Stiff Neck, Neck That Won’t Turn, Back Pain That Won’t Let You Turn Over, Knee Pain, Bone Aches, Gaining Weight Just From Drinking Water? — Doctor Ni Haixia on the Gu Kong Lun and the Shui Re Xue Lun of the Huang Di Nei Jing
Patient search terms: stiff neck / neck that cannot move / back pain / back pain that cannot turn over / knee pain / knee that cannot bend / bone pain / bone ache / edema / swollen face and feet / gaining weight from drinking water / thirsty but afraid to drink / fear of cold / sweating all the time / sweating that will not stop / wind-stroke / tetanus / bitten by a dog / bitten by a snake / shoulder pain / stiff shoulders and neck / acupuncture / moxibustion / blood-letting / Baliao / Fengfu / Dazhui / Zusanli / Weizhong / Huang Di Nei Jing / Gu Kong Lun / Shui Re Xue Lun
Corresponding topics (medical terms): the Su Wen chapters Gu Kong Lun (Bone Emptiness, Chapter Sixty) and Shui Re Xue Lun (Water-Heat Acupoints, Chapter Sixty-One). Wind is the beginning of all diseases: sweating means injury by wind, no sweat means injury by cold (the one who sweats is struck by wind, the one whose pores close without sweat is struck by cold); the order of wind entering is sun collaterals → main channels → fu organs → zang organs, matched with the six-channel differentiation tai yang → shao yang → yang ming → tai yin → shao yin → jue yin; wind-injury brings sweating, headache, heavy body and aversion to cold — the heavy body comes because the spleen governs the four limbs and muscles, the fluids are yin, the power of smooth flow is yang, and when wind enters the muscles the fluids can no longer flow. Treating wind: Fengfu GV16 (tonify when yin and yang are insufficient, drain when there is stasis), strong wind with neck pain is needled at Fengfu, strong wind with sweating is moxaed at Yixi BL45, brow pain is blood-let at Cuanzhu BL2 and the tai yang points; two methods for stiff neck (hanging the head over the bed edge; turning the hand back to touch a spinal point and moxaing it); back pain that cannot turn and pulls into the genitals is needled at Baliao BL31-34 plus the tender point; mouse-thigh chills and fever are treated at Huantiao GB30 and the cold palace (Xiyangguan GB33); Yongquan KI1 and Futu ST32 are taken with the patient kneeling. The eight extraordinary vessels: the Conception Vessel starts below Zhongji CV3 and runs through the abdomen — when diseased, men develop the seven shan accumulations (shan means fixed accumulating pain) and women develop dai xia and jia ju (jia means accumulation in the abdomen); the Chong Vessel starts at Qijie ST30, joins the shao yin, flanks the navel and spreads in the chest — when diseased there is rebellious qi and inner urgency, governed by Gongsun SP4 and Neiguan PC6; the Governor Vessel, when diseased, causes qi to rush from the lower abdomen to the heart, inability to pass urine and stool, infertility in women, strangury, hemorrhoids, urinary incontinence and a dry throat — treated at Lingtai GV10 (below the sixth vertebra) plus Geshu BL17 (one and a half cun lateral), and in severe cases moxa Guanyuan CV4 (three cun below the navel). Qi rushing up with throat roaring is needled at Tiantu CV22; qi rising from the supraclavicular fossa to the throat is treated at Daying ST5. Knee anatomy names: jian (above the instep, below the transverse bone), ji (beside the hip), hai guan (knee joint), lian hai (bones flanking the knee), fu (below the hai), guo (above the fu); a knee that cannot bend or straighten is treated at the jian (Xiyangguan GB33), knee pain when sitting at the ji (Juliao GB29), cold bi at Xiguan LR7 plus Xiyangguan GB33, knee pain reaching the big toe at Weizhong BL40, knee pain as if stuck at the guan (bone needle), bone injury with a swollen joint at Dazhu BL11 (meeting of the bones), the lian hai broken at Zusanli ST36, the shaft broken at Tonggu BL66 and Rangu KI2, inability to stand long at Guangming GB37; when deficiency and excess are unclear use the yuan-luo master-servant treatment, since the yuan points treat both