Diarrhea and Back Pain at the First Sign of Cold? Doctor Luo Dalun’s Plan for an Unusually Damp Autumn: Strengthen the Spleen, Warm the Yang, and Clear Dampness

Opening: This Autumn Is Genuinely Different From Other Years

Good morning, dear friends. Today let’s talk about something off to the side — about this autumn, the autumn we are living through right now, and how we should nourish our health and protect our bodies through it.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What characterizes our autumn this year? It really is different from other years. In a normal year, the moment Start of Autumn (li qiu) arrives, the weather turns crisp and clear — high clouds, brilliant sky, and the sun beating straight down, so you immediately feel dry heat. In summer the sun’s rays are softened because layers of mist and vapor always blur them; but in autumn the sun shines straight down and you feel that dry, scorching heat — the governing qi of autumn is dryness. When it has just turned cool, that is cool dryness (liang zao); near winter, warm dryness (wen zao) tends to appear; and within a single day, morning and evening are often cool-dry while midday is warm-dry. But everyone must remember: nothing in this world is fixed. Every year, according to TCM’s five movements and six qi (wu yun liu qi), the six qi keep shifting. This year is especially unusual — it is a Gengzi year, and as you know the whole qi movement of the year has been somewhat chaotic. There are still broad patterns, but the manifestations have indeed been very abnormal, in all sorts of ways. This autumn opened with extraordinarily heavy dampness — quite different from the usual dryness that should be in charge.

How damp is it? All over the country, the start of autumn brought floods — the worst of the flood crests may have passed, but its force lingers, and local flooding keeps occurring. If you live in the northeast, you will be even more astonished: the northeast never gets typhoons, yet this year three typhoons landed one after another in Jilin, and Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang were all affected.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Look at the weather now. In past years the northeast was incredibly dry. This year, open your dehumidifier and measure it: the humidity should read above 70%, close to 80%. This really is different from other years. So this year we have to consider: what will this dampness — especially autumn dampness — do to our bodies? Everyone needs to take care and prepare.

The South Is Still Damp-Hot: the Season Lasts Unusually Long, and the Body Breaks Down Everywhere

The north and south are not the same, and things change as the season progresses. The closer we are to summer, the more it is damp-heat — right now the south is still in a damp-heat state.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This year’s damp-heat phase has lasted especially long — longer than usual. In a normal year, the body’s qi should be descending by autumn. If dampness in your body is too heavy, then turbid yin stays above, and the qi mechanism easily becomes disordered. So people with heavy dampness feel especially uncomfortable this season.

How does damp-heat trap the body? Doctor Luo explains it in detail:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Stomach pain, stuffiness, fullness, bloating — some people get diarrhea, others break out in all kinds of skin conditions. Damp-heat is especially likely to trap people who already have heat and accumulated waste inside — for example, weak spleen-stomach function with phlegm-damp stasis inside, plus a constitution that runs hot. When damp-heat sits in the upper body it triggers all kinds of hot conditions — the eyes, the nose, the throat. When damp-heat pours downward, the urinary system goes wrong: some friends suddenly pass blood in the urine — that is damp-heat pouring down. The stool tends to be unformed, yellow-brown and loose, sometimes diarrhea that is quite severe. When it breaks out on the surface, you get all kinds of skin diseases, rashes and spots.

How do you recognize damp-heat by looking at the tongue?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: I mainly judge whether someone has damp-heat by looking at the tongue. A person with damp-heat always has a red tongue body — look at the tongue body showing at the edges; if it is subtly red, or very red, there is heat inside. At the same time the coating is very thick, covering the tongue. Sometimes you have to learn to see through the illusion: when the coating covers the tongue completely, you may actually think there is no heat. But lift the tongue up, or look at the edges — the exposed part is red, very red, meaning there is heat inside. The coating can also be sticky and yellow. Recently I have seen several children with exactly the same picture: red tongue body with a thick, full coating spread over it — some have skin problems, some can’t sleep well and are restless and agitated at night. In every case, damp-heat was blocking the movement of qi and blood through the three burners (san jiao), and the body was producing all kinds of disease.

