Podcast Notes:

00:00  Hello and welcome to The Balancing Point. I am Kathryn, here with Dr. John Nieters L.Ac, DAOM for another Weekly Update.

Dr Nieters: I love doing the updates. As most of you know that I did over a decade of Call-In Radio shows, which I love because they were topical at the moment. So I had to really be on my toes. And now it’s a little bit more laid back because we’re taking questions. So please send us some questions. You must have some questions about some area of health care, happiness, coaching, martial arts, and I’ll be happy to look into it with you. Do a little inquiry with you. So any issues this week? What’s coming up?

00:43   Kathryn: Well, it’s an interesting week, and especially with women coming in with a whole slew of problems and as we talk with them, and you know how you do a very thorough intake at the very beginning, we discover that they are also dealing with PMS issues during the menstrual cycle. And the PMS issues are almost like overtaking their life during that week. And through that, you’re able to give them some herbs and help to balance it so that they actually have their life again.

01:13  Dr. Nieters: Well, that’s such a great point. There are a few conditions in medicine and amongst people’s pain and suffering that they just accept as being the way it is. And I find this probably more than anywhere else in gynecological issues of PMS, breast tenderness, menstrual cramps, other mood changes (at or before the menstrual cycle starts), menstrual period. And women, for the most part, just accept those. And the reason they accept them, I finally got clear about after interviewing a few thousand women is because they’ve been told they’re normal. 

So let’s say they have horrible breast distention before their period starts for a week. They have to wear a different bra. They’re really uncomfortable. They don’t want anybody near them. They don’t want their cat near them. Because they might walk on them. I actually had that happen. A woman gave away her cat away before she came to see me. I was like, “oh, my God, can you get the cat back? Because we can fix this.” And so they’ve been told that those gynecological conditions are normal… and I’m here to tell you, they are absolutely not normal. Doctors get confused and they use the term “normal” when they should be saying “common.” Breast tenderness before menstruation is very “common”.

02:45  Mood changes, even severe mood changes before menstruation are very “common”. Menstrual cramping is very “common”. None of those is a normal physiological condition. And I can prove that to you because with just in most cases a short term of treatment, they go away.

And when you look at cultures around the world, many of them don’t have those problems. They’re just totally stunned by the level of pain and suffering that women in industrialized countries and particularly the U.S. go through. Now, again, it’s that calling it “normal” that keeps women from really reaching out to get help.

03:30 Now, I see everything from PMDD, which is premenstrual dysphoria disorder, which is totally debilitating. Women are so depressed, angry, anxious that their lives are basically being run by this. To fairly minor issues, a little moodiness. You know, you throw an ashtray at your husband, I don’t know, you know, nothing too serious. And then a breast distention issues.

Well, again, I’m going to tell you that in gynecology, in Traditional Chinese medicine, we expect most of these issues, probably not the PMDD and not endometriosis, which is excruciatingly painful periods, caused by a totally different grouping of conditions in those it’s going to take longer. Even then, it’s generally fixable.

04:27  But in most moderate to severe conditions involving menstruation, the rule of thumb is they should be cleared up within three cycles or three months. And that’s pretty much my experience. Now a patient comes in with breast distention. That’s eight out of 10, you know, in terms of pain and discomfort etc. Maybe it’s not 100 percent gone in three months. Maybe it’s only one or two out of 10. I’ll tell you, that’s a life changer.

04:59  And still, then we’re going to keep working to get rid of it completely. Now, although there are a huge number of conditions that can lead to PMS or premenstrual dysphoria disorder, most of them involve the system that the Chinese called the liver system. Now, they call it that because it does include the functions of your liver from a Western and a biomedical standpoint. But there’s far more to the Chinese outlook on these organs than just that physical aspect. For each organ in the body there is a particular aspect, sometimes called emotion. But emotion is really way too small to really get the whole flavor. And so every organ will have an affect and they’ll also have a corresponding. And the Chinese were big on government bureaucracies like how they all fit together. So each of those organs will have a place in the bureaucracy. And then there are what is known to affect those organs negatively and what’s known to affect those organs positively.

06:15  Now, with PMS, the primary organ involved will be the liver. Secondarily, it’ll be the gallbladder, the spleen and stomach. Those are the primary organs. Now, there are infinite variation. In Chinese medicine, there is a condition called liver qi stagnation. There is another similar condition called liver depression, often in the United States culture, we’ll see those combined, we’ll see liver depression, qi stagnation, but they can be separate.