deficiency and excess without distinction. Bone emptiness (where bone disease is treated): Naohu GV17 (three fen behind the head — forbidden to needle), Fengfu GV16, Daying ST5, Yamen GV15, the upper opening of the spine, Changqiang GV1, the cheekbone emptiness beside Juliao ST3, the two scapular openings (small intestine channel, treat cerebral hemorrhage and congestion), the arm opening Sanyangluo SJ8, Zhongdu GB32 (five cun directly above the lateral knee), Juegu GB39 (shin opening), Qugu CV2 (pubic opening), Huantiao GB30 (hip opening); the flat bones of the pelvis have jade marrow and no openings; bone disease is fixed on one point and does not travel along a channel, while channel disease travels along its course. The great moxibustion method for chills-and-fever: first moxa Dazhui GV14 with as many cones as the patient’s age, then moxa the coccyx (Juegu) with as many cones as the age, then the back shu points (Ganshu BL18, Pishu BL20, Feishu BL13, Shenshu BL23, Danshu BL19, Xiaochangshu BL27, Weishu BL21, Pangguangshu BL28) — moxa any that feel sunken — plus the tip of the scapula, Zhangmen LR13 (meeting of the zang organs), Juegu at the lateral malleolus, Xiaxi GB43, Weiyang BL39 (the crab pulse, three cun below the popliteal fossa), Kunlun BL60, and the stiff tendon above the clavicle (moxa the shoulder-neck sinew until soft); if no moxa tools, use the hanging method on a pull-up bar or door frame; moxa the hollows between the ribs to balance yin and yang; rabid dog bites: moxa the wound three cones plus all twenty-nine chills-and-fever points together; tetanus and snake bites with alternating chills and fever use the same method; if not healed after moxibustion, palpate to find the exuberant sinew and needle its shu point, then give medicine. Warm disease comes from cold damage (‘in winter one is injured by cold, in spring one inevitably suffers warm disease’ — before the summer solstice it is warm disease, after it is heat stroke), and Doctor Ni criticizes practitioners who do not read the Huang Di Nei Jing and take Western medicine as their guide. The Shui Re Xue Lun: the kidney is the supreme yin and governs water, the lung is the great yin, the kidney is the winter vessel — the root is in the kidney and the branch in the lung, and both accumulate water; the kidney is the gate of the stomach — the stomach and intestines are the sea of grain and water like a dam, the gate is the kidney, and when the gate does not close properly water accumulates and overflows into the skin as edema; edema patients are thirsty but dare not drink (one sip makes the body heavier) — water accumulates below the diaphragm where the earth is full and cannot transform qi, so the upper burner is parched; the kidney is the pin organ (pin means mother — as in the mares of the Yi Jing).
Opening: skipping a chapter, straight into the Gu Kong Lun
The last lecture ended by previewing the Gu Kong Lun (Bone Emptiness). This time Doctor Ni Haixia first settles the chapter before it — Chapter Fifty-Nine, the Qi Xue Lun, is about the channels of acupuncture, which he already covered in his acupuncture lectures, so he skips it directly:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: As for that Qi Xue Lun, Chapter Fifty-Nine — it is really just the channels and collaterals of acupuncture, so we will not introduce it, because we already covered acupuncture before. All right, next we will talk about the Gu Kong Lun.
But first Doctor Ni gives everyone a heads-up — the Huang Di Nei Jing has been passed down for too long, and passages often do not connect:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Because the Huang Di Nei Jing has been passed down for thousands of years, sometimes the upper passage does not connect with the lower, and the content does not quite match the title, so everyone should be a little patient. At the very beginning it is clearly talking about bone emptiness, right? And now it says, “I have heard that wind is the beginning of all diseases” — all right, we have acupuncture to treat wind.
