This video will teach you how to take care of yourself, your patients, or your friends at home in self-quarantine, to promote self-healing and reduce stress. According to the last video, this pathogen invades the Mo Yuan area, causing dampness in the body. Many experienced TCM doctors from China, who have treated COVID-19 patients, believe that this pandemic belongs to dampness, and they call it Damp Yi. Yi means epidemic diseases.

The Mo Yuan is the area between the interior and the exterior. In the Shang Han Lun, they classified this as the Shao Yang level. The pathogen doesn’t invade the exterior, so we cannot use only the releasing exterior method to produce sweat. The pathogen also doesn’t invade the interior, so we cannot use the purging method. In the last class, we already talked about Wu You Ke, the first one that found that this pathogen enters the bodies through the mouth and nose and invades and lingers in our Mo Yuan area, and that he established a new method called Fen Xiao. He used dispersing, transforming, and draining; three methods together in one, in order to get the dampness out of the Mo Yuan area. And he used the spicy and warm aromatic herbs to accomplish this task. He used Bing Lang, Cau Guo, Huo Po; those herbs move Qi, remove dampness, open stagnation, and promote urination. These kinds of herbs can help to tackle the Mo Yuan area and get rid of the dampness in that layer.

During the epidemic disease, tongue coating changes very fast and can promptly reflect the development of the disease and the condition of the body. It is often found that their tongues are very white and have a thick coating on top of the tongue. We know that tongue diagnoses is one of the diagnostic tools that we use very often in our clinic. Today, I’m going to teach you how to use the tongue diagnosis. You can do self check every day at home by looking at your tongue and change your lifestyle accordingly. Many COVID-19 patients have very thick, white, powdery-like coating.

These are two patients, in the early March, with COVID-19 like symptoms, that I helped with traditional Chinese medicine. On the top, patient 1 presented with low-grade fever, dry cough, shortness of breath, and extremely fatigued with low appetite. In the beginning, the tongue was very pale, and the coating was very white. After seven days of using herbs, you can start to see that the tongue improved by the color and also the coating. The color returned to pink, and the coating started thinning up. The second patient, on the bottom, was also presented with high fever, dry cough, sore throat and chest pain. After seven days of treatment, the tongue, starting from a white greasy coating, became a much lighter white coating; and the tongue color, from pale, started returning to pink. All the symptoms improved while the tongue returned to pink and thin white coating. In this slide are two patients are diagnosed and hospitalized in China with COVID-19. The tongue is presented with very white, thick, greasy, powdery coating. At the same time, the CT scan also showed ground glass opacity saturating in both lungs . The second patient on the bottom, showed bilateral ground glass opacity when they started taking the herbal medicine together with Western medicine. You can see the tongue started with white coating, became thicker, and then started thinning. The tongue reflects absorption of the inflammation in the lung.

So what is dampness? Dampness seems to be rampant in industrialized society. It is due to the burden of unnatural substances in our food that need to be eliminated from our body after consumption. So eating a clean and wholefood diet is so important for our body and for our immune system. When a patient is presented with dampness, usually they will feel very heavy, and it is very difficult to treat. It also lasts for a long time. It has a tendency to move downward; in a lot of the patients presented with COVID-19, their lung was infected in the bottom one-third. In Chinese medicine, dampness is considered to be the cause of many illnesses such as high cholesterol, cancer, metabolic disorder, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, allergy and environmental illnesses. So we know that at this time, people who have a higher risk of getting COVID-19 are the people who already have underlying medical conditions such as heart conditions, diabetes, severe obesity, and hypertension. All these are classified as a damp body type in traditional Chinese medicine.

Environment is very crucial for the survival of microorganisms. One of the most central concept of traditional Chinese medicine is that of the intimate connection between the body of man and the environment within which man lives, works, and plays. In physiology, the cells, the tissues, and the Zang Fu organs of the body are in dynamic internal equilibrium, and are constantly adjusting to the changes in the external environment. The Coronavirus transmits in a damp microenvironment. According to the traditional Chinese medicine evaluation, it also makes our body damp. The patients who have COVID-19 are usually presented with very white greasy tongue coating and also experiences body aches, heaviness, strong fatigue, loose stool or diarrhea, low appetite, etc. Those are all considered dampness. If we can eat healthy, get the proper amount of exercise, and keep our environment pleasant, our body has the power to recover by itself.

