[Today’s word count got taken up by a huge long Chinese medicine post. Sorry.]
“This article is based on a real experience by an internet commenter. The goal is to remind all mothers to learn some Chinese medicine knowledge. Don’t let IV drips and antibiotics keep ruining your children. It’s a long article, but there’s a lot of substance to it. If you patiently read the whole thing, you’ll learn a lot.
The first day, Xiao Ming gets a cold because he didn’t put on clothes right away after showing.
It’s just past Xiaohan (small coldness, Jan 5 to Jan 20 on the Chinese calendar), and the weather is colder every day. It was a weekend, and Xiao Ming’s mom took advantage of when it’s a little warmer around noon to bathe Xiao Ming. She washed her four and a half year old son while she’s talking a shower too.
Xiao Ming’s mom has an OCD, or maybe just a habit, that they must bathe every day. They shower every day in the summer, and every day in the winter.
You might think that she’s very clean, but from a health point of view, this is a very bad habit, because things are born in spring, grow in summer, stock up in the fall, and hide in winter. The key to keeping health in winter is “hiding”. Showering every day makes your skin leak, your pores open up, and lets your qi and blood escape outside. It doesn’t help you to wash. A lot of people who lack qi and blood feel itchy after showering for exactly this reason.
After their shower, Xiao Ming’s mom took a phone call, and it took an unexpectedly long time. About 7-8 minutes. Xiao Ming’s mom hadn’t put clothes on Xiao Ming yet, and he didn’t mind at all. He had a lot of fun running around naked.
At the time, Xiao Ming’s mom doesn’t think anything of it. It’s just a couple of minutes. But at night, when they go to sleep, Xiao Ming sneezed a couple of times and began to have a runny nose. Xiao Ming’s mom isn’t very alert, or maybe she doesn’t have any health knowledge. She merely muttered, “Why are you sneezing? Is grandma and granpa thinking of you?”
If Xiao Ming’s mom knew how to keep healthy, she’d know this was the first signs of a cold. If she quickly boiled some ginger and spring onions and fed it to her kid, he would be fine the next day. But alas, this is merely the start of their tragedy.
The second day, Xiao Ming has a fever, and his mom takes him to get an IV at the hospital.
The next day, Xiao Ming’s clearly not feeling well in the morning. He’s not very talkative, he doesn’t eat a lot at breakfast, he’s got a super runny nose. Sometimes his snot is yellow, sometimes it’s clear. Xiao Ming’s mom keeps wiping away his snot, and quickly goes through a whole pack of tissues.
Xiao Ming’s mom touched Xiao Ming’s head. It was a little hot. She starts. Does he have a fever!? She quickly gets his dad to bring a thermometer, and he measures in at 38.7C. Okay, that’s not too bad. Just a low fever.
People grow at night, and they get sick at night too. After one night, Xiao Ming’s cold has gotten worse. Right now, the symptoms are fearing coldness, runny nose, and sore throat. It’s a wind-chill caused cold beginning to turn hot. If he was fed some Xiao Chaihu (mostly jujubes) or Fangfeng Tongsheng (mostly ephedra) pills (all Chinese medicine, it would both solve his external coldness and clear away his internal heat. He’d get better after a day.
Xiao Ming’s dad says there’s a pharmacy downstairs. He can go pick up some cold medicine. But Xiao Ming’s mom insists on going to the hospital to get an IV drip. Xiao Ming’s dad gives in.
The IV drip contains antibiotics, which does nothing to cure sickness. Xiao Ming’s cold isn’t caused by bacteria, of course an IV wouldn’t cure it. Not only wouldn’t it cure it, it would harm his body, creating antibiotic-resistant diseases. From the point of view of Chinese-medicine, IV drips also kill the Yang energy inside a body. Low fevers don’t require antipyretics at all. It’s a way for the body to protect itself, to drive out evil by heating up. You can just treat it like any normal cold.
A lot of times, an IV is just a form of emotional comfort. Your cold might get better in a week with an IV, but rather than the IV curing your cold, it’s more like your body healed itself. But why do hospitals still give people IVs then? Because IVs have a very high profit margin. And because doctors believe that if people are going to get better in seven days regardless, then why not give them some IVs if they ask for it?”
The third day, Xiao Ming’s cold gets worse. He now has a high fever.
After a day of IVs, Xiao Ming’s condition is even worse. Not only has his symptoms worsened, he’s coughing a lot more, with a lot of phlegm. He’s coughing to the point that you would think he was asthmatic.
Xiao Ming’s mom checks his temperature again and freaks out. It’s almost 40C. Panicked, she comes to the hospital again.