Wind is the beginning of all diseases: first tell whether you were struck by wind or cold
How do you treat wind? Doctor Ni first gives a great principle: a ball, entering from outside to the center, has many roads that can reach the goal — once the goal is reached, the disease is resolved. Wind is the beginning of all diseases; one dose of Chinese medicine to expel wind works within two or three hours, but this whole chapter is about acupuncture — how do needles treat wind on the surface?
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: When wind enters from outside, it must first be on the sun collaterals. If it is not resolved on the sun collaterals, it enters the main channels; if not resolved on the main channels, it enters the fu organs; if not resolved on the fu organs, it enters the zang organs — this is the order of the disease developing. Coming all the way in from the surface of the skin is the six-channel differentiation we discussed before: from tai yang into shao yang, into yang ming — and yang ming stops the disease there; from shao yang into tai yin, shao yin, jue yin — that is the method of differentiating within the six channels.
What is the first symptom when wind comes in? Qi Bo says: it makes a person hate the cold and sweat. And sweating versus no sweating is the key to telling wind from cold:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The one with a sensation of sweating is wind; the one with no sweat, whose pores close up, must be cold. So if someone is injured by cold, the patient certainly has no sweat; if injured by wind, the patient will have the phenomenon of sweating. The patient truly sweats, has a headache, a heavy body and aversion to cold — these symptoms mean it is a surface pattern.
Why does the whole body feel heavy after being struck by wind?
Wind-injury causes a “heavy body” — where does that heaviness come from? Doctor Ni explains it thoroughly with the spleen and the fluids:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The reason for the heavy body is that the spleen governs the four limbs and governs the muscles. Once you are struck by wind and the wind enters your muscles, there is sweating — the surface sweat flows out, meaning the exterior cannot be secured well and the yang qi is a little deficient. Then the fluids in the spleen can no longer take care of the four limbs. The fluids in the body we call yin; the smooth flowing of the fluids, the power of that flow, we call yang. Now they cannot flow smoothly, they are blocked, so there is a sensation of the whole body being very heavy.
The first point for wind: Fengfu
For treatment, use the Fengfu point. Doctor Ni reviewed the location and technique:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Everyone knows Fengfu — behind the head, below the occipital bone, the first one is Fengfu, then Yamen. From Fengfu we regulate its yin and yang — when insufficient, tonify; when there is stasis, drain. For strong wind with neck pain, we also needle Fengfu.
If strong wind causes sweating that will not stop — the yang qi has become deficient and the body fluids keep leaking outward:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Our sweat is in the muscles; the water in the muscles does not dissipate and there is no dehydration, precisely because of the surface yang — when the surface yang is sufficient, the pores close and we do not sweat it away. Now the surface yang is insufficient and the body fluids keep dispersing outward — in this case we can also use moxa on Yixi. Everyone remembers Yixi, right? You press the point and the patient, with eyes closed, involuntarily calls out “yixi, yixi” — that is the point; you can just moxa it.
For pain in the brow (“wind shaking wind”), what to do? Doctor Ni says, when the headache is here, we blood-let Cuanzhu and also blood-let the tai yang points at the temples.
Bonus: two methods for a stiff neck — one needs no needle, one uses moxa
After Fengfu, the text suddenly jumps to “dampness on the transverse bone of the shoulder” — that is, a stiff neck. Doctor Ni first gives the simplest method:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: A stiff neck — the simplest, simplest method: at the start the head cannot move. Have the person lie flat, move the head end of the bed outside — no pillow — let the head hang down naturally, wait three to five minutes, then come back up — and it is cured.
And if it is already injured, how do you treat it? Doctor Ni teaches a wonderfully clever moxibustion method:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Say his neck hurts, and this hand can lift without problem — ah, but when this hand is pulled, that headache becomes very severe. Then you take the painful hand and turn it back behind the elbow as far as it will go, until it cannot turn any further — the patient’s fingers press on a point of the spine. Make a circle, a mark, on that point, then let the hand go and moxa on that mark. There — the stiff neck is cured. That is one method of treatment. If both hips hurt, you can also needle Yixi for the distending pain.
