toil (dan = labor). The five flavors enter the mouth and are stored in the stomach; the spleen and stomach circulate their essence qi; the fluids collect in the spleen — that is what makes the mouth sweet.

Why? Because it is ‘born of rich food’ (fei mei zhi suo fa):

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: This person must constantly eat very fine food — delicacies from mountain and sea every day — and exercise very little. Eating too richly — by ‘fei’ (rich) we mean heavy flavor: food with a very heavy taste. Take sashimi: raw fish has a very light taste; but grill it and add seasonings and the flavor becomes thick, producing a different result. ‘Sweetness fills the middle’ (gan zhe ling ren zhong man) — the middle jiao becomes full and distended, because of the sweet food, and so the qi overflows upward — too much of it.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Why is it called pi dan? ‘Dan’ itself means toil. Our ordinary labor is exercise, running around; this person is different — it is his stomach that labors: he eats a great deal, but the movement does not labor — the stomach inside labors; he eats too much and cannot bear it. The fluids (essence qi) are too much, the qi is too greasy and too abundant, and it rises greasily to the mouth — the mouth is sweet; and when the qi is too greasy and too abundant, it turns into xiao ke (wasting-thirst — diabetes).

Is diabetes ‘inherited’? — the inheritance of living habits, not DNA

Doctor Ni takes this opportunity to drag out the old account of diabetes — first the way of living:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: I have warned you again and again: no matter who you are, do not eat until you are stuffed, and do not eat before sleeping. If you eat a huge dinner, already very full, and then at nine or ten o’clock father comes home — father was busy at the factory all day and did not see you; in the evening father comes home, father has not eaten yet, so he starts eating, and of course he calls the children out: let me see how you children are doing! I work so hard at the factory, precisely so that you can live well — and everyone starts eating together. That indeed is constant toil. Father gets diabetes, and the children get diabetes too — this is caused by the way of living, is it not? This is xiao ke.

And what does Western medicine say? Doctor Ni opens fire:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Western medicine does not come to your house to look — it has no humanity. It says inherited — inherited what? It is the inheritance of living habits, not the inheritance of your body’s DNA! The Yellow Emperor wrote it clearly, telling you exactly how diabetes comes about. The biggest problem today is that Western medicine does not know where the disease comes from — if you do not know where the disease comes from, even if you cure it, the same disease will strike again. The doctor injects insulin, and the patient injects insulin too — the two of them race each other injecting — because neither knows where the disease comes from, both of them fall sick together.

After twenty years of insulin, why do the feet fail first?

Then comes the clinical problem of insulin — Doctor Ni says this is the newest American research:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Up to now, every Western doctor tells you: your blood sugar is too high; if you do not control it, you will get heart disease — that is what Western medicine says. But actually the newest research in America now shows: of all diabetics with high blood sugar who develop heart disease, none develop heart disease because of the high blood sugar — they all develop heart disease because of the insulin. So the glucose-controlling drugs and the insulin are the real cause of the heart disease. High blood sugar does not cause heart disease.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: And what are the side effects of taking glucose-lowering drugs and injecting insulin? Obesity! Once a person gets fat, he moves even less, and then eats even more — does the pi dan not grow heavier and heavier? And the toiled belly grows worse and worse. Once the body is accustomed to insulin, it stops secreting insulin itself — inject for ten or twenty years and the spleen and pancreas both go to sleep; you have made them degenerate. How should you re-educate the body? Your blood sugar being high right now does not matter — it means you ate too much food. Stop the late-night snacks; eat a little in the evening; walk a lot, do not run; regulate your diet — and it will be cured naturally. Blood sugar of two hundred will give you heart disease? That is nonsense — it is the drug companies selling you pills; of course they have to say scary things to frighten you.

