Maddie

Whats that?

My best guess might be that the time with retention may have helped to alleviate your Kidney deficiency so that you get the Liver qi flowing with out the negative side effects of Kidney def.

Oh no need to apologize this helps keep me sharp on past classes so I'll be on top of it when licencing board exams come up ;-). You are correct in saying that probably the largest difference in organ function between western medicine and TCM is the Liver. In western medicine the Liver does so so many things, from being your bodies chemistry station, to storage of all sorts of vital things, to filtration and on and on. In TCM the Liver also has several functions which are to store the blood, help maintain the smooth flow of qi throughout the body, and nourish the sinews. As far as blood storage goes this is another contradiction with western medicine. Western medicine says that the spleen is the primary blood storage organ, while TCM says its the Liver. This partially explains PMS in women. If they do not have enough blood (called blood deficiency in TCM) when its time for their monthly cycle the uterus requires too much of the Liver's stored blood, thus leaving the Liver blood deficient. The Liver's emotion is anger, and blood is a yin type substance which is cooling and calming. With not enough Liver blood, the Liver heats up and then the person feels angry. Ok I digress lol. Another important function is helping the smooth flow of qi throughout the body. Again this is why the condition of Liver qi stagnation produces stress and frustration. Stagnation causes friction which causes heat, and once again you have that Liver heating up and causing anger, pain is possible too. Nourishing the sinews is also an important Liver function. The finger nails (toes too) are considered an excess of the tendons and their health is a reflection of the health of your Liver. One other thing. The Liver houses your ethereal soul called the Hun. This has a lot to do with planning and decision making. According to Daoism the Hun is the only part of you that continues after death. Anyways that' probably more than you wanted but as you can see the function of Liver in the west and TCM is quite different.

Well in TCM formulas are usually prescribed as opposed to single herbs, as a formula works in a synergistic way for greater effect. So what you would probably want is Shou Wu Pian which is a formula for this and thus more effective. A pretty good company I often refer patients to is active herb due to their reasonable prices, and high quality (no I don't own stock in this company lol). In TCM their are usually 3 main ways to take herbs. 1. Patent formulas in pill or tablet form. This way is the most convenient but the weakest potency. With that being said I usually take my herbs in this form and have good results. http://www.activeherb.com/shouwu/ 2. Granule form is in the middle as far as both potency and convenience go. Its kind of like instant coffee and does not really taste all that great. Here is a link to the single herb if your interested in that, though I'd rather take a patent formula as opposed to a single herb granule, but here it is. http://www.activeherb.com/shouwu/ 3. Raw herbs are the most effective and least convenient way. For this you'd probably need to go to a TCM practitioner and get them. They taste horrible, but you definitely get quick results.

That depends on how you look at it. If you make a literal organ to organ comparison then there are a lot of discrepancies. But if you look at the TCM view of looking at each organ system as a system or function rather than only as a literal organ then things make more sense. I have a classmate who was previously in regular med school, and especially at the beginning of school this was a real struggle for him. A good example is the spleen. In western medicine it is just considered a large organ of the lymphatic system that stores and processes red blood cells. You can even have it removed and still live a pretty normal life. In TCM the Spleen is the extremely important as it with the Stomach is in charge of the transportation and transformation of food and drink. With out the Spleen in TCM you could not live. Discrepancy? If taken literal yes. But if you view the "Spleen" in TCM as the overall function of your digestive system as a whole and you don't take it literally then there is not a discrepancy. I hope that makes sense.

Good news, yes it does. Bad news.. if your 22 and already getting greys you most likely will need to take it as a regular thing.

Yes Liver qi stagnation can cause tightness and oppresion in the hypocondriac region, so that makes sense. As you've stated since this has been a long term thing, its might take some time to see results, which I know is not what you want to hear when your feeling crummy. Liver qi stagnation is a weird and trick monster. It can cause you to feel bad, and then once you do feel bad and that makes you upset it further causes your Liver qi to stagnate, thus a vicious cycle. :-/. The primary set of points we typically use for Liver qi stagnation are Liver 3, and Large Intesting 4 (the four gates). Perhaps try doing acupressure on those points for a good 15-20 min massaging in a counter-clockwise motion.