Back pain that cannot turn over: the Baliao points
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Back pain that cannot turn side to side, even pulling into the genitals — we can needle Baliao, and also needle directly on the tender point above the pain. You have all read about Baliao — the eight Baliao points of the bladder channel, located in the space between the lumbar and the sacrum.
And “mouse-leak chills and fever” — when there is a problem around the mouse-thigh area (the groin):
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Huantiao, and the cold palace — the cold palace is the Xiyangguan point on the lateral knee, our Xiyangguan. For points on the lateral upper knee, have the patient kneel to take them; for points reaching the sole of the foot, have the patient kneel — this way we find Yongquan, having him kneel; and Futu, we also have him kneel. Many points are taken with the patient kneeling.
The “zheng patterns” of the eight extraordinary vessels: how the Ren, Du and Chong vessels fall ill
Page 462 talks about some simple zheng patterns (evidential patterns) of the eight extraordinary vessels. Doctor Ni first states that he will not cover it completely, and he suspects the Huang Di Nei Jing chapters were compiled in the wrong order — these are things that came down on bamboo strips, and he will slowly compile them back in order when he has time.
The Conception Vessel: starts below Zhongji, passes over the pubic hair, and runs through the abdomen. The Chong Vessel: starts at Qijie (qi street), joins the shao yin channel, flanks the navel, ascends, and spreads in the chest:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: We have two qi streets — one is the qi street of the stomach, on the upper lateral thigh, coming up along the inside, including Liangqiu and Futu along the front; the other is the qi street of the kidney, on the kidney channel, which we will introduce later. That is the Chong Vessel — the text speaks a passage, then stops; it will speak of the Chong Vessel again later.
When the Conception Vessel is diseased: men develop the seven shan accumulations internally, women develop dai xia and jia ju. Doctor Ni conveniently clarifies the two key terms:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: You only need to remember: whenever Chinese medicine says “shan,” it means accumulating pain. Why do we call it accumulating pain? Because it is fixed and does not move — the abdominal pain is fixed on that one point; that is called accumulating pain, it comes from accumulation. In women, dai xia jia ju — whenever you see the character “jia,” it means disease in the abdomen, with something accumulated inside. Generally speaking, cold patterns all produce accumulating pain.
When the Chong Vessel is diseased, there is rebellious qi and inner urgency. The Gongsun point governs the Chong Vessel:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Do you remember, when we discussed acupuncture, whether the Gongsun point governs the Chong Vessel? So we use Gongsun with Neiguan — when qi rebels and a person cannot catch his breath from wheezing, we needle Gongsun and Neiguan, because they govern the Chong Vessel, and the Chong Vessel produces rebellious qi and inner urgency.
What about the Governor Vessel? Doctor Ni explains its starting point — many people do not understand it:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The starting point of the Governor Vessel in women is a raised spot between the place of urination and the pubic hair; in men it also starts here, then runs along the penis down to the perineum. When the Governor Vessel is diseased, the disease starts from the lower abdomen rushing up to the heart; when the Governor Vessel is diseased, one cannot pass urine or stool — neither comes out. If someone has this disease, women are infertile, and there is often strangury, hemorrhoids, stagnant heat, or urinary incontinence, and a dry throat, very dry mouth.
How do you treat the Governor Vessel? Treat it on the bone; in severe cases, at the camp below the navel:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Our most common treatment of the Governor Vessel — Lingtai is on the Governor Vessel below the sixth vertebra, and one and a half cun lateral to Lingtai is Geshu. We can needle directly on Lingtai, and needle Geshu one and a half cun on each side. Even in severe cases, we go back and moxa three cun below the navel — the Guanyuan point.
Bonus: the Taoist abdominal-breathing method for cultivating qi
Speaking of Guanyuan, Doctor Ni takes the opportunity to teach a Taoist secret method of cultivating qi — a health practice he emphasizes over and over:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Three cun below the navel drops down to the ming men. From Guanyuan to the ming men, in between there is something like a string. When Taoists cultivate qi, they breathe right here — the point sinks down with the breath, sinking to the perineum. When you inhale, in your mind imagine this string being pulled down, pulled to the perineum; when you exhale, the string rises, extending to Danzhong, the middle diaphragm. This is abdominal breathing — the best way. In your mind, imagine it this way; and while you are imagining, your mind becomes concentrated.