06:52   Now, the energy of the body, if you look at a chart of the acupuncture meridians or you get one of the little acupuncture models, with one exception, the primary channels all run north and south. So if you put your arms up, the energy should run along that north/ south axis.

There’s one exception and extraordinary meridians called the Dai or Belt Meridian that kind of holds things together, but typically all the back, all of the organs, meridians, the ones that are named after an organ, all go north and south and circulate. Now in with the liver, the liver depression qi stagnation is far more common in the US than in most countries, one, because we get more exposure to exogenous, pesticide residues, hormones, et cetera.  And so that plays a huge negative role on women’s hormones.

07:59   Also, there’s a much higher level of depression or lack of fulfillment. But what do I mean by that? In Chinese medicine, they say liver depression or liver qi stagnation, is largely caused by unfulfilled desires. So life ain’t working out the way you want it and you have frustration. And that tends to affect largely the liver channel and the liver organ, and you get what’s called liver depression, qi stagnation.

And so what’s really relevant about that is when that’s present, the the energy of the liver, which should again run on a north south axis, gets trapped in the chest or the diaphragm area and it goes side to side. You know, any of you that know women who’ve had PMS will tell you they don’t like being in their body at time. So there’s this urge just to “get out,” “I can’t stand this sensation,” and that is the depressed and stagnant qi that’s running sideways in the chest and abdominal area, primarily the diaphragm, rather than moving freely around the body.

09:20  And so when it moves in that counter flow or side to side direction, the other organs that are at that same level are the spleen and stomach. And so a very common condition is liver depression, qi stagnation, assailing the spleen and the stomach.

Now, the spleen is an organ that’s largely involved in energy production, energy usage. It moves fluids, it’s said, to transport form and transport fluids. So, if the spleen is healthy, then we don’t get accumulations like edema or breast swelling. And then our digestion is better and our energy is better. When that she flows counter and runs sideways rather than in a circular motion, which we say is coursing the liver, which means both to run on the proper course and to coarse like you move over a coarse. And so with liver depression, qi stagnation. We want to course the qi. When it’s running sideways and it affects the spleen, then we get more swelling.

10:40   When it affects the stomach, then we get more digestive disorders. Also, the paired organ with the liver is the gall bladder. So we get a lot more gall bladder symptoms.

10:52   Gall bladder problems are an epidemic in the United States. Last time I looked, they were coming out about a million a year. I don’t know if it’s still there or not, but in all of my years, I’ve seen about 60,000 patient visits, hundreds of gall bladder patients two, exactly two, ended up having their gall bladder removed. One at my insistence, because it was too, late in the game and another one because they weren’t willing, it was just too painful for them to follow the diet that kept them out of pain. But that’s two out of hundreds. In the Western medical world, there’s a term or a saying, they say, “when in doubt, cut it out.”

That’s when they’re talking about the gall bladder. I’ve had multiple patients go in to have abdominal surgery for something else, but then also had their gallbladder taken out while the doctor was in there saying, “yeah, when in doubt, take it out.” I found in most cases, gallbladders are saveable or salvageable.

11:52  And so when this energy is running sideways, you’ll find the urge to sigh. The breasts will swell. There’s frustration, there’s irritability, etc.. So for us, we just need to turn that energy. So it’s coursing running north and south. And we need to do things to get rid of the swelling, the excess swelling and fluid retention in the breast.

Now, I shouldn’t say this.  But it’s really pretty easy.

This is one of the easier things I have a very complicated, very complex practice and this is one of the easiest things that I do. I love seeing PMS patients because they’re so easy to fix and they are so appreciative. Their husbands call me to thank me. Their boyfriends call me to thank me. Their girlfriends call me to thank me. It’s like I am the favorite guy around the house when we get rid of the PMS and the breast tenderness and again, relatively easy.

12:50   Now, one of the further things as a problem – when the spleen is involved and it’s not really moving fluids well, and the liver qi is stagnant, so the blood and the qi are not moving well. Estrogen, causes bile to thicken. Bile is released by the liver. It’s stored in the gall bladder until you need it, and then it pumps out to emulsify or break down fats. We know that. But one of the biggest thing the gall bladder is important for is and the bile is that bile traps many of the toxic chemicals we are trying to get rid of. Many of the toxic metabolites from estrogen, etc. It traps viruses and retro viruses and bacteria, and it carries them down to your intestines, so that you can pass them out with your stool.