Doctor Ni tells a real case from his own clinic:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: In my clinic, patients who have injected insulin for twenty years — I stop them on the spot. From the moment they stop, they begin to lose weight. Because the spleen governs the muscles and governs the fat. You keep injecting insulin — how can you know that the human body can so conveniently hold the blood sugar within bounds? Only the body’s own self-regulation can do that; external control can never do it — it is either too high or too low. Some patients are anxious, forgetful, forgot to take the medicine today, then take it and the blood sugar drops very low — none of this is right. After taking glucose-lowering drugs and insulin, people begin to gain weight, and the fatter they get, the more the dose increases. We tell them to stop, and the patient begins to slim down — the patient thinks the Chinese medicine is wonderful, look, he has lost weight; but in fact it is not that — it is because we told him to stop the glucose-lowering drugs and the insulin that he began to slim down.

And once they stop — will there be heart disease or stroke? Doctor Ni’s answer is utterly firm:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: No! Why? Because we keep his feet warm. When his feet reach the point of being warm, then in all the blood of the whole body you cannot find a single place with a blood clot, a stagnant blood mass — the blood flows very well, and no clot can form. Take the glucose-lowering drugs, inject the insulin — the more you inject, the colder you get — the colder, the colder the feet, until the whole foot freezes and hardens — this is what they call neuropathy, cellulitis and the like; when it reaches that point they cannot save it, and they amputate.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: So in the future, our northern school (the classical formula school) — now the world’s medicine is a free-for-all, and Western medicine rules the day. Those who do not follow the classical formulas will lose their feet; the obese — none of them follow the classical formulas. Once we enter the classical formulas, we all live long and healthy, happy every day — because we are fearless; no disease can threaten you.

Lan cao clearing the stale qi: you may even skip treatment — just change your habits

So how is pi dan treated? Qi Bo proposes one herb:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: For the treatment, Qi Bo proposes lan cao (orchid grass / Eupatorium) — lan cao is a Chinese herb that can remove the stale, old qi (chen qi). That is the treatment. If you do not treat it, that is fine too — just change your way of living. I do not believe in physical inheritance — nonsense, there is no evidence at all for inheritance. Want evidence? It is simple: ask him — you have diabetes, right? Does your father have it? My father has it too — the doctor says it is inherited. Does your grandfather have it? Your grandfather does not — then you are not inherited!

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: As for theory and truth — truth is that which has no exceptions: once a law is set down, it works for ten thousand generations — that is truth. If there are exceptions, it is not right — do you know how many exceptions there are?

A bitter mouth — dan dan (gallbladder-heat disease), take Yanglingquan

The Yellow Emperor says again: some people have a bitter mouth — the mouth tastes bitter. Doctor Ni first teaches the discrimination:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Bitterness — you think of the liver and gallbladder, do you not? Sweetness is the spleen. Very simple. Then take Yanglingquan GB34 — why Yanglingquan? Because the sinews meet at Yanglingquan (jin hui yanglingquan). Bitter mouth — this disease we call dan dan (gallbladder-heat disease); ‘dan’ means toil. The liver is the general of the middle, and its decisions rest with the gallbladder (gan zhe, zhong zhi jiang ye, jue qu yu dan) — people with courage, who decide on the spot, have excellent gallbladders.

Along the way he offers an observation about gallstones:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: People with gallbladder stones eat everything except vinegar — sour vinegar. In marriage, jealousy (eating vinegar) is bad; at the table, vinegar is excellent — use rice vinegar. A person who never in his life eats vinegar or sour things — there is no dissolving — the gallstones form; that is pathological. There is another kind of person, by temperament: he doubts and hesitates in everything he does — I find that kind of person very tiring.

Indecisive people have the weakest gallbladders

Doctor Ni then performs, live, a dialogue with a ‘hesitating patient’ — one of the most vivid moments of his storytelling:

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The patient comes in very nervous and miserable. I say: then why did you come to me? To have you treat my illness. Fine — stop the Western drugs. I cannot — if I stop, my blood sugar will go very high! Then if you do not stop, taking my medicine is useless — I cannot, if you do not help me, what do I do? Fine — then tell me what you want me to do — I do not know what to do either, that is why I came! Just to figure out what to do, he hesitated for a full hour — my gallbladder was excellent, and he irritated it until I hiccuped. So being a doctor really is a hard job — you run into situations like this all the time.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: So it is said: ‘when deliberation is indecisive, the gallbladder becomes deficient’ (mou lv bu jue, ze dan xu) — remember, whenever anything is deficient, you must tonify yang; the qi gathers as principle (yang qi must gather). Because the gallbladder is yang; its bitterness is stored and emerges in the mouth as bitter. Treat it at the gallbladder’s front-mu point and back-shu point — the front-mu point of the gallbladder is in front, the shu point (Danshu BL19) is on the back. So if you meet this kind of patient — he really has a bitter mouth — you will have a bitter mouth when you go home too, because he has made you indecisive as well.

Closing: we reach the ‘long’ — urine that will not come out

At the very end of this lecture, the Yellow Emperor asks about yet another strange disease: some people cannot pass urine, at times they want to but cannot, at times they urinate a dozen or dozens of times a day — this is insufficiency; and the body is hot as a charcoal fire… Doctor Ni says ‘when I say “well” (jing), your mind immediately turns to it’ — and the lecture stops here.

💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: This disease speaks of the long (urinary blockage) — urine will not come out. The body hot as charcoal — when I say ‘well’ (the jing-well points), your mind immediately turns to it — (to be continued in the next lecture).

In the next lecture, Doctor Ni will finish this long disease from the Qi Bing Lun, and more strange diseases await.

What to take away

A pregnant woman who suddenly loses her voice in the ninth month is not ill — the fetus is pressing on the uterine collateral; she recovers after delivery. Do not treat her, do not touch her.
The acupuncture iron rule: do not harm what is insufficient, do not add to what is excessive. Never needle a person whose qi and blood are depleted — the yuan qi will leak out and you will wound the deficient. Do not tonify excess. Use attack herbs only when the patient’s yuan qi is strong and the moment is right; when the patient is weak, nourish first and attack later — reckless attack makes the illness linger.
Xi ji (accumulated breath) — fullness and rebellious qi in the chest and flanks that does not block eating belongs to the san jiao system; treat with guided exercises plus medicine.
Fu liang (hidden beam) — bone swelling with pain circling the navel is a wind root injuring the huang membrane; wind enters through the hollow of the navel (Shenque CV8), which is why babies wear belly bands. To treat the kidneys you must also treat the san jiao — the official of drainage through which the waterways issue.
Chen jin (chronic sinew disease) — a rapid, urgent chi pulse with tense sinews points to the lower abdomen; white and black on the face together mean cold with pain — combine cold-dispelling herbs with pain-relieving herbs.
Jue headache from great cold — cold that drills into the sea of marrow reaches the teeth (the teeth are the surplus of the bones); headaches divide into cold (clear discharge), heat (stomach heat rushing to the forehead — needle the stomach) and damp (spleen dampness like a headband). Pain is accumulated pressure, not inflammation — releasing the pressure stops the pain.
Pi dan (spleen-heat disease) — a sweet mouth is the overflow of rich food and little exercise; it turns into xiao ke (diabetes). Diabetes is inherited as a habit of life — overeating and late-night snacks — not in the DNA. Insulin and glucose-lowering drugs make you fat and cold; they cause heart disease, pancreatic degeneration, and cold feet that end in amputation. While the feet stay warm, no blood clot can form. The remedy: lan cao (orchid grass) to clear the stale qi, or simply change your living habits — eat less at night, walk more.
Dan dan (gallbladder-heat disease) — a bitter mouth is treated at Yanglingquan GB34; the liver is the general of the middle and its decisions rest with the gallbladder, so the indecisive become gallbladder-deficient; treat at the gallbladder’s front-mu point (Danyue GB24) and back-shu point (Danshu BL19).
The long (urinary blockage) — unable to pass water, yet urinating dozens of times a day, body hot as charcoal — the beginning of this disease is reserved for the next lecture.

Based on Doctor Ni Haixia’s Ren Ji (Human Records) lecture series on the Huang Di Nei Jing (Lecture 56)