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: In the past, many people meditating said we use the breath — count one inhalation and exhalation as one, another in and out as two, some people count breaths, but counting from one until you die and not forgetting — that requires a very concentrated mind. So you often count to five and then forget the rest. You do not need that. Just imagine this string moving — that is the place of true qi, the place of the san jiao and the ming men fire.
Knee pain: first, a lesson in “bone names” anatomy
Page 464 begins with qi rushing upward: qi rushing up, yin breathing, distension — the throat makes a very loud sound. Doctor Ni says many wind-stroke patients have throat roaring, like thunder, like phlegm, a very loud sound:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: In this case we needle Tiantu, in the center of the throat. Qi rushing from the supraclavicular fossa up into the throat is treated at its gradual point — that is the Daying point. The “gradual” is above the cheek, between the two maxillary bones.
Then the text defines the bones around the knee, and Doctor Ni explains them one by one:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The bone above the instep and below the transverse bone is the jian; beside the hip is the ji; the knee joint is the hai guan; the bones flanking the knee are the lian hai; below the hai is the fu; above the fu is the guo; above the guo is the guan; the transverse bone of the head is the pillow. Later there are definitions — looking back: if the knee cannot bend or straighten, we treat its jian, which is the so-called Xiyangguan point; if the knee hurts while sitting, we treat its ji, which is the Juliao point — the Juliao point of the gallbladder channel above; if we treat its guan, the knee five-needle method is of course also fine.
What about cold patterns? “Li er shu jie” — meaning cold bi:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Cold, of course we have wind-cold-damp bi — when cold bi is in the joint, in standing weather when it is hot, it is more comfortable, and when it is cold, it is more severe. In this case we treat its cold guan, which is the location of the Xiguan point; Xiyangguan can also be used — Xiyangguan is the cold palace, it can remove cold. Knee pain reaching the big toe: treat its guo zhong (Weizhong). Knee pain as if something is stuck inside the knee: we treat its guan — you can use the bone needle, Xiyangguan is fine. A knee that can extend but not bend treats its jian — this refers to Dazhu, meaning there is bone injury; when the bone is injured, the joint swells up.
If the lian hai is broken, treat the middle of yang ming; if the shaft of the bone is broken, treat the ying-spring points of the great yang and shao yin:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: If the bone is injured and the lian hai is broken, treat the middle of yang ming — that is Zusanli; if it is on the shaft of the bone, we needle the ying-spring points of the great yang and shao yin — for the tai yang channel it is the Tonggu point, for the kidney channel it is the Rangu point. For one who cannot stand for long, we treat the luo-connecting point of the shao yang, the Guangming point. These are all treatments for patterns — the Huang Di Nei Jing sets out many methods of treatment; in clinical practice follow the way I taught in acupuncture: do the tonification according to the channel, find when to use the child point and when to use the mother point.
And what if you cannot tell deficiency from excess? Doctor Ni gives a master key:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: If you cannot distinguish deficiency and excess, cannot figure it out, no problem — we have many points that, once inserted, treat both deficiency and excess together — it is called the master-servant treatment, which is our yuan-luo treatment: the diseased channel is the master channel, the controlling channel is its interior-exterior channel. In this yuan-luo treatment, on the yuan points, there is no concern about tonification or draining — whether deficiency or excess, it can all be treated.
What is bone emptiness? Why treat bone disease at the bone openings?
Page 466 suddenly speaks of the fifty-seven water shu points — clearly it is about bone emptiness, yet it speaks of water shu. Doctor Ni says he will not expand on it here:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Later, in the Shui Re Xue Lun, the water shu points are mentioned — which are the good places for water to be transported. This “shu” can also be read “shu” (transport); it does not really matter, but our true meaning is the vital thoroughfare where transportation meets — the meaning of “shu” (transport).
