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Overheating without sweating
I do not have a specific medical problem but I have recently started to feel as though my body has a tendency to over-heat. I am not sweating just very hot. My doctor says there is nothing wrong with me but I wondered if any herbs would help?
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) one of the so-called Six Evils practitioners must consider when making a comprehensive diagnosis is excessive heat in the body. Symptoms, when this is present, can include the hot spells you complain of, plus, as you might expect, headaches, chronic thirst, sweating and irritability.
If you visit a TCM practitioner, your treatment programme will combine acupuncture with herbal remedies and the herbs that will be used will be those which have what the Chinese call cooling properties to remove this heat from the body. Chinese herbal medicine is hugely sophisticated and where Western herbalists will use one or two herbs, the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioner will think nothing of using between 16 and 24 different herbs in one remedy. This and the unusual names can prove a stumbling block but for Westerners who want to learn more, I recommend a book that I stumbled across in a small bookshop in New Zealand and which has now become my bible on the subject.
A Handbook of Chinese Healing Herbs by Daniel Reid is published by Periplus (ISBN 962-593-988-1) and gives an account of over 100 of the most popular Chinese herbs. He includes a brief overview of how Chinese medicine works and it is intriguing to learn many of those complex-sounding Chinese herbs are in fact, the very same herbs I have in my own herb garden. Che chien dze, for instance, is plantain which is used in European herbalism as a diuretic but which is used in TCM to promote better quality sperm production and lower blood pressure.
*To find a qualified TCM practitioner, contact The Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine on 07000-790332.To learn more about training in this field, The College of Integrated Chinese Medicine in Reading is on 0118-950 8880.