How to Treat Damp-Heat? San Ren Tang as the Foundation — Moving Qi and Clearing Dampness Is the Key

So how do you get rid of damp-heat? Doctor Luo uses a classic metaphor:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: TCM explains it clearly: dampness and heat together are like oil kneaded into flour — pour oil into flour and the two become a sticky mass that is extremely hard to separate. No matter how you try to clear the heat, you cannot clear it away. What to do? Get rid of the dampness — once the dampness is gone, the heat has nothing to carry it, nothing to hold it, and the heat itself begins to drift away and dissipate. So removing dampness is the key.

What formula to use? The classic San Ren Tang (Three Kernels Decoction):

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: San Ren Tang barely clears heat at all. Its main strategy is moving qi to help remove dampness — xing ren (apricot kernel), bai kou ren (white cardamom kernel), and yi yi ren (coix seed) open the qi of the upper, middle, and lower burners; then fa ban xia (processed pinellia) moves qi and dries dampness, and hou po (magnolia bark) also moves qi and opens the waterways. Its focus is on moving qi and clearing dampness. I often add fu ling (poria) and zhu ling (polyporus) to strengthen the dampness-draining power, plus some cang zhu (atractylodes). The heat-clearing inside is very simple — hua shi (talc) opens the urine and lets damp-heat leave through the bladder; a little tong cao (rice-paper plant pith) also drains outward through urine; and dan zhu ye / zhu ye (lophatherum) clears heat. So the heat-clearing power is small and the dampness-clearing power is large — that is the TCM method.

Who tends to fall into a damp-heat state?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: People who regularly eat rich, fatty, sweet foods — who eat very well — and especially children: many children love meat, their middle jiao is already blocked and starting to transform into heat. If the damp-heat lasts too long, when autumn comes the lung qi should descend and carry dampness down with it, but the damp-heat is still plainly sitting in the body, and then all kinds of disease start to appear. So everyone should stay alert to damp-heat.

The Main Event: Cold-Damp Is the Real Enemy of This Autumn

Damp-heat is not the main subject today. Today the main subject is cold-damp — because the north has now turned cool while the dampness is still heavy, and the problems caused by cold-damp are especially prominent. And it will gradually move south: after Mid-Autumn it appears in the central plains; in late autumn it appears in the south as well.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: How does cold-damp invade? If dampness in our body is heavy — a person who is yang-deficient and spleen-stomach-weak to begin with will carry heavy dampness, which we call internal dampness. Meet this climate’s external dampness — typhoon after typhoon, constant rain, ground that never dries — and the external dampness is heavy too. Now autumn has arrived and the weather is turning cool: one cold, one damp begin to attack our bodies. Who is most easily affected? People who are yang-deficient, spleen-stomach-weak, and already heavy with internal dampness — internal and external dampness respond to and reinforce each other.

Doctor Luo offers a very vivid comparison:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Imagine a robber trying to break into your house, and there is a traitor inside — the traitor is the dampness in your body, and the robber outside is the external dampness. External dampness would not easily get into your body on its own: if the man of the house is strong, the bad guy cannot get in, because you can resist him. But your inside traitor grabs you tightly, holds you still, and stops you from fighting back — and then the bad guy outside slips right in. So when a person has weak spleen-stomach and heavy dampness, the dampness ties up the spleen-stomach, and external dampness enters all the more easily — that is the principle of internal and external dampness influencing each other.

The Two Most Typical Cold-Damp Diseases: Diarrhea and Lower-Back Pain

When a person has weak spleen-stomach, insufficient yang qi, and heavy dampness, in past autumns — dry, parched autumns — he felt fairly comfortable. This autumn, with the heavy dampness, the moment cold-damp arrives he falls ill at once. In the north, the two most common conditions right now are:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: One is lower-back pain, the other is diarrhea. How bad is this autumn’s diarrhea? Some people cannot cure it with any medicine; the slightest discomfort and they are pouring with loose stools — they eat something that would normally be perfectly harmless, and immediately they are pouring with diarrhea. A little cool wind blows, or it is slightly cool in the morning, and again they are pouring. They think they ate something wrong, something unhygienic, so they take berberine, or the antiviral levofloxacin — and it does not work; even if it helps briefly, the diarrhea returns at once. Why? Because the cause is not what they think. What is this? Cold-damp trapping the spleen — remember this: a lingering, unrelenting autumn diarrhea is very often cold-damp trapping the spleen. If it also meets a bit of kidney-yang deficiency, the problem becomes even more serious.