Then the real subject finally arrives — bone emptiness. Our body has many bone emptinesses, the places where the bones have spaces:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The marrow emptiness is three fen behind the head, the place of Naohu — so Naohu cannot be needled; you would pierce into the brain. Another is below the opposite bone at the edge of the skull, which is the Fengfu point; another is below the curved cheek, the Daying point; another is below the double bone behind the nape, the Yamen point — Fengfu, Fengchi and Yamen are very close together. One is in the upper emptiness of the spine, above Fengfu; and one is the lower emptiness of the spine, below the coccyx, which is the Changqiang point — there is bone below it. The cheekbone emptiness is on the face — beside Juliao by the side of the nose there are two hollows; inside the bone there is bone emptiness.
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The two shoulders also have bone emptiness — on the scapula in the back, you feel the wide bone in the back, the hollow behind it; that all runs on the tai yang small intestine channel, and treats cerebral hemorrhage and cerebral congestion. The emptiness of the two abdominal bones, on the yang of the abdominal bones, refers to the location of the small intestine channel; the emptiness of the arm bones is four cun from the back-yang toward the hand joint — that is our Sanyangluo — when the wrist and elbow have two bones, in the middle seam between the two bones, that seam is Sanyangluo.
The upper emptiness of the femur bone is the Zhongdu point — and here Doctor Ni takes the opportunity to correct a typo:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The upper emptiness of the femur bone, four cun above the knee on the yang of the femur, refers to our Zhongdu point. When my student typed it back then, this is not Fengshi — it is Zhongdu. Zhongdu’s actual location is five cun directly above the outside of the knee. Below Zhongdu there is another bone emptiness. The emptiness of the shin bone is at the upper end of the shin — that is the so-called Juegu point. The emptiness at the pubic bone is at the location of Qugu — the Conception Vessel’s third point from the bottom, Qugu at the perineum. And the emptiness of the ilium is four cun behind the ilium — that is our Huantiao point.
There is also the bone of the pelvis — Doctor Ni mentions a detail:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Behind the coccyx, at the sitting bones, there is the pelvis — that bone is flat and smooth; on its surface there are side ridges, but it has no water pores, so the jade marrow has no emptiness — there is no marrow inside; that is what he is talking about. And whenever there is disease of the bones, we can all treat it on the bone emptinesses.
How do you know whether it is a bone disease or a channel disease? Doctor Ni teaches a way to tell:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: If he has a channel problem, he will tell you, “My shoulder hurts, and it hurts coming down along the shoulder” — you know he is on the channel, he points to the location of that channel. If, for example, this channel is the hand yang ming large intestine channel and behind it is the san jiao channel, and the location he points to is neither the large intestine nor the san jiao — it is on the collateral between the two — he is not deliberately being difficult; he is on the collateral. Now if it is a bone disease, it is on that one point; that point will not travel along the channel.
The great method of moxa for chills-and-fever: whatever the disease, if there is chills and fever, use moxa
Page 467 — the text suddenly runs out to discuss the method of “moxa for chills-and-fever.” Does it relate to bone emptiness? Doctor Ni says: do not be surprised — these are things that came down on bamboo strips over thousands of years; whether the moxa-for-chills-and-fever passage is placed in front or the heat studies in back does not matter. The method is what matters:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: He sets down a method of moxa for chills-and-fever, without saying what disease — you might be facing malaria, you might be facing wind-cold, you might be facing cold damage, you might have some other disease, with both chills and fever. In this case you can use the moxa-for-chills-and-fever method; he does not care what disease is inside. So in clinical practice, for example, we treat a person’s joint pain and prescribe joint-pain medicine — maybe inside it is bone cancer; never mind, that is fine.