What are the lifestyle practices that will cause our body to become damp? How can we change them in order to provide a better environment for our bodies to recover? There are two things we can do to fight this dampness. First of all, we have to keep our body’s internal environment warm and dry. Second, we have to keep our external environment warm and dry. In our house, we can light the fireplace or turn on the heater. We can also burn Moxa, or dried sage, around the living space in our house. You can use the moxa stick, cut them into small sections, and burn a section each time. For patients who already have cold like symptoms with white coatings in their tongue, they can also burn this moxa in the place where they stay and self-quarantine. That will be a very good way to change the microenvironment for pathogens to survive.

How about our internal environment? If we feel cold, or have some kind of chills, or if we already start feeling achiness and soreness in our body or in the back of the body, we can drink warm ginger lemon water and sit in front of the fireplace or any other heat source with our back facing the heat, until we start sweating. It is a light sweat, the kind of experience when you drink hot soup or tea. Remember, it cannot be a heavy sweat like from the sauna or intense exercise. Lemon, we know has alot of vitamin C, and vitamin C actually help to fight virus. Ginger can disperse lung cold and stop cough. It also releases the exterior and warms the middle Jiao. It helps to remove dampness by warming our stomach and promotes sweating. A light sweat will open the pores of the skin so that the lungs can disperse the fluids so that the fluids will not become pathogenic dampness. Then when we warm the Middle Jiao, we can get rid of the dampness by transforming the dampness in our stomach.

There are other ways to avoid dampness and phlegm in our body. First of all, we have to avoid overeating. In traditional Chinese medicine, we believe that overeating will weaken the stomach and the spleen and leads to the accumulation of dampness and phlegm. An excessive consumption of cold and raw food will also weaken our spleen. For example, refrigerated foods, ice water, and ice cream will cool our stomach and make our stomach unable to move efficiently. Raw vegetables, salads, and fruits are also considered cold and raw. If you already have COVID-19 like symptoms, you have to avoid refrigerated food and raw vegetables and salad if possible. Some other food are also considered as greasy and creates dampness. For example, deep fried foods like chips, cheese, milk, cream, butter, banana, fatty meats, or nuts; nuts have a lot of oil inside. Try to eat light; it is crucial during the time when you already have dampness in your body, especially if you already see white coating in your tongue. So it is actually a good recommendation that when you wake up in the morning, stand in front of the mirror and take a look at your tongue. See if your tongue is already covered with white coating. If you already see white coating, try to eat light and avoid sweets. A recommendation here is to take Yi Yi Ren with Chi Xiao Dou. Chi Xiao Dou is very good for moving the blood, and at the same time has a diuretic effect together with Yi Yi Ren. Yi Yi Ren transforms dampness in your lung. We can even use Yi Yi Ren to remove pus in our lung. It can become a very nice dessert for dinner or it can even be a very good breakfast for the morning.

We can also keep our bodies warm by doing standing medications with the sun warming up our back. We know that the Tai Yang, Urinary Bladder channel travels in the back of our body. It helps to eliminate fluids in the body and at the same time protects us from external invasion. There is also one very simple exercise you can do if you already have symptoms of chest pain and tightness. If you find any area of discomfort, you can use your fingers to tap on the area that you feel tight; or you can make an empty fist and pound on the area that you feel tight. We know that the thymus is where the T cells mature, and is very crucial in targeting and destroying the pathogen. If we press on the area where the sternum bone is and find any sore and achy spots, we can tap around that area. You can also use your finger to tap along your lung channels; that will help with circulation and Qi movement in the lung channel.

