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The long, frustrating road to healing chronic disease
“Am I ever going to feel better?” If you’ve struggled with a long-term illness, you may have asked yourself this question. Maybe you’ve suffered with chronic pain, or a challenging digestive disorder, or a recurrent skin problem or some other ailment for so long, you’ve forgotten what it feels like to be well. To be…
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The Effects of Compression: Binding, Chinese Medicine, and You
It’s a dilemma that trans-masculine people know all too well: the need to reduce the painful experience of dysphoria on the one hand, and concerns about longterm health on the other. At first, the decision is easy; we strap down our breast tissue somehow some way, whether with ace bangs, commercially-made binders or compression shirts.…
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How to Prepare for Top Surgery Like a Pro (with a little help from Chinese medicine)
Top surgery, like so much of trans healthcare, is a subject about which much information in desired, but little is available from trusted sources. Every surgeon has their own particular instructions on how to prepare and heal, and most of them do not have good websites. I personally don’t know how anyone transitioned before the…
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Chronic pelvic pain, East Asian medicine & the LGBTQ+ community
The lower abdomen is sometimes referred to, in kinesthetic medicines of various kinds, as “the basement of the body”. It’s where issues that we can’t deal with at the moment, whether emotional or physical, get put so that can work on them later. Hopefully. This dynamic can be illustrated in a few ways: sexual assault…
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The LGBTQ community, health outcomes & the importance of relationships in healthcare
In this moment, in this world, being a queer and/or trans person can feel really hard and scary. It can be hard to prioritize your health and well-being in a world that seems hell-bent on making your life terrible. I’ve written before about the utility that Chinese medicine has in treating anxiety, depression and chronic…
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Trapped underwater – kidney yang deficiency, cold & chronic pain
In the last installment of this series of articles, let us to turn to the all-important kidney yang. If you’ve missed them, you may want to check out some earlier articles in this series, such as this one about terror and the Chinese medicine heart, or this one about the liver and depression. As…
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The kidney yin, mysteries & panic in the face of the unknown
In previous posts I’ve discussed organs from four of the five elements in Chinese Medicine; The heart (fire), the lung (metal), the liver (wood) and the spleen (earth). In the final articles in this series I want to conclude by the discussing the water organ, the kidney. Our kidneys in western medicine are vital in…
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Earth yin deficiency in Chinese medicine – When you want it ALL
Last week we discussed the lack of motivation and depression that can result from not having enough yang in the Spleen. The rest of the articles in this series are also available including the first one about chronic anxiety, the second one about terror, the third one about closure of the heart, the fourth one about…
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Earth Yang deficiency in Chinese medicine – Too tired to care
To read the previous articles in this series : the first on chronic anxiety, the second addressing terror and the Chinese medicine heart, the third looking at severe closure of the heart, the fourth concerning depression and the Chinese medicine liver and the most recent about Chinese medicine and rage or anger. I’ve gone five entire…
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No chill left – the treatment of anger and rage with Chinese medicine
In the previous article in this series, I discussed the depression that can arise when the Qi of the liver stops flowing properly. You may also want to read the first and second articles in this series – exploring various aspects of the treatment of emotional difficulties with Chinese medicine. In this week’s installment I want…