At this point Doctor Ni cannot help criticizing the warm-disease school — a viewpoint he emphasizes repeatedly:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The first reason Chinese medicine cannot cure disease today is the warm-disease school — they do not know how to use it. Look, we have been reading the Huang Di Nei Jing from the beginning until now; if you have truly read the Huang Di Nei Jing, you know that cold damage is the truth. Because warm disease comes from “in winter one is injured by cold, in spring one inevitably suffers warm disease”; and warm disease also has its time — what breaks out before the summer solstice is warm disease, the disease contracted as cold damage the previous winter; after the summer solstice it belongs to heat stroke. After all the discussion it is still heat stroke — there is still no warm disease! Warm disease comes from cold damage; only after being injured by cold does one later develop fever. But the Chinese medicine practitioners outside today do not read the Huang Di Nei Jing; they do not take the Huang Di Nei Jing as the true physiology, pathology, predictive and preventive medicine of Chinese medicine — they look at it through Western medicine. Of course you cannot get it right.
How exactly do you moxa for chills-and-fever?
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: If you encounter a disease with chills and fever, first moxa Dazhui on the nape, with as many cones as your age — if you are 31, I moxa you 31 cones; at 52, older, a few more. After moxaing that, moxa the Juegu bone — the coccyx — also with as many cones as your age. We can also follow the shu points of the bladder channel on the back — Ganshu, Pishu, Feishu, Shenshu, Danshu, Xiaochangshu, Weishu, Pangguangshu — all along it has its shu points; wherever we feel the shu point sunken, we can moxa it. Also the tip of the scapula can be moxaed — the hollow above the scapula is the point at the tip of the scapula. And between two muscles, the Zhangmen point — Zhangmen, the meeting of the zang organs; Juegu above the lateral malleolus can also be moxaed; the tip at the red-white flesh border of the fourth and fifth toes is our Xiaxi point; the crab pulse three cun below the popliteal fossa is the Weiyang point; and Kunlun outside Weiyang at the lateral malleolus can also be moxaed — moxa for chills-and-fever works too.
Pain on cutting above the clavicle, like a sinew, is also treated with moxa:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Above the clavicle — many people have shoulder pain; you feel the two shoulders, the shoulder and neck stiff as a board — then you just moxa them at home, place the moxa directly on the shoulder and neck, right on that big sinew, and moxa until it softens.
No moxa on hand? The pull-up bar hanging method
The moxa tools are not at hand, nothing outside, and the shoulder hurts — Chinese medicine has plenty of methods:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Have the person go find a pull-up bar, grab the bar with his hands — if there is no pull-up bar, a door frame will do; when I say pull-up bar, do not take it rigidly, you can adapt. Grab a hold, then let the body hang down; once hanging, your body weight presses on it. At this time you tilt your head forward, hang by the hands, the whole body suspended there with only five fingers holding the body up, everything else relaxed from the head down, the neck drooping — hang for five minutes and get up; that neck sinew is loosened. This is our “jin jing” — if you do not know this method, the Huang Di Nei Jing says it does not matter: moxa on top, directly moxa on it.
There are also the ribs of the chest — the hollow places by the ribs, moxa both sides:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Where the ribs of the chest hollow, moxa both sides — where it is tense and there is emptiness below, you moxa here and moxa here; this method balances yin and yang. You can also add below the Changqiang bone, like the Rangu point; both can be moxaed. Three cun below — moxa Zusanli three cun below the knee; the moving artery on the instep of the foot yang ming (Chongyang) can also be moxaed; the top of the shoulder can also be moxaed.
Rabid dog bites, tetanus, snake bites: alternating chills and fever — all treatable with moxa
The last passage of the chapter discusses rabid dog bites — Doctor Ni says this method is very useful:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: When a dog bites, a rabid dog bites, we moxa three cones on the wound, using the ancient method for dog bites. Single moxa at twenty-nine places — that is, if you are moxaing for chills-and-fever and a rabid dog has bitten, besides moxaing the wound three cones, all these earlier points (Dazhui, the back shu and the other chills-and-fever points) can all be moxaed together. So the alternating chills and fever produced by a dog bite, or tetanus, or the alternating chills and fever of a snake bite — whenever you see alternating chills and fever, chills and fever bound together, you can all use this method.