Moxibustion. We talked about burning moxa to make our environment dry. At the same time, we can also use moxibustion to warm up acupuncture points to help the transforming of dampness in our body. There are two points we can recommend. Number one is Ren-12. If you draw a straight line between the end of the sternum bone and your bellybutton, find the center; that is Ren-12. This point is the best to transform dampness and improve circulation in your digestive system. ST 36 is also a very good acupuncture point, which will help you transform the dampness and improve your digestion to increase your immunity. There are also some very simple alternative therapies that we can do at home. We can do Gua Sha in the back and we can also use cupping in the back along the urinary bladder channel. Both methods can increase the movement of Qi, eliminating extra fluid that has been accumulated in the surrounding tissues.

What is the best way to boost your immunity? I cannot underscore enough, the importance of sleeping, in maintaining a healthy immune system. So please sleep before 11 and try to sleep at least 7 hours. There is really no substitute to good sleep when it comes to the health of your immune system. There is nothing you can eat, including supplements or herbal medicine, or do, to make up for poor sleep. So sleep really needs to be the highest priority at this time. Talk to your TCM doctor if you have problems with sleep. The second, is we have to reduce our stress. The body’s reaction to chronic stress is to produce more cortisol, which can result in accumulation of fat tissue; this is also an indication of the increase of dampness in our body. The stress hormone, corticosteroid, can suppress the effectiveness of our immunity; it lowers the number of lymphocytes. Stress can also have an indirect effect on the immune system, as a person may also have unhealthy behaviors and coping strategies to reduce their stress, such as drinking and smoking. These are very bad for the immune system. Try to call your friends, pray, or play some music to reduce your stress. If you do all these things we recommend, you will have the best condition to fight this battle.

TCM can help with all three stages of the disease. Stage one, we can help prevent the disease before it happens; we can help your body to prevent you from getting the COVID-19. Stage 2, if you already have COVID-19-like symptoms, we can prevent it from progressing. In the third stage, if you have recovered from the COVID-19 but still have symptoms of weakness, tiredness, poor appetite, or poor lung functions, we can help you return to your optimal health condition. If you have any questions, please leave your comments and we will try our best to help you. We can fight this battle together. Please do not be stressed, because there are so many things you can do to help your body recover by itself. That is all for today. See you in the next video.

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I would like to spend some time to talk about how TCM views this disease that has already become a pandemic. We will talk about the COVID-19, the signs, and symptoms. There is one thing I really need to emphasize one more time; that is the fever. It is only 43% of the patients that present with a fever; the majority of the patients, when they start showing signs and symptoms, are actually without a fever. So only focusing on testing whether people have a fever or not, cannot rule out COVID-19. I highly recommend everyone, if possible, to wear a mask to protect the people around you, and also protect yourself. If we want to end this fast, then we really need to treat everyone as an asymptomatic carrier.

In the first week, usually, the virus levels are very high; but symptoms, such as fever, sore throat, or cough, are mild to moderate. Most of the patients actually have an absence of upper respiratory tract symptoms; they don’t have any runny nose, any sneezing. Some patients don’t even have a sore throat. The immune system can actually fight the virus and target them. People may just feel a little fatigued and tired, but they can recover from it. So those are the symptoms that the patients have in the first week. But after the second week of illness, even though the virus at this moment is starting to taper off, the immune system goes to endanger the lungs with inflammatory cells. That is when people enter the ICU. What happened during those two weeks? Why is it that in the beginning there were not many symptoms, and the body is able to maintain homeostasis?

Today we are going to spend a little time talking about this phenomenon and how TCM views this. There are four classics that all TCM students are required to study: Nei Jing, Shang Han Lun, and also Jing Gui Yao Lue which covers all the miscellaneous diseases that don’t cause a fever. There is one more called Warm Disease, Wen Bing Xue. It is one of the classics missing in TCM education in the United States. But this epidemic disease falls into this Wen Bing category. Huang Di Nei Jing was written about 2500 years ago. It also talks about epidemic diseases. The Emperor said, the characteristic of the Five Yi, or five different kinds of epidemics, is that it is highly contagious. People, whether old or young, will all have similar symptoms. Qi Bo is the doctor that worked with the emperor. He said, if the Upright Qi (which is usually interpreted as our immunity) is strong, the body will not be attacked by the Evil Qi (which represents the pathogen). But most of all, Qi Bo said, you have to avoid the Toxic Qi. Upright Qi is the ability to maintain homeostasis.

