Heart Flutters, Palpitations, and a Constant Fear That You Have a Serious Illness? Doctor Luo Dalun: Fear-of-Illness Disorder Is Usually Heart Blood Deficiency — Nourishing the Heart with E Jiao Has a Secret Method

Opening: Someone slams a table — and their heart leaps in fright

Have you ever met someone like this? Another person slams a table, and their heart gives a frightened leap; or they live all day in endless dread, convinced their body is about to collapse, seeing disease in everyone and everything — this is exactly what we are going to talk about today: a disturbed spirit.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Earlier I wrote articles about what to do when the mood is disordered and the spirit is in chaos. Some people are frightened and terrified — when someone slams a table, their heart jumps in fright. Others live in endless dread, always feeling their body is about to go wrong. Many people have these symptoms of restlessness, terror and palpitations along the heart channel. So what medicine do you use in this situation?

Acute episodes: settle the spirit first with heavy herbs — but don’t make Zhu Sha An Shen Wan your daily medicine

When the spirit is in chaos, Chinese medicine has two ready-made formulas: Tian Wang Bu Xin Dan (Heavenly King’s Mind-Nourishing Pill) and Zhu Sha An Shen Wan (Cinnabar Spirit-Settling Pill).

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Zhu Sha An Shen Wan in particular is a heavy settling formula that calms the spirit. For an acute attack, a sudden severe episode, it is very helpful for steadying and calming the emotions. But remember: you cannot take it in excess — don’t say, "I’ll take Zhu Sha An Shen Wan for half a year." You won’t be able to stand it; it will backfire and hurt you. It contains mineral substances, and the cinnabar in particular carries a trace of toxicity. It does settle the spirit, but it cannot be used for long.

So what about long-term care? Doctor Luo says you must adjust according to the qi, blood, yin and yang state of the heart. Once it is properly regulated, the condition stops recurring.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: You have to distinguish heart qi from heart blood — some people have heart qi deficiency, others have heart blood deficiency, and heart blood deficiency deserves special attention. Many people feel their spirit is unsettled, their heart always fluttering with dread of the future — very often this state is the result of heart qi deficiency or heart blood deficiency. Only when heart qi and heart blood are filled up can a person gradually settle and gain what we call the backbone of the mind; otherwise they stay in a constant panic, feeling hollow inside every day.

Fear-of-illness disorder: elderly people who are sure they have a deadly disease

Doctor Luo has spoken about a condition called fear-of-illness disorder — many elderly people are afraid of falling ill, and whenever they hear any rumor of sickness, they connect it to themselves.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Here is an example. An elderly man has stomach pain, and it lasts two days — it may simply be a chill or something he ate. But no, he immediately jumps to a conclusion: "There was a Lao Wang at my work unit — he died of stomach cancer, and before he was diagnosed, he had stomach pain. My illness is bad — I must have stomach cancer! I need a check-up!" If he doesn’t get checked, the mental burden crushes him and he mopes all day. The gastroscopy comes back fine, and he is happy for a few days. Then he gets diarrhea, and he remembers old neighbor Lao Li — "He died of colon cancer, and it started with diarrhea! That’s it, I’m like him, I’ve got bowel cancer!" Every day he is weighed down with worry, can barely sleep, and keeps demanding his children take him for examinations.

After queuing and being put through the mill, the check-up shows nothing wrong, and he relaxes for a few days; then suddenly a new symptom appears — his heart skips around a little — "Oh no, is it a heart attack?" — and off he goes for more tests.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: This fear-of-illness disorder is now common among the elderly. Why does it happen? Many of these people actually have insufficient upright qi. Fill the upright qi back up, and once the elderly person’s spirit settles, the fear-of-illness state improves a great deal — sometimes it even clears up completely. So at this point you must distinguish the state of qi, blood, yin and yang.