13:48   Well, if that bile is thick and sludgy, it isn’t going to do its job. And so you are much more vulnerable to any of those infections because you can’t clear them out of your system well. You’re also going to have digestive problems because you can’t break down fats well. This is a really, really critical issue. In fact, we’re going to be doing a liver flush next month with a bunch of people to clear that out, because particularly when you’re in a pandemic, it’s important any time.

But in a pandemic, it’s critical to keep all of those pathways as open as possible so that you can get those toxic materials out of your system.

Which brings me to another thing.

14:36   That reminds me, we’re going to be doing a free 14 day lymphatic. What did you call it lymphatic?

Lymphatic boost… I call it Cleanse. Boost sounds a lot better. So we’re very excited about it. Yeah, a lot of my patients are. They love the price. Free is nice.

So what we’re going to do it to allow us to see so many people, is we’re going to be doing a Zoom type of podcast or broadcast where people will be will meet with people every day as a group. It’ll be recorded if you can’t do it at that time, but it will be open for Q&A so people will be able to ask questions about the lymphatic boost. Now, what’s important about this, is the lymphatics basically are the sewer system of your body, so your blood gets pumped by your heart and your arteries and it moves around, the other major fluid in your body is lymphatic fluid and it doesn’t have a pump. So in order for the lymphatic fluid to move, it moves either by muscular contraction or by very gentle touch over it. And you can do with some massage also, but you need to do something to move that lymph.

15:57   Again, it’s the sewer system of the body. So if you’re infected with a virus or a retrovirus or a bacteria as those components die or as your cells die, they get sloughed off into the lymphatic fluid. They flow through the lymph system. Go through the lymph nodes and the lymph nodes are basically where things are getting stuck. And so until they can be broken down and that lymphatic system then drains primarily into your large intestine, 3/4 of it into what’s called the Cisterna Chyli, and then the bile grabs it, if you’re bile’s moving well, carries that down into your large intestine, where the bile is reabsorbed and then you poop out all the bad stuff.

The lymphatic system, it’s critical that it’s open.

16:48    Now, we have a horrific epidemic of breast cancer in the United States.

I’ll do a breast health seminar soon or talk soon. But the level of breast cancer has skyrocketed to unbelievable levels and most of the horrific sorry, most of the efforts made to cure it are not very successful. I mean, surgery helps for a while.

Far better is to prevent. And with the breasts, most of the tissue is either lymphatic tissue or fat.

What does that tell us? Means you don’t have any muscle there, you don’t have any muscles, there is, so they’re not going to be moving the lymph to get it out of the breast tissue, so the lymph is going to sit there. It’s like a sewer system where things are sludge up and sitting there, which, trust me, is not good for your breast health. So we’re going to be doing that. It’s going to start February 22nd. You can go to TheBalancingPoint.Net and sign up and we will get you involved in that.

18:05   And that’s actually a prelude to something that’s in which I won’t say it’s more important, but is a little deeper. We will be doing a Liver Flush. The liver flush will be more involved. It will be 10 days. There will be a small charge for it and we will do the same type of outreach. 

We’re going to do it on Zoom or some similar platform, but it’ll be more every day. The lymphatic will be 10 to 15 minutes. This will be more like forty five minutes, I suspect, in order to get all the Q&A done. And so I would love to have you join for the liver flush. You can again go to TheBalancingPoint.Net and put your name on a waiting list. We will have limited space in that. But put your name on the waiting list and we’ll send you out some information on that. 

That will be starting in March. And once you’re cleared from the waiting list, we’ll give you the date for that and move forward.

That’s enough for our update for for this week. I want to thank you more than I can tell you for tuning in. This is my favorite thing to do because it fits my purpose and my vision. So I love you being here with me. If you weren’t here, I would be totally ineffective. So be happy. Be healthy. Thank you. 

 

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Western Perspective, Integrative and Functional Medicine. 

The Balancing Point health radio talk show about Traditional Chinese Medicine, supplements, nutrition, and more.  Host Dr. John Nieters, acupuncturist and health educator.  http://www.thebalancingpoint.net

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