Digestion & Elimination

Intense Panting on top of Damp-heat Diarrhea

By Fornia ⋅ March 11, 2008 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

For damp-heat diarrhea with panting, use of Pueraria, Scutellaria and Coptis Decoction (葛根芩连汤) is proposed.

The idea in that is that panting is secondary to the diarrhea. What if panting is a primary problem, while diarrhea problem also rears its ugly head. The first idea that pops up is to add Ephedra (麻黄) and Apricot Kernel (杏仁) to treat panting.

However, if we look closer at this issue, we see that both the enteric system and the lungs have damp and heat inside.  It’s just the names that are different. See below:

• In the enteric system changfu (肠腑), it’s called damp-heat (湿热)
• In the lung functional system feixi (肺系), it’s called phlegm-heat (痰热)

Same thing, different name.

So if it’s heat in the system, Ephedra (麻黄) and Apricot Kernel (杏仁) alone are not enough. We need something cold for the lung heat. Gypsum (石膏) is the best candidate. That would imply that the treatment solution in term of herbs and formulae is a combination of Pueraria, Scutellaria and Coptis Decoction (葛根芩连汤) and MAxingshigan Decoction (麻杏石甘汤).

Interesting application of 麻杏石甘汤, you’d say, but that’s what it’s for.

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