On the way, Xiao Ming’s mom has a fight with his dad. Xiao Ming’s dad complains that she didn’t put clothes on him after a shower. Xiao Ming’s mom rebuts that she was answering the phone. He was in the study, playing computer games the whole time. It’s not like he put any clothes on the kid. Xiao Ming’s dad refutes that he’s always really concentrated on his games. How would he know that Xiao Ming was naked?
At the hospital, Xiao Ming’s mom finds the female doctor who gave Xiao Ming IVs yesterday, and asks why his cold isn’t better yet?
Expressionless, the female doctor replies, “When did I ever say the IVs would cure his cold in a day?’
Xiao Ming’s mom demands, “Then why did you insist on an IV at all?”
The female doctor gets mad, “What do you mean I insisted on it? You’re the one who demanded it. Look at how many people are in here getting IVs. I don’t have time to deal with you.”
Xiao Ming’s dad steps in, “Forget about all that, doctor, Xiao Ming’s burning up again. What should we do?”
The female doctor says, “What else is there to do? I’ll have to give him an antipyretic shot. If you want it to be fast, we can do Gentamicin. If you don’t mind if it’s a little slower, you can go buy some ibuprofen or tylenol. You decide yourself. I don’t want you to blame it on me.”
Xiao Ming’s dad says, “Well, we’re here anyways. We might as well get a shot.”
Xiao Ming’s mom’s scared about the fever too, so she nods.
Chinese medicine actually has a lot of great recipes for treating children having fevers. It’s all natural and has no side effects. For example, you can use 10 grams each of orange peel, bamboo skin, and silkwork poop, and it’ll make fevers go down in a day. It works just as well as antipyretics. If it’s for adults, use 30 grams of each. A lot of moms want fevers down as fast as possible, because they’re worried about fevers causing pneumonia. Chinese medicine has great recipes for children’s pneumonia too, from Zhang Zhongjing (mostly ephedra and almonds).
The fourth day, Xiao Ming’s fever finally goes down, but he has no appetite for several days and doesn’t like to eat.
The antipyretic worked. After Xiao Ming got the shot, his fever went down in the afternoon. He got some tylenol too, and after taking it for three days, all his cold symptoms went away.
So was his cold cured? Of course not. It’s just been sealed inside his body by the antipyretic and tylenol. This is standard opposition treatment. Is the cold causing your nose to get stuffy? I’ll contract the blood vessels in your nose, and make it not congested anymore. Is the cold making you cough? I’ll suppress your coughing nerve, so you don’t cough anymore. Same with sneezing. Is the cold making you sore all over? I’ll numb your nervous system so you don’t feel any pain. This is just the same as getting anaesthetics for surgery.
This is how western doctors treat a cold. They just make you feel like your symptoms have vanished. But they haven’t actually cured your sickness. The result is that your ability to fight off diseases and recover naturally becomes weaker and weaker, and you get sick more and more often. Chinese medicine would call this situation great harm to your central qi. Your central qi is stored within you, unable to be interfered with by evil. Getting IVs, getting antipyretics, eating western medicine all harms your central qi, your yang energy.
The most obvious symptom of damaged central qi is a lack of appetite. For example, Xiao Ming might look like he’s all better, but he’s not lively at all. He still coughs occasionally. He eats half of what he used to. This is because his central qi is still slowly recovering.
What should you do now? Protect your child’s stomach, don’t give him anything too fatty or sweet to eat. Give him food that’s easy to digest, like millet porridge which helps recover blood. Skin the cream off the top of the millet porridge for your kid. This is the fastest way to gain weight for people.
You can also boil some yams for your kid, to strength their stomach and qi. That way, he should slowly stop having a runny nose or coughing.
The tenth day, Xiao Ming’s mom makes his favourite rice noodles braised with pork belly.
He’d only just recovered from his cold and started to gain his appetite. Xiao Ming’s mom thinks it’s time to get more nutrition in him. He’s hardly been eating at all while he’s sick, he’s not getting enough nutrition. So Xiao Ming’s mom makes a feast, makes a whole pot of chicken soup, and Xiao Ming’s favourite rice noodles braised with pork belly.
There are probably a lot of overly concerned and loving moms like this all around the country, who starts shoving food down their kid’s throat the second they’re better from being ill, thinking that only meat holds nutrition. They don’t understand that at this critical moment, a child’s stomach’s qi is just starting to recovery. They can’t possibly digest this supposedly healthy meal.
What a coincidence, Xiao Ming’s grandpa and grandma comes to visit. His grandma keeps putting more food in his bowl, telling him to eat more, eat a little more, he’s had it so hard this past couple of days.
Unquestionably, Xiao Ming had his fill. His stomach is all round with food. He’s so full, he can hardly sleep at night. He keeps sweating and kicking off his blankets.