We know that in Traditional Chinese medicine, there are no specific herbs that kill bacteria or viruses directly. We focus on balancing our bodies, promoting return to homeostasis. This is also considered as the ability to protect the body from external invasion. So what are the external invasions? There are five different seasonal changes: the wind, the cold, the heat, the dampness, and the dryness. These are the external invasions that can attack our body’s homeostasis and disable us from dealing with the pathogens. The toxic Qi is sometimes also considered as a pathogen. But 2500 years ago, the Chinese did not have a clear view of what a pathogen is. Mainly, what they think about are the seasonal changes. Starting from Shang Han Lun all the way to the Ming dynasty, which is about 800 years ago, people focused on using the Shang Han Lun strategy to treat the epidemic diseases. This is one of the oldest complete clinical textbooks in the whole world that discusses epidemic disease. Zhang Zhong Jing talked about the abnormal seasonal changes causing disease. For example, during the winter time, it suddenly becomes so hot that the body is not able to adjust when it is preparing itself for the winter, or if the weather suddenly becomes so cold in the summertime. They categorized this into six different stages. It starts from Tai Yang, then enters into Yang Ming. Then if it enters into Shao Yang, the patient starts to have alternating chills and fever. That means that the pathogen and your Upright Qi are battling back and forth, and neither side will give in. This is the time when we need to help harmonize the body. In history, there were 156 times of the epidemic diseases in the Song dynasty. But it is not until the Ming dynasty that the Chinese start to realize that there is something more than seasonal changes, that can affect our health. There is something invisible that is different from the seasons, that can cause disease, and is highly contagious. Doesn’t matter whether you are healthy or not, you will get it.

Dr. Wu You Ke is the first one to establish a hypothesis that there is some kind of invisible enemy that can attack us. So Wu You Ke wrote a book called, Wen Yi Lun, “Treatise on epidemics”. During that period, hundreds and thousands of people died due to epidemic diseases. Many doctors of that era were trying to use Shang Han Lun’s formula to treat epidemic disease but they all failed. So he started to realize that there is something different in the air, an invisible Qi that is different from the seasonal change. They called it Yi Qi. Yi Qi enters the human body through the nose and mouth, and these diseases actually have their own pathogens. Where is the battlefield? He says that it attacks our body’s Muo Yuan. This is one of the focal points I want to focus on at this time. What is this Mo Yuan? If you translate it, it literally means “membranous origin.” This Yi Qi attacks our body’s Mo Yuan. He emphasized on tongue diagnosis because during Yi Bing, the tongue changes dramatically. This evil Qi, or pathogenic Qi, enters the body through the nose and mouth, and affects the locations, neither in the organs nor in the viscerals. It did not invade our bodies externally where the channels are located, but it enters and lingers in the in-between areas, the half-interior and half-exterior space, also called Mo Yuan. There is another book that also talked about Mo Yuan. It says, Mo Yuan is a membrane that connects the Spleen and Stomach, in the half-interior half-exterior area. In the Shang Han Lun, half-interior, half-exterior, can also be considered as the Shao Yang. In channel theory, we can say it is a San Jiao channel or Gallbladder channel Shao Yang. Shao yang, or the San Jiao area, can also be considered as the interstitial spaces in our bodies. This is the place where the pathogen lingers and attacks. This is the battlefield where we try to clear and help our patients return to homeostasis.

Where is the Mo Yuan in human anatomy? In the interior are the organs and viscera. The exterior, in Traditional Chinese medicine, is the skin and muscles. The half-interior and half-exterior, are the interstitial spaces, fluid filled areas that surround the cells of a given tissue. The serous membrane is composed of two layers. We know that one covers the organ, and the other covers the body wall. In between, the space is filled with lubricating serous fluid, secreted by the serous membranes. We know that in our body, the serous membrane of the heart is called the pericardium; in the lung, it is called the pleura; and in the viscera, it is called the peritoneum. What is the function of the serous membrane? It protects and allows the frictionless movement of the heart and lungs. We know that our heart is constantly beating, and our lungs are also constantly moving due to breathing. In order to protect them, you need this layer of protection. It also regulates the movement of fluids and other substances across the membrane. Most importantly, I wanted to focus on its control of immune responses; this includes coagulation and the movement of white blood cells whenever there is inflammation, and also the synthesis of the cytokines and other molecules involved in membrane repair and inflammatory responses. This is the place where the inflammatory responses and the immune responses kick in.