Here is the reason I beleive this is more than just the result of an injury. Granted some of the upper back pain could be the result of a past injury. But what an injury does not explain is the resulting fatigue, and other symptoms he has after semen loss. Furthermore even if his back pain were totally explainable from injury alone, treating the LV/GB qi stagnation equation would greatly help him to recover from that as well.

Hmmm well I suppose its hard to say conclusively or not if that incident as a child is related to your difficulties now, but the reason the solar plexus is call the solar plexus is because there is a large "plexus" of nerves there right in your diaphram area. Now its possible that one of those nerves might have been damaged when you got stompped on. Since nerve damage does not repair like other tissue damage, its possible that an injury here as a child could still be causing difficulties to you now. My recommendation would be to see an acupuncturist as acupuncture has a postive effect on nerve damage, which is why its so sucessful in treating stroke victims. Being that this is likely a chronic case involving nerve damage, I'm pretty sure you will require several treatments, Hope that helps.

I've noticed that after doing the Kleem mantra for a while my saliva gets very thin and watery. After doing it longer my mind becomes very still. :-)

Keep in mind that I'm not talking about Kidney in the Western medical point of view, for if that were the case then yes I'd agree that he does not have a Kidney problem. What I speak of is the Kidney meridian system from a TCM point of view... its different. :-)

As I said in the first post, hard to say with out an actual diagnosis.

I think enjoying food is important for two reasons. First of all why not enjoy life's small pleasures? Second to enjoy food means that your mindful of it, and what ever increases our mindfulness of whats going on is a pretty good thing. :-)

I've begun to notice that with mindfulness insight meditation that as I watch thoughts, especially some thoughts (as in the less pleasant ones) that at first its as thought (or at least it feels this way) that the thoughts don't like being watched. Then after watching them for a bit, I usually sort of break out in a clammy hot/cold sweat. 1. Do those thoughts that are part of our conditioning have a consciousness of their own? Is that why they don't like being observed. Might that also explain why people sometimes do things that they'd rather not? Because these aspects of our mental conditioning have a consciousness of their own? 2. Why might I break out in a hot/cold clammy sweat after observing some of these unpleasant thoughts after a while?

Cool I'm glad to hear that :-)

As far as finding a good acupuncturist in your area I suppose you could google it. Here is something I found that you might check out http://www.yinyanghouse.com/practitioner_members/acupuncturists. Ok your response about retention clarifies a few things. If you feel that weak, tired, and fearful after ejaculation then this would point to a Kidney deficiency, as the Kidney is the foundation of our original qi and its emotion is fear. TCM can further help in this regard as well. Some good Kidney herbs would help you to not feel all the ways you listed after ejaculation. Then with in reason you could release now and then as needed and avoid all the anxiety and stress you mentioned comes with extended retention.

So its Kling as in to kling or hold tightly to something (as far as pronunciation) is concerned at least?

Thanks :-)

Hey I am currently a TCM student and intern. My first recommendation would be to go and see an acupuncturist as a thorough TCM diagnosis can't really be made online like this. But just based on the things you said here is my hunch from a TCM point of view. You mentioned two main concerns, upper back pain and nocturnal emission. Now I believe you mentioned that you have your upper back pain around your shoulder area and that you have been under stress. This sounds like Liver/Gallbladder qi stagnation. Stress will cause your Liver qi to stagnate. Its the Liver's job to promote the smooth flow of qi. When you get stressed this does not happen and you feel more stressed and can have pain along the course of the meridian. The Gallbladder is the paired organ of the Liver and it runs right through your shoulders. This is a common problem. Acupuncture and herbs can be very helpful in this. Also anything that will help de-sress you will help as well. As far as nocturnal emissions go this is considered a Kidney issue in TCM. Now ordinarily this is caused by Kidney deficiency, usually of Kidney yin. In your case however since you have been practicing retention for an extended period of time, I'd say this is not the result of a Kidney deficiency but simply pressure from a lot of semen build up, which is not unusual. My question for you would be why are you practicing semen retention in the first place? I ask because as I've noted you seem to have Liver qi stagnation. The Liver meridian circles the groin area, so if things don't move there after a while they tend to stagnate, thus producing stress which can manifest in other places such as your back and shoulders. I don't know your entire practice schedule, but the problem with semen retention, especially as is commonly taught is that retention without a serious practice of meditation to cultivate emptiness is asking for big trouble. I know I practiced retention for an extended period of time and I felt very stressed and it kind of made my thinking weird. Now granted excessive loss of semen can be bad for your health, but as always the case in the middle way so can too much retention with out the proper meditation to go along with it. So again my question is why do you practice retention?