And the back pain?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This back pain can be fierce. The slightest carelessness and the back starts hurting; in past years they barely noticed back pain, but this year they have it — this is cold-damp doing the harm, blocking the movement of qi and blood in the channels of the lower back. Why? Spleen-kidney yang deficiency and heavy internal dampness make the body’s resistance to cold and dampness poor. Cold-damp arrives; you sleep a little and a breeze blows on you — and there is the back pain. You move slightly the wrong way — and there is the back pain. You think you pulled a muscle, but in fact the channels in there were already blocked, which is why it flares up this way. I have genuinely seen many cases like this in autumn; this is determined by this year’s autumn climate.

Even More Important: Dampness Obscuring the Heart Yang — the Heart Breaks Down

Cold-damp’s influence is enormous, and it is not limited to the back and the belly:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Heavy dampness traps the spleen, and it also obscures the heart yang. In the five elements, the heart belongs to fire. When dampness is heavy, it veils the heart yang — this is what we call the Ling Gui Zhu Gan Tang pattern, where the heart often feels all kinds of discomfort. Now if cold-damp comes — you were already suffocating the heart yang, and now cold is added on top — you will clearly feel the heart breaking down: chest tightness, all kinds of discomfort, heart pain, even dangerous manifestations.

Just look at the news:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Since autumn began, there have already been many cases of people dying suddenly of heart problems — the famous actor Xie Yuan, and several corporate executives and bosses, who died suddenly of heart failure one after another. Every year at this season, cold pathogen affects the heart; but this year’s dampness is additionally veiling the heart yang, adding a complicating factor to the problem. So if a person is yang-deficient, spleen-kidney yang-deficient, and at the same time heavy with water-dampness, they will feel distinctly unwell at this time of year, and problems will appear throughout the body.

Learn to Read Your Tongue: Swollen, Teeth Marks, Pale, Watery

How do you recognize whether you belong to the high-risk group for heavy cold-damp? Again, look at the tongue:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Such a person’s tongue is always swollen — larger than usual — and along the sides of the swollen tongue there are teeth marks, the imprints of the teeth. The tongue body is pale white — note, not red, but pale, leaning white. The coating is very thick, and there is a lot of saliva on it — slippery and watery — sometimes the coating covers the whole tongue. A plump, very pale tongue, a thick coating, watery with lots of saliva, plus teeth marks — such a person is often in the high-risk group: likely yang-deficient, spleen-deficient, heavy with dampness.

What symptoms go with it?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: The head always feels dizzy and foggy. The body tends to swell — plump people easily swell. The spleen-stomach is always easily blocked, and especially blocked when chilled. After being chilled, diarrhea easily follows — pouring loose stools. Easily afraid of cold — the moment they get cold, either the belly hurts or the stomach hurts. The lower limbs swell more easily — press a finger in and it leaves a pit. The lower limbs are easily cold, because water moves downward, and cold-damp especially moves downward. The lower back easily aches — especially after being chilled. Overall the feeling of being cold is quite obvious — afraid of wind and afraid of cold. If you have these symptoms, this is the typical picture of spleen deficiency with heavy dampness.

The Overall Strategy: Strengthen the Spleen + Warm the Yang + Clear Dampness — Zhang Zhongjing’s Shen Zhu Tang

What should you do in a cold-damp-heavy autumn? The method of regulation has three directions: strengthen the spleen (or the spleen and kidney) + warm the yang + clear dampness. The most classic formula is Zhang Zhongjing’s Shen Zhu Tang (Kidney-Fixing Decoction).

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: What Zhang Zhongjing established for us is the principle (fa) — every one of his formulas carries a principle. Shen Zhu Tang is especially classic: it contains gan jiang (dried ginger), and the dried ginger must be processed (pao) — plain dried ginger is rather harsh and drying, while processed dried ginger acts on the lower burner and is gentler; it warms the middle and warms the yang. So in this autumn, for people who are yang-deficient, spleen-deficient, and heavy with dampness, warm-natured herbs such as dried ginger and cinnamon are exactly what can be used — to warm the yang.