His parents didn’t think anything of it. They think that so long as something’s made it into your stomach, it’s given you nutrition.
The eleventh day, Xiao Ming isn’t feeling well again, he’s lost his appetite again.
The next day, Xiao Ming doesn’t poop in the morning. His breath smells bad. And he doesn’t eat much at breakfast.
Clearly, food has built up in him. How can he eat more without having emptied his stomach?
A mother who knows Chinese medicine would know to examine their child’s tongue. If the tongue is yellowish and there’s no poop, then there’s food accumulation. There are a lot of Chinese medicine pills designed to help with digestion and pooping.
What if you don’t treat food accumulation in children?
They’ll get a cold again. Chinese doctors call this a “food relapse”. If you’ve only just gotten better from a cold and eat too much and get a cold again, that’s a food relapse. It’s also called food accumulation cold. Children have very weak stomachs, so they’re very prone to food relapses
Why does food accumulation cause colds? Because food accumulation causes a very humid and hot environment to form inside the child’s body. Wet heat has to be dispersed, so they sweat. Their pores open up. The wind blows. And they’ve got a cold again.
A lot of kids repeatedly get colds, and parents think they just have a weak immune system. It’s actually because of food accumulation.
Xiao Ming’s mom didn’t do anything about his food accumulation. She still thinks it’s the aftereffects of his cold, it’ll get better in a few days.
The twelfth day, Xiao Ming starts coughing again.
This is caused by food accumulation.
Why would food accumulation cause coughing?
Because the lungs are right next to the large intestines. If the large intestines are hot and constipated, and the heat cannot escape, what happens? The lungs have to release this heat. And the symptoms presented is coughing and phlegm.
Because the coughing isn’t too bad, Xiao Ming’s parents don’t think anything of it, and just think he’s not quite over his cold yet.
Xiao Ming doesn’t eat breakfast. His dad plays good cop and encourages him, promising him new toys if he eats breakfast. His mom plays bad cop, and tells him if he doesn’t eat, he won’t grow big, he’ll keep getting sick, he’s being a bad kid.
Xiao Ming still refuses to eat. Xiao Ming’s mom get anxious. She forces him to eat. If he won’t eat, she’ll beat him.
Xiao Ming bursts out in tears.
You don’t really need to find a reason that kids don’t eat. Don’t force them to eat. Even if you do, they won’t digest what they eat, and it won’t turn into qi and blood. It’ll turn into garbage, and keep damaging their stomach.
On the thirteenth day, Xiao Ming starts getting a low fever again.
Because the food accumulation in his body hasn’t been dealt with, and children have pure Yang bodies, they often lack Yin and often have too much Yang. He’s constipated again, and the heat in his body cannot get released. So he starts burning up again.
If you knew Chinese medicine, you’d know to give him medicine to help with digestion, and eat some Xiao Chaihu again, and you’d be good. But Xiao Ming’s parents have no idea, so they once again go to the hospital.
Xiao Ming’s mom’s company has a very important meeting today, and she can’t get the day off, so she tells Xiao Ming’s dad to take him to the hospital.
Xiao Ming’s dad is a lazy person. He takes the most convenient solution every day. He’s not a fan of Chinese medicine or western medicine. He’s fine with anything so long as it can cure you. So when he passes by a Chinese medicine clinic while leaving his apartment complex, he thinks to himself, “Maybe we’ll go to a Chinese medicine doctor. It’s not like it’s a high fever.”
Xiao Ming’s dad sees a plaque in front of the Chinese medicine clinic, that says, “Diagnostics, shots, and IVs.”
Xiao Ming’s dad is confused. Why do Chinese medicine doctors offer shots and IVs?
Xiao Ming’s dad isn’t the only one who’s confused. I’m confused to. I don’t know when it started, but people seem to think that doctors equal shots and IVs. Getting a shot is equal to getting treated. Like if you didn’t get a shot and didn’t get an IV, then you didn’t actually get any treatment. Even Chinese medicine clinics are like this now, not to mention all the tiny western medicine clinics all over the streets.
Xiao Ming’s dad explains the situation, and without even lifting his head, the doctors says, “Okay, go inside and wait for your IV.”
Xiao Ming’s dad asks with curiosity, “You can’t fix this with herbal remedies?”
The doctor says, “Sure, I could, but it’s slow, and Chinese medicine is bitter. Kids hate bitter medicine, and it’s much faster with an IV. The kid doesn’t suffer either.”
How ridiculous! How dare he make up such lies about Chinese medicine despite being a Chinese medicine doctor. What does he mean, Chinese medicine is slow? So long as you target the right symptoms, it fixes you up in a day or two. What do you mean kids hate bitter medicine, and it’s faster with an IV? This sort of Chinese medicine doctor is a parasite on the whole field.
