
Heart Yang Deficiency – Palpitations, Cold and Weak
Heart Yang Deficiency – Cold, Tired, Depleted Spirits. Signs , symptoms,, aetiology and what to do! And if you ignore it, what happens next.
Kidney Yin deficiency is one form of a more general Yin deficiency with which it shares many symptoms.
In fact, what you get is really Yin deficiency combined with Kidney syndromes and deficiency of Jing-Essence.
If, by mistake, you’ve just arrived here expecting a discussion of the kidneys’ functions from the Western medical viewpoint, click here.
Otherwise, keep reading, because what Chinese medicine has to say about the Kidneys when they malfunction is equally relevant. To most of the Chinese medical terms there are links.
So, what is Kidney yin deficiency? It’s a syndrome in Chinese medicine, in other words a pattern of ill-health which is understood and treatable.
Being either perspiration, for example during a fever, or through diarrhoea during the course of a disease, or loss of Blood.
Blood loss can occur during an operation (and there is some doubt whether transfused blood immediately makes up for loss of your own) or from injury or from heavy menstrual bleeding, especially if it occurs over many months. The latter, menorrhagia, at first exhausts Liver Blood, but then passes on to consume Kidney Yin too. (Why? Because Liver functions depend on Kidney functions and if you exhaust the child, you move on to exhaust the mother.)
Chronic disease will affect the deep energies or zang-fu energy organs of the body, being the Liver, Spleen, Heart and Lung … and Kidney. All of these depend on the Kidney function so if one of them gets exhausted, it ends up at long-stop with the Kidney.
If you boost Yang too much, you may exhaust Yin’s ability to keep up with it.
Coffee and caffeine are well-known stimulants that eventually drain Kidney Yin if you take too much. Herbs and drugs to boost Yang (often to boost sexual energy) can do the same thing.
Some medications have the same effect, and most definitely, many social drugs, street drugs, which for a while make you feel fantastic do the same thing. (How do you recognise that they’ve had this effect? Because you feel exhausted the next or following days!)
What is meant is extremely heavy work without respite over many months, even years. Of course, young men can probably work for longer than their elders, but their elders sometimes have more discipline and are less easily led astray. In general, however, older people have used up more of their Jing-essence so overwork will exhaust them more quickly.
Sorry. Too much of this is regarded as bad for you, but actually we’re talking more about Men than about Women. Ejaculation dissipates Jing-essence and too much of this uses up this vital resource and reserve.
For women, having too many babies close together, or not recovering between them might amount to the same thing. Menorrhagia over many months can also exhaust, as already mentioned.
Of course, if a women achieves orgasm so often and intensively that she completely exhausts herself, that might amount to overwork, see above. For men, their teens are regarded as being the time when such loss is potentially most damaging in the long-run for their Kidney Yin. In any case, men are advised not to indulge in ejaculatory sex when ill as it uses up too many of their body’s resources, needed to get them well.
Well … Kidney Yin deficiency is not a killer!
But it’s slow and insidious, and often leads to a range of symptoms that make you tense and anxious, can raise your blood pressure and stop you sleeping well, so lead on to chronic tiredness and lowered immunity.
Those in turn make it easier for you to get ill in other ways that may be more dangerous, even fatal.
Once it develops, it’s very hard to cure by yourself: only good treatment will help it, and the longer you leave it the slower the cure.
So seek treatment early on if you notice symptoms developing like those listed above.
Before stimulating these points, remember that they can be very yin-tonifying.
Well, of course, you say, that’s what I want – get on with it!
But if you are very yin deficient, your body may also be quite yang deficient without you realising it. So an experienced acupuncturist might start cautiously, or warn you to expect some days of feeling a bit weary and depressed.
Alternatively, if you are already doing other things advised on this page, your acupuncturist might use some yang points as well as kidney yin deficiency acupuncture points. This is so as to balance the treatment and help you feel gradually better, adapting easily to the beneficial changes in your metabolism from his treatment.
Here are kidney yin deficiency acupuncture points that acupuncturists generally use. But acupuncturists might do lots of other things too to build you up, including points for Qi and Blood.
And they would expect you to alter your diet and what you ate because eating the wrong foods, or eating food the wrong way, can negate your acupuncture. Check nutrition!
In the following list, each has many uses beyond those listed:
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Heart Yang Deficiency – Cold, Tired, Depleted Spirits. Signs , symptoms,, aetiology and what to do! And if you ignore it, what happens next.
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2 Responses
Thank you so much for sharing you knowledge and wisdom Jonathan!! I’ve noticed more inflammation under my eyes, so I searched. I’ve now linked a few other symptoms to my kidney yin deficiency. I’ll now be bringing this insight to my acupuncturist in two weeks. Oh and Thank you for the recipe for congee. Truly appreciate your kind knowledge!
Hi Suzanne, Thank you for your kind comments – I’m glad you found the information you needed.
Kidney deficiency can come from many causes, and produces quite a few different symptoms, though we mostly forget that the face shows more than we imagine. Indeed, there’s a whole form of diagnosis based round face diagnosis.
Best wishes – Jonathan