skin problems

Treatment of Acne using Chinese Medicine

By Markov ⋅ August 21, 2009 ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

There are several ways of treating acne. While many of them concentrate on getting rid of the heat or damp-heat – whether it is Lung heat or Yang Ming heat, we also can consider building the Spleen to get rid of damp, especially if the person has a pallid and scalloped tongue.

To Treat Lung Heat:

The External Diseases textbook recommends pipa qingfei yin (枇杷清肺饮), which is made up of

• pipaye, sangbaipi
• huangqin, huangbo
• renshen, shengcao

If the heat is too strong and there is thist, you can add shengshigao, tianhuafen. For constipation (lung-large intestine interior-exterior relationship), you can add shengdahuang. If and when the heat is rampant and causing pus to form, you can add stronger heat and toxin clearers like zihuadiding and baihuasheshecao. For those who experience a surge before the menses, blood movers like danggui, xiangfu and limucao will smooth it out.

To Treat Yang Ming Damp-Heat:

The main difference between Lung and Yang Ming Heat is in its expression. You may see constipation, darker urine, a red tongue and a faster and slippery pulse in both. But Yang Ming Heat will show thicker and greasier tongue coating and bad breath (口臭), and in general a THICKER feel to the symptoms, e.g. not just surface itching that is characteristic of disorders of Lung function, but thicker and deeper symptoms like oil oozing from the pores.

The base formula would be yinchenhao tang (茵陈蒿汤). Because it’s a Yang Ming issue, we can treat the thick tongue coating from a digestive angle – using digestives as shengshanzha, jineijin and zhishi. Once again, we need to add heat and toxin clearers like baihuasheshecao, yejuhua and jinyinhua.

To Treat Phlegm (痰湿)

When we start talking about Phlegm, it is more like a heavier version of damp as characterized in a Yang Ming situation. The damp and heat as manifest in the acne is fiery red and likely to have more than several pus heads. The damp-heat expressed on the tongue (thick coating) and pulse (stringy-slippery) are very characteristic. Add on a compromised appetite, and we have a serious Yang Ming situation.

The book talks about using erchen tang (二陈汤), but really, it’s another approach to treating damp/phelgm. Instead of clearing heat and toxin the yinchenhao tang (茵陈蒿汤) way, the approach is more about treating the damp, which is more holistic an approach.

To Treat Stasis (瘀滞)

The original text reads: “方内黄酒，各处分两不同，宁可多60毫升，不可少，煎至150毫升，酒亦无味，虽不能饮酒之人亦可服。方内麝香最要紧，必买好的方妥，若买当门子更佳。 大人一连三晚吃3付，隔一日再吃3付；若七八岁小儿，两晚吃1付，两三岁小儿，三晚吃1付。麝香可煎三次，再换新的。”

When one starts talking about stasis, the consensus is that the problem has been around for quite some time. There is outbreak upon outbreak and obvious formation of scar tissue. The base formula for removing stasis is often a variant of taohongsiwu tang (桃红四物汤), often one of the blood moving formulas created by Wang Qingren (王清任) from the late Qing dynasty. His formula for increasing circulation in the head and face is tongqiao huoxue tang (通窍活血汤), which I’ve put into the form of a song here below.

With regard to modifications on the original formula, for premenstrual acne, add yimucao and zelan. To get rid of the inflammation, you can try employing the following combinations:

• 炮山甲 5g & 皂刺 15g
• 三棱 10g & 莪术 10g
• 夏枯草 10g

To Treat Damp caused by Spleen Deficiency:

Here you use a Four Nobles base and/or an Erchen Tang (二陈汤) base for dealing with the damp.

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