The human immune system reacts to the virus by sending out cytokines to attack the virus. But the problem is that this causes serious inflammation. Many COVID-19 patients enter into the critical stage due to this cytokine storm. The virus itself may not kill the host, but the inflammation causes fluids and blood to accumulate in the lungs, causing the patient to drown. This is the reason why patients get killed by the COVID-19. Many doctors now say that maybe it is not the virus itself that kills the patient, but the consequences induced by the virus. The inflammatory response is what causes the death of the patients. This serous membrane is the battlefield of this COVID-19 fight. It is very much connected to what Wu Yuo Ke has shown us.

This is one of the CT-Scan from patients infected with COVID-19. You can see the area affected; it is in the posterior and peripheral part of the lung. There are many patients that are presented with chills and fever, and they feel cold in their back. We know that the back is where the UB channel is located; and these are the Tai Yang symptoms in the Shang Han Lun. So if you start to feel chills and cold in the back, this is the time that warns us that we have to do something to take care of the fluids and not allow them to accumulate too much in the channels and affect the serous membrane.
You may have a question about why the CT scan for COVID-19 patients shows ground-glass opacities in the posterior and periphery of the Lungs? This paper shows ground-glass opacities in the subpleural area. These subpleural areas are where the fluids are accumulating. In our human lungs, Mo Yuan is very similar to the place where we call the pleura; the layer in between the interior and exterior. It is the place where inflammation responses start reacting.

You can see that the alveoli is a place very close to the pleura area. They have a Type II alveolar cell with ACE-2 receptors on them. The researchers believe that the ACE-2 receptor is the place where the virus hack into our body. And once the virus, through these ACE-2 receptors, hack into our human cells, they start to replicate and multiply, until they use up all the resources and the cells die. The virus then starts spreading and then goes to the adjacent alveoli. That’s the place where this battle starts.

So how did Wu You Ke treat the Mo Yuan disease? He said that the pathogen does not invade the exterior. So you cannot simply use releasing-the-exterior methods. The pathogen also does not invade the interior where the viscera organs are, so we cannot only use the purging methods. The pathogen enters the body through the nose and mouth, and then invades and lingers in the Mo Yuan area. Wu You Ke established a new method called Fen Xiao. Fen means to separate; Xiao means to eliminate or to disperse. So it means to eliminate and separate. He used herbs not only to disperse, but also to transform and at the same time, to drain. These three methods all together, disperses, opening the way for fluids to come out of the Mo Yuan area and be released from the exterior; they also help the body transform the dampness inside the organ, and help the body drain the dampness. The three methods together accomplish this.