One way to approach the past lives thing as through a detective approach. You take note of which places seem very familiar to you, what preferences that you have, especially ones that are outside of your own culture.

Has anyone heart of the Kleem sound or mantra? It's supposed to draw to you the things you want, as in material things, and particularly women (for men). I was doing this mantra for a while at the end of last year and it did seem like that my luck with women (which isn't really all that much lately, not that I'm really trying too hard) improved. I stopped though mainly because my understanding of Buddhism is that instead of trying to fulfill our desires we should be attempting to reduce them. What I'm not sure of is if that was a misunderstanding on my part, or is a mantra like this best avoided? I've been doing the Zhunti mantra lately and was also wondering if doing both would conflict or not?

Does it happen sometimes that as you meditate a lot that sometimes you can feel kind of sick afterwards?

I appreciate all the feed back. I think my mentioning my German soldier theory might have distracted though from what I was really trying to get at. What I'm really wanting to understand is.... if you work on a chakra for example and all sorts of "stuff" (mental impressions, emotions, feelings) come up afterwards. If you can not associate any of these feelings from anything in this life, is this past life stuff that you are dealing with that is in your chakras?

Something that I thought I'd share for consideration. Now from what I understand of Buddhism and Kara theory in general all of your actions for good or bad come back to you. For a while now due to many reasons (more than I care to get into at the moment) I have believed that my most recent past life to the best of my understanding was that of a German soldier during the Second World War. Aside from the familiarity of Germany and my obsession with WWII since childhood, I think it explains a lot of what I have experienced during this life. As is commonly known German soldiers were not known in general for treating people particularly well. Now the way I figure this ties into karma is that in this life up until very recently just about everyone I was close to and/or most situations I found myself in, there was always someone significant in my life being extremely cruel to me, and trying to exert a great deal of power and control over me. As I worked on my solar plexus chakra therefore I had great feelings and images of cruelty come up as I worked through that. Most recently I've been working on my sacral chakra. It has been rather overwhelming to the point of feeling ill and feverish. All sorts of varied and random sexual thoughts, feelings and scenarios seem to be going through my mind and body. Some of them very bizarre. Due to my past experience with my solar plexus and issues of power and control, this has caused me to consider that perhaps that past sexual experiences and karma from past lives are being worked out? This thought raised an even more broad question. Is karma very specific in its manifestations in our current life? What I mean is if in a past life, if you are cruel to others, will that karma you generate work itself out by having other people be cruel to you? If in a past life you were a sexual deviant, will that cause you to have to deal with issues like that in this life? I'm just wondering how specific karma is, and how it plays itself out. ** Something else I decided to add that I think is noteworthy. When I first began meditation I was primarily working with the meridians and organs using the Taoist healing sounds. My experience from that was that stuff came up but primarily from experiences earlier in this life, as in from childhood. Now that I'm more chakra focused it seems that more of what comes up is from past lives.

It dawned on me that perhaps I sould be more specific because I don't feel that I was getting my point accross perfectly. While yes there are times that I feel spacey, but I guess more specifically the way I'd describe the way I feel lately is very tired, and apathetic. Its just hard to have the energy to motivate myself to do anything. I suppose the reason I began this train of thought with using red is because I figured that since red is the color of the root chakra which is the most physical and down to earth that I was hoping that I'd have more energy and be more useful in the real world. It seems though that red did the exact opposite and made me feel even more tired. Then I tried yellow and was still tired. Just yesterday I tired blue and now I finally seem to be starting to feel less tired and apathetic. I'm not sure why?