The signals your body sends when heart blood runs low

Some elderly people have insufficient heart blood, which brings restlessness, sleepless nights and a disturbed spirit — a feeling of being lost and adrift. What exactly are the symptoms of heart blood deficiency? Doctor Luo lists them in detail.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: First, a person with heart blood deficiency gets palpitations after the slightest exertion or movement — the heart thumps and pounds. Use up a little mental energy — write some material until you’re tired, say — and palpitations start. What does the hospital usually find? Premature beats — the rhythm of the heart has changed. Second, the complexion loses its luster — no glow, no color in the face; the fingernails and eyelids look the same way. Third, the tongue is pale — because the tongue is the sprout of the heart, and when heart blood is deficient the tongue is always pale. In addition, such people tend to feel cold; when they squat down for half a minute or a minute and stand up, their vision suddenly goes black; and they suffer insomnia — a person with this kind of heart blood deficiency can lie awake all night, feeling something is wrong, terrified.

The one key herb: why use e jiao to nourish heart blood?

Once you have determined it is heart blood deficiency, how do you replenish it? Doctor Luo offers a special method — using e jiao (ass-hide gelatin) to nourish heart blood.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: E jiao is produced in Dong’e, Shandong, and is made from donkey hide. The water used is also special — it is called yin-yang water — there is water from underground rivers and water from wells. According to ancient records, the underground river water is all fed by the Ji River, and the water from the A Well is even better. The two waters are combined and cooked together with the hide of the local black donkeys to form e jiao — that is why the ancients prized it so highly.

So what exactly does e jiao tonify?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: E jiao enters the Lung channel of the hand tai yin. While tonifying the lungs it also reaches the liver and kidney, tonifying both. But why is it used to nourish the heart? E jiao’s greatest work is nourishing blood and moistening dryness — the heart governs the blood vessels, and Zhang Zhongjing’s Zhi Gan Cao Tang (Licorice Decoction), a formula for the heart, includes e jiao. So while tonifying lung yin, e jiao also nourishes the blood of the heart and liver.

How is it used clinically? Doctor Luo says: when you meet an elderly patient like this — in terror all day, heart fluttering, pale tongue, pallid face, weak pulse — you judge heart blood deficiency and use e jiao to replenish it.

Steaming e jiao in yellow wine: the Lu family method, step by step

Once you buy e jiao, how do you eat it? Chew it directly? Wrong. Doctor Luo walks through his own family’s method completely — it is very practical.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Freshly bought e jiao is new gelatin, which tends to cause heat — people ask, "Why does e jiao make me hot every time I take it?" Because the gelatin is too new. Open the packaging, open the foil, and let it sit for a few days, slowly airing it out. In my family we used to put the block in a basin on the floor — back home they would make a bamboo screen or straw mat, put the e jiao on it and set it on the ground, precisely to dispel this heat. After a few days, when the heat is gone, break it into pieces and put it in a big bowl. Buy Shaoxing yellow rice wine (Jia Fan Jiu — the ‘extra-grain’ rice wine) — never buy cooking wine; cooking wine already has Sichuan pepper and star anise in it, that won’t do — pour in half a bottle, and steam it. As it steams you will see the e jiao rolling and foaming, slowly melting; stir it with chopsticks and check for lumps — if there are lumps, keep steaming. When it is completely melted, take it out, let it cool, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate: it turns into something like jelly — exactly like making pork aspic. Take one spoonful every day, dissolved in boiling water — this nourishes the heart blood.

What if someone takes e jiao and gets heat symptoms?

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: First take Bao He Wan (Harmony-Preserving Pill) or Da Shan Zha Wan (Big Hawthorn Pill) for three days. Some people have stagnation in the spleen and stomach, phlegm-dampness inside — when they take tonics, their body rejects them. It’s not just e jiao; they can’t absorb any tonic. Use Bao He Wan to open the digestive tract and dissolve the stagnation, and then the tonic can be absorbed. As for the e jiao jelly — dissolve it in hot water and drink it. The alcohol has already evaporated, but the moving qi of the wine remains, so eating this e jiao will not cause heat — that is the beauty of steaming e jiao in yellow wine.