Warming the yang alone is not enough; there are two helpers:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Processed ginger is paired with fu ling (poria) — poria drains dampness. Poria is then paired with bai zhu (atractylodes) — atractylodes strengthens the spleen. You cannot simply drain dampness and stop: the spleen-stomach must be built up strong. Bai zhu and dried ginger together warm the spleen yang and fortify the spleen qi; once the spleen-stomach is strong, the dampness, once removed, will not return. If you only use poria to drain dampness without strengthening the spleen, it will not work — the dampness goes, the spleen-stomach is still weak, and within a blink the dampness is generated all over again. So warm the yang on one side, drain dampness on one side, strengthen the spleen on one side, and then add zhi gan cao (honey-fried licorice) to build up the spleen-stomach and harmonize all the ingredients. I understand honey-fried licorice as the potency enhancer of the formula — it lets the whole prescription coordinate better and work to its full effect.

What does this formula treat? The lower-back pain caused by cold-damp trapped in the lower back, with the channels blocked:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Many people sleep through this autumn — some even run the air conditioner for a while at night — and that’s it: the back hurts, and in the morning they can’t move. Drink this formula, and a great many people feel the effect immediately. Zhang Zhongjing said to wrap the waist with clothing so that it produces a slight sweat — we can wrap up with a quilt or blanket instead. And after drinking it, don’t go out and get blown by the wind the moment you start sweating — that would be a disaster. Usually one or two doses will definitely take effect.

Breaking the Formula Down Into Food Therapy: a Bit of Spleen-Strengthening, a Bit of Dampness-Draining, a Bit of Yang-Warming

The thinking of Shen Zhu Tang can guide us through this cold-damp-heavy autumn. For daily food therapy, you can break it down:

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: For strengthening the spleen — shan yao (Chinese yam), lotus seeds, and yi mi (pearl barley) can all be eaten. Pair them with something dampness-draining — yi mi and red adzuki beans. Then add something yang-warming — drink a little ginger sugar paste or ginger sugar drinks every day. Moxibustion is also fine — this amounts to using moxibustion as medicine. What Zhang Zhongjing gave us is a principle — strengthen the spleen, clear dampness, warm the yang. When autumn comes, everyone can think of all kinds of ways; work these three ideas together and you will protect yourself well.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: I’ve heard friends say they drink a small cup of ginger sugar drink every morning when they get up — that is warming the yang. Then brew something spleen-strengthening — the Bazhen (Eight-Treasure) formula we often use and the like — and after drinking it the spleen-stomach feels much more comfortable. That is spleen-strengthening and yang-warming used together; add something dampness-draining and it is even better.

A Bonus Anti-Diarrhea Remedy: Sorghum

In this cold-damp-heavy autumn, many people are trapped by diarrhea. How do you regulate it? If you have confirmed it is not an intestinal infection — not a contagious disease like dysentery — but simply diarrhea at the slightest chill, four or five times a day, very uncomfortable yet not really dangerous, this is the autumn disharmony of the intestines and stomach with heavy cold-damp; all the spleen-strengthening and dampness-draining methods work. Add to that a food-therapy treasure — sorghum.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Sorghum (gao liang mi) — people in the northeast used to eat it all the time: the summer sorghum-in-water meal. I ate plenty as a child — and honestly, as a kid I didn’t like it at all; it felt scratchy on the throat. When I grew up, I wanted to eat it again and went looking everywhere for it; whenever I meet someone selling it, I buy extra, because it is truly delicious. Sorghum is one of the earliest grains the Chinese people ate. It comes in red sorghum and white sorghum — red sorghum mostly goes to brewing liquor; what we buy is usually the white kind, with the husk already removed.

What can sorghum do?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Sorghum’s medicinal nature is warm — sweet and warm. It is warming, absolutely not cooling. TCM holds that sorghum can harmonize the stomach and resolve stagnation, and warm the middle — people with deficiency-cold can use it to warm the center. It can also astringe the intestines and stomach — astringent here means not slippery: it gathers and holds in, restraining the intestines and stomach. For spleen deficiency with dampness trapping, very heavy dampness, and diarrhea from spleen deficiency, sorghum works especially well. It is a fine anti-diarrhea remedy.