The reality is, he just makes more money with IVs.
Fine, it’s an IV either way, it doesn’t matter where they get it. Xiao Ming’s dad didn’t think too much about it, got him an IV, and left.
Just like this, Xiao Ming went for five days’ worth of IVs before his cold started getting better.
The twentieth day, Xiao Ming gets a cold again, and it’s a high fever right off the bat.
He’s been sick twice in just half a month, and spent two weeks getting IVs. He’s taken all kinds of medicine and all kinds of shots. It’s completely screwed up his immune system. Xiao Ming’s central qi is weaker and weaker. See, he’s sick again.
This sickness is caused by Xiao Ming’s mom’s muffling of him. She’s terrified of him getting a cold again, and bundled him up like he’s a zongzi. The second Xiao Ming moves at all, he’s covered in seat. But Xiao Ming’s mom would rather make him sweat than take off any clothes, thinking that this way, he’ll avoid getting cold. But this is another mistake.
If you want your children to be safe, you need to keep them 30% cold and hungry. The more you muffle him, the hotter he gets and the more he sweats. The second he sweats, the evilness on the wind will get in again. And he has no central qi to defend against it, so of course he gets another cold.
Xiao Ming’s mom doesn’t understand. He didn’t get cold. Why does he have a cold now?
This is more severe than the past colds. He has a high fever right off the bat. Xiao Ming’s mom didn’t hesitate to take him to the hospital.
It’s another antipyretic shot for him, more antibiotics. Xiao Ming is throwing a fit, and it takes a lot to finally give him a shot on his but.
The antipyretics work like a miracle. By the afternoon, Xiao Ming’s fever is down and his mom finally feels calmer. Xiao Ming’s mom prays in her heart, hoping that Xiao Ming will never get sick again. It’s so much work, so much stress, so much exhaustion. It’s so hard raising a kid.
On the 25th day, the nightmare begins.
Xiao Ming’s mom is cooking in the kitchen, and Xiao Ming is watching a cartoon in the living room.
Xiao Ming’s mom calls him to come to dinner, and he doesn’t answer for three times. She goes into the living room, and Xiao Ming’s completely focused on the TV. She thinks that he’s just too distracted.
Xiao Ming’s mom walks next to Xiao Ming and calls him again. He still doesn’t react.
Xiao Ming’s mom raises her voice. He still doesn’t react.
Xiao Ming’s mom freaks out, runs over, and grabs Xiao Ming by the arm, and asks, “Did you here mommy calling for you?”
Xiao Ming shook his head.
Xiao Ming’s mom’s heart fell. She falls to the ground. A horrible feeling rises in her. She quickly calls Xiao Ming’s dad.
Xiao Ming’s dad was on the way back from work, and when he gets the call, he heads straight to the hospital.
Xiao Ming’s mom races downstairs like a madwoman, and hails a cab.
The beginning of the nightmare.
The results come back from the hospital. Xiao Ming has gone deaf.
Xiao Ming’s mom grasps the doctor’s arm and screams hysterically, why would he get deaf?
The doctor answers coldly, “It’s a side effect of antibiotics.”
Xiao Ming is clutching his mom’s had, asking innocently, “Mommy, why can’t I hear you talk?”
Xiao Ming’s mom wails with grief.
……
Later on, Xiao Ming’s mom took him all over half of China, visiting all kinds of medical experts, spending the entirety of her savings. But she never could restore his hearing. And Xiao Ming began a different life from that point, living with loneliness in his silent world.
300,000 children in China go deaf every year due to antibiotics.
300,000 mom weep tears of regret.
A little cold could have been easily treated with Chinese medicine recipes. Why did it turn into such a tragedy?
I hope all mothers can consider the reason behind this. I hope these tragedies won’t replay again.”
Fascinating! I feel like it can be surprisingly hard to find info on how TCM supposedly works, so it’s cool to see this guy’s explanations. Also interesting to see western antivax rhetoric lifted wholesale and inserted into the discussion as if ‘drugs weaken the immune system’ were a traditional Chinese belief! Also pretty maddening to see what ‘western’ medical treatment looks like in China. Treating colds with saline solution and antibiotics is completely ridiculous…
Remarkable how severe the malpractice is. Giving people IVs and broad-spectrum antibiotics for a cold? Not educating patients on potential side effects? Shocking. And the fixation on getting shots is even stranger — what kind of common illness requires an injection? It's usually just childhood vaccinations and that's it.
Although maybe the problem is more of a lack of scientific thinking — of rigor when it comes to cause and effect. Antibiotics kill bacteria and not viruses, so they'd be of no use. In the same way, the author breathlessly praises TCM, but there's no evidence there either.