A bonus story: from her forties to nearly ninety, with a head of long black hair

This method is also wonderful for the hair. Doctor Luo tells a true story once filmed by CCTV.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: China Central Television once filmed an elderly woman from the south. She started eating e jiao in her forties and kept it up until she was eighty-something, almost ninety — a head of long black hair, sitting there eating it every day. Everyone on the street stared; the local media said there was no news lately, so they went to interview her again — whenever she appeared, that was news, and many people paid attention. Why is nourishing the blood good for the hair? Because Chinese medicine holds that hair is the surplus of the blood — hair grows from the surplus qi that blood pours into it. Nourish the blood fully, and the hair naturally looks good.

E jiao or longan — how do you choose?

Both nourish blood, so what is the difference between e jiao and longan? Many people can’t tell them apart, so Doctor Luo compares them directly.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: Longan tonifies the spleen and nourishes the heart. For blood deficiency caused by weak digestion or fatigue and overwork, longan works extremely well. E jiao tonifies the heart, lungs and kidneys — for the kind of blood deficiency that is yin-deficient, leaning toward insufficiency of lung yin and heart blood, with all its symptoms, e jiao is extremely effective. The two differ slightly. When nourishing heart blood, a person with a restless spirit needs quiet and moisture — e jiao nourishes yin and moistens dryness — so I choose e jiao.

In practice: an elderly patient afraid of illness, slowly restored

With the theory finished, Doctor Luo tells of a real course of care.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: There was an elderly man whose mind was often gripped by panic — he was sure he was sick. How panicked? He couldn’t sleep, convinced he had all kinds of serious diseases, running to the hospital for check-up after check-up — yet no serious disease was ever found. That made it worse: "There must be something wrong with me that they can’t find!" He lived in endless dread every day. Seeing a psychologist was useless, because this is an emotional problem caused by physical imbalance — what we call a mind-body illness. So what did I do? I wanted to support his upright qi: I had the family give him Zhu Sha An Shen Wan for a few days first, to settle the spirit with heavy herbs — two or three days of that. Then e jiao jelly, day after day, little by little, no rushing — slowly building up upright qi. And as it built, gradually he could fall asleep, and his fear-of-illness state slowly lifted.

Closing: settling only rescues the moment — supporting upright qi is the true cure

Finally, Doctor Luo gathers the lesson of the whole lecture into a single sentence.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: In the end it must be the method of supporting upright qi — giving this person’s spirit something to hold onto — that solves the problem of a scattered, floating spirit. Heavy settling alone only works for a moment at the start; in the end you must support upright qi. A word on buying e jiao: those crumbled bits of e jiao in the pharmacy drawer are fine for ordinary complaints; but if you really want to treat a serious illness and fight the main battle, use good e jiao — don’t use the crumbs. Some brands from Dong’e, Shandong price themselves extremely high and ordinary people can’t afford them — mid-priced local brands such as Fupai are also very reliable in quality. But remember: always buy from a proper, large pharmacy, because e jiao is extremely easy to fake — even the ancients boiled cowhide and pigskin for it. In later times the standard became genuine Dong’e, Shandong product, so buy an authentic brand.

💬 Note from Doctor Luo: One more aside — I hear some Dong’e companies want to import donkeys from India and Pakistan, and I think they should be cautious. This is what we call dao-di herbs (genuine geo-authentic medicinal materials). In the old days people explained why Dong’e donkeys were good by saying they grazed on the grass of Shier Mountain and so on. The plants and animals of one place each have their own characteristics; an animal that leaves that soil and stops drinking that water may differ in trace elements, and when trace elements differ, medicinal power differs. The economic profit may be attractive, but caution is still wise — preserve the purity of the local geo-authentic product.

Remember the main thread: acute episodes are settled with heavy herbs for a moment, but long-term care requires distinguishing qi, blood, yin and yang; for heart blood deficiency, steam e jiao in yellow wine and eat it — open up the digestive tract first, then tonify. Nourish the blood fully, and the heart gains its backbone — and the fear goes away.

Compiled from Doctor Luo Dalun’s TCM health lectures (nourishing the heart series: e jiao and heart blood)