Wu You Ke invented this new formula, called Da Yuan Yin. The indication is to treat low fever, chills, chest pain, chest tightness, nausea, headache, and a red tongue with a greasy and powdery white coating. This greasy and powdery white coating is an indication of Yi Bing. Why is there a greasy and powdery white coating? It is because the interstitial level is affected by the pathogen so that the fluid in the interstitial level is not able to move around. It then starts to accumulate in the body, presenting as dampness. Bing Lang, Hou Po, and Cao Guo– these herbs are all spicy, warm, and aromatic. We know that aromatic herbs transform dampness; warm is very crucial in this Mo Yuan disease because in the beginning the patient’s tongue is usually very pale and they are very fatigued. So, we have to be very cautious to use too much clear-heat herbs. Dampness is a Yin disease. We cannot use clear-heat herbs too early. That will further damage the patient’s Yang Qi. Bing Lang, Hou Po, and Cao Guo can directly attack the Mo Yuan area, the place that throws the body into an imbalanced state. We need to help disperse the fluids that accumulate in the Mo Yuan area, either through the exterior, through the bowel movement, or through urination. Bing Lang can promote urination and Hou Po can transform dampness through the middle jiao. Cao Guo also warms and transforms in the middle jiao, the fluids that have been accumulating in the interstitial level, because it is draining. He also added Zhi mu to clear heat and at the same time, moisten. Why do you need to clear heat at this time? It is because Qi gets stagnated by fluid, and Qi accumulates into heat. Eventually heat will start accumulating. Of course, a lot of times, the heat is not accumulated at the beginning stage. But slowly, they will build-up because of Qi stagnation. That is why a lot of the COVID-19 patients, in the beginning, don’t present with a fever. They sometimes have a low-grade fever for a while, then slowly turn into a high fever stage. This is because the dampness and the fluid that has been accumulated in the interstitial levels are in the half-interior, half-exterior level, obstructing Qi. Once Qi gets obstructed, heat will slowly start to accumulate, and at a level, they will break into a fever. When we start treating a patient, once they start having a fever, it is already the progression stage. Huang Qin clears Lung heat. It clears heat, drains dampness, especially in the upper jiao. Why do we use Chi Shao here? Because when there is Qi stagnation, there is also blood stasis; and blood stasis will further cause qi stagnation. Chi Shao is used to move Qi. Huang Qin is also used to stop bleeding. When blood can move freely, then we won’t enter into the acute inflammatory response that fast. So Chi Shao can actually prevent the body from entering into the inflammatory response that throws patients into the critical stage.

Of course, we can also create our own formulas that replicate the same strategy, using different herbs. We can use Qiang Huo; we can also use Du Huo. If we don’t have Ma Huang, we can use Fang Feng; we can use Jing Jie. For transforming herbs, we can use Cang Zhu; to clear heat, we can use Chai Hu. The focus for this kind of Mo Yuan disease is that we cannot only use herbs that eliminate by releasing the exterior; we cannot only use the purging method; we also cannot only use the transforming method. We have to use all three together in order to loosen up the Mo Yuan area.

Is Da Yuan Yin the best for COVID-19 then? It provides a strategy to take care of patients at the Mo Yuan stage. But you still need to use pattern differentiation. Wu You Ke, in his book, specifically emphasized “three ones”. He said, one formula for one person, at one stage. One formula is only for one individual, and at one particular stage of the disease. Why is checking the tongue so important? Because once you start using these warm, spicy, drying, and draining dampness herbs, immediately the Qi starts to move. And when Qi starts to move, then your upright Qi starts to have the energy to fight back. If the patient enters quickly into a heat syndrome, then we have to use more heat-clearing herbs instead of only warming herbs. We really have to look at the patient and change the formulas accordingly.

I get a lot of questions from the students on whether Lian Hua Qing Wen Yin can be used to prevent COVID-19. Looking at Lian Hua Qing Wen Yin, we have Lian Qiao; we have Jin Yin Hua; we have Ban Lan Gen; we have Guan Zhong, Yu Xing Cao, Bo He, Da Huang, Shi Gao. All these are very cold herbs. This formula is very good for patients who have a heat syndrome; who have a high fever, a sore throat, a dry throat with a red tongue or a yellow greasy coating. A lot of the doctors in China say that in this particular COVID-19, a lot of patients actually feel cold and dampness at the beginning stages. So we have to be very careful when using this formula as a preventative. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, we believe that if we do not have the symptoms, we should not use the herbs. But if you have the symptoms, then of course, we can apply the formulas. So if you see patients with corresponding heat symptoms, of course, we can use Lian Hua Qing Wen Yin to help them.

Because of time, there are a lot of things I wanted to share with all the students, but we probably need to stop here. If you have any questions about how to treat? Or if you have any patients or friends that have already been diagnosed with COVID-19 and you have questions, I will be more than happy to answer your questions. If you leave your information or your comments, I will go through them and we can contact you and answer your questions. I do believe that Traditional Chinese Medicine can help patients at the beginning stage and prevent them from entering into the critical stage. TCM can help patients recover faster; or if they have already recovered but fall into a stage where they really need to reestablish their Lung Qi, we can also play a good role. Once we know that the battlefield is in the Mo Yuan, we know how to tackle these problems and have a strategy. We will see you in the next video.

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