What if you moxa for a long time and it still has not healed? Doctor Ni gives the closing move:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: If after all the moxaing it still has not healed, then look at the passage — which channel is excessively exuberant, and needle its shu point. The shu point is where the qi of the vessel is transported in and out, the place of transport and exchange; then give him medicine. “But teacher, how do I know which qi vessel is more exuberant?” Very simple — we have the three yin and three yang; palpate the three yin and three yang, whichever sinew is especially painful, that is the one — one press and you know. So we have the method of palpation.
The Shui Re Xue Lun: why does the kidney govern water?
Finally we enter Chapter Sixty-One, the Shui Re Xue Lun (Water-Heat Acupoints). The Yellow Emperor asks: why does the shao yin govern the kidney? Why does the kidney govern water? Qi Bo’s answer — Doctor Ni explains it with a picture from nature:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: The kidney is the supreme yin and governs water, the kidney water; the lung is the great yin, and the shao yin is the winter vessel — therefore its root is in the kidney and its branch in the lung, and both are places that accumulate water. The kidney is here, with the diaphragm as the boundary — above the ground is yang, below the ground is yin. So the kidney is the water organ, the winter organ; water gathers below and then comes up to the lung, and the lung spreads like leaves — therefore the kidney is the root and the lung is the branch. A tree in nature grows very large because the roots draw water from below — Chinese medicine puts the person into nature and compares the two. And these two places are both places that can accumulate water.
The kidney is the gate of the stomach: the sluice-gate theory of the dam
Why can the kidney gather water and cause disease? This sentence is the most crucial metaphor of the whole chapter — the sluice gate:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Qi Bo said: the kidney is the gate of the stomach. When the gate does not close properly, water accumulates and follows its kind, overflowing above and below into the skin — therefore there is edema, water gathering and causing disease. When this water is overfull, it will flood into the spleen earth — the middle is the spleen earth. We drink water and eat food coming in, accumulating like a dam; our stomach and intestines are the sea of grain and water, all the essence of our food and drink is the sea of grain — the sea of grain is like a dam.
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: When the dam’s water is too full, there is a sluice gate, right? The gate must open. When this gate opens, this gate is the kidney — so we say the kidney is the gate of the stomach. When your kidney function is good, as soon as the water is full it seeps open, the gate opens, and the water is released. If you have a kidney problem and the gate does not close properly, the water stops inside with nowhere to go. And you keep eating, keep drinking — so when you meet an edema patient, he will tell you: you ask him, “Are you thirsty?” “I am thirsty.” “Then do you dare drink water?” “I do not dare. Why? Because drinking makes the body heavier — one sip and the body is heavier.”
What is the difference between how a normal person and an edema patient drink water? Doctor Ni gives a distinguishing point:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: After a normal person drinks water, it generates fluids; when the circulation returns, there will be fluids under the tongue, saliva comes out. The abnormal person has water accumulating below, below the diaphragm is underground, and the whole earth is full of water — when the earth is full of water, the water cannot transform qi, so your upper burner is very thirsty and dry, and this water cannot be absorbed.
Closing: do all water diseases start from the kidney? The dispute over the pin organ
The Yellow Emperor asks: do all water diseases then start from the kidney? Qi Bo answers:
💬 Note from Doctor Ni Haixia: Qi Bo answered: the kidney is the pin organ — this character “pin” appears in our Yi Jing in the dispute over the pin mares; pin means mother. The kidney is the pin organ, belonging to yin, and water comes from here. This passage of the text ends here; in the next lecture we will continue with the detailed differentiation of water diseases.
This lecture traveled from treating wind, stiff neck, back pain and knee pain, all the way to treating bone disease at the bone emptinesses and the great moxibustion method for chills-and-fever, and finally landed on the root of edema — the kidney as the gate of the stomach. Doctor Ni says, reading the Huang Di Nei Jing is like this: for a few thousand years of bamboo strips to survive at all is already lucky; the chapters may be a little disordered — do not be surprised; grasping the treatments is the real thing.
Compiled from Doctor Ni Haixia’s Ren Ji (Human Records) lecture series on the Huang Di Nei Jing (Lecture 64), presented by Doctor Luo Dalun.