How do you eat it?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Some people’s spleen-stomach is already so weak it cannot hold anything in, and there is still some cold in the body — for them, eating sorghum alone is enough. I recommend drinking sorghum porridge — cook the porridge with plenty of water and cook it a long time, until the congee water is especially thick. The best way is to drink the congee water and eat some sorghum too; you can eat it at all three meals, and it really is not bad-tasting. Among the autumn diarrheas I have encountered, some people truly lingered on without healing — I had them eat sorghum, and on top of the general regulation, the astringent, diarrhea-stopping effect was excellent: it strengthens the spleen, warms the middle, and stops diarrhea. Many friends said afterward: this diarrhea was so hard to cure — how did I cure it just by eating sorghum? That is the power of food therapy.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: If you genuinely run into a stubborn case that simply will not stop, you can try this. The effect of sorghum is excellent. Don’t look down on a single grain — this grain may well cure more effectively than many prescriptions.

Conclusion: Extraordinary Times Call for Extraordinary Methods

Today we have talked about how to get through this autumn.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Remember, what I am teaching is the principle — be careful to guard against the invasion of cold-damp, because the weather right now is special. When the dry weather arrives, I will tell you how to adjust to dryness and cool dryness. Right now it is not dryness — right now it is absolutely cold-damp. So, dear friends: in extraordinary times, use extraordinary methods; in an extraordinary year, we must all learn a little more TCM thinking, adjust at any time, and protect ourselves at any time — that is what is good for our bodies. I have chatted with you a bit longer today simply because I follow the climate and talk with you accordingly. We will continue with more TCM knowledge next time. See you again.

What to Take Away

This autumn is damp, not dry. Normally autumn’s governing qi is dryness, but in this Gengzi year — floods nationwide, three typhoons hitting the northeast, indoor humidity at 70-80% — the dominant pathogen is dampness. Adjust your health care to the actual climate, not the calendar.
In the south it is damp-heat, and the season lasts unusually long. Stomach pain, bloating, diarrhea, skin rashes, blood in the urine, hot conditions of the eyes-nose-throat: the tongue shows a red tongue body with a thick, sticky yellow coating. The classic method is San Ren Tang (Three Kernels Decoction): move qi, dry dampness, and drain it out through urine — little heat-clearing, lots of dampness-draining, because dampness and heat stick together like oil kneaded into flour, and once the dampness goes, the heat has nothing to ride on and dissipates by itself.
In the north (and moving steadily south) it is cold-damp — the real enemy this year. Internal dampness acts as the traitor inside the house, letting the external dampness (the robber) walk right in.
Cold-damp’s two signature diseases: lingering autumn diarrhea and lower-back pain. Diarrhea that berberine and levofloxacin cannot cure is usually cold-damp trapping the spleen (han shi kun pi). Back pain that appears at the slightest chill is cold-damp blocking the channels of the lower back.
Cold-damp can also veil the heart yang. Chest tightness, heart discomfort, even sudden cardiac crises — the several celebrities and executives who died suddenly since autumn began are this season’s warning. Those who are yang-deficient, spleen-kidney yang-deficient, and heavy with water-damp are at highest risk.
Read your tongue. Swollen tongue body, teeth marks, pale white tongue body, thick watery coating with lots of saliva — the classic high-risk picture of yang deficiency with spleen deficiency and heavy dampness.
The three-direction strategy: strengthen the spleen + warm the yang + clear dampness. The classic formula is Zhang Zhongjing’s Shen Zhu Tang (Kidney-Fixing Decoction): processed dried ginger (pao jiang) warms the yang, fu ling (poria) drains dampness, bai zhu (atractylodes) strengthens the spleen, honey-fried licorice harmonizes — wrap the waist, let a slight sweat come, and one or two doses usually settle it.
Break the same principle into daily food therapy. Spleen: shan yao (Chinese yam), lotus seeds, yi mi (pearl barley). Dampness: yi mi, red adzuki beans. Yang: ginger sugar drinks each morning, moxibustion (using moxibustion as medicine).
Bonus remedy: sorghum (gao liang mi). Sweet and warm, it harmonizes the stomach, resolves stagnation, warms the middle, and astringes the intestines — sorghum porridge and its thick congee water have cured many people’s stubborn cold-damp autumn diarrhea. A single grain can outperform many prescriptions.

Compiled from Doctor Luo Dalun’s traditional Chinese medicine lecture series, on how to nourish health during the abnormally damp autumn of the Gengzi year — strengthen the spleen, warm the yang, and clear dampness, and protect your body through the cold-damp weather.