Lung Dry Phlegm: not always due to ageing!

Lung Dry Phlegm affects mostly the elderly, but a rotten diet and bad eating habits bring it on faster. Take care and you won’t get it.

Jonathan Clogstoun-Willmott

July 6, 2020

Lung Dry Phlegm tends to occur in older people, because it usually takes time to develop or acquire this syndrome.

BUT! If you often eat chips like in the picture above, your diet will be very heating, so you could produce dry-phlegm too – however young you are! Read more about hot foods here.

That’s because older people have probably had Phlegm for so long that it’s begun to dry out, become more sticky and difficult to budge.

Why has it dried out like this? Possibly because

of pre-existing Yin deficiency, which gives their system a continual tendency to mild Heat which dries things out, and/or
because Phlegm, left to its own devices, eventually becomes drier, and/or
they’ve had a series of illnesses that raise their temperature, incidentally drying the Phlegm or

Too much sweet rich food leads to lung dry phlegm — Cup cakes: sweet and rich! Eventually can lead to Lung Dry Phlegm.

because of a rotten diet: eating the wrong foods. Including deep fried chips – see Hot Foods!

Although it can affect young people, Yin deficiency is more common as you grow older.

A Rotten Diet eventually produces Lung Dry Phlegm

Most people are becoming aware of the importance of good food. Time was when many doctors ignored diet, indeed discredited it as being in any way responsible for ill-health!

Even a few years ago, doctors in many eminent university medical faculties received almost no lectures on diet, vitamins, minerals, protein and so on.

They couldn’t see the point when their medicines could so easily suppress symptoms.

However, they are catching up, though practitioners of Chinese medicine think doctors and Western nutritionists still have a long way to go. A very important omission in their education is the energy of food. For more about this read Nutrition.

Food manufacturers want increasing profits. They found that by adding more fat, salt, sugar and spices to food they sold more.

Quite apart from the devastating effects these had on obesity and other health problems, for people with a tendency to Phlegm, fats and spices also produce Heat.

Which foods produce Lung Dry phlegm?

The foods most responsible for developing Phlegm are dairy foods like milk and butter, and fat and greasy foods, such as found in a multitude of fast-foods, instant foods, crisps, roasted meat products, and many Asian dishes such as curries.

Heat dries, and that’s what happens to Damp-Phlegm. As it dries, it becomes harder to shift and it becomes Dry-Phlegm. Just as a cook can ‘reduce’ liquids by gently boiling them for a time, making them thicker and more concentrated, so heat applied to Damp-Phlegm thickens and ‘dries’ it.

Just as that cook, if he forgets to check the cooking liquids, can end up with a glue-like congealed mess that is hard to clean (I speak from experience), so the Dry-Phlegm ‘sticks’ to the inside of the lungs and you get Lung Dry Phlegm.

Sticky Dry-Phlegm impedes the flow of oxygen, making the patient short of breath. Lacking oxygen, he has a pale complexion. With all that thick gunge in his chest, it feels heavy and oppressive.

For the same reason, lacking oxygen to aerate his blood and his brain, he gets confused and often dizzy.

How you Eat is just as important

Poor eating habits over a life-time, and even half a life-time, can contribute to Phlegm formation. For instance:

Continual snacking, giving no time for food to be digested before the Stomach receives the next tranch of stuff

Rushing meals
Eating while on-the-go
Eating while working
Irregular meals
Eating too much
Not chewing properly
Lack of awareness of the effect different foods have on us
Eating always while semi-recumbent and then not getting up to walk around afterwards
Returning to work too soon after eating
(The list is much longer than this, but you get the idea?)

Of course, we all do this from time to time! But if you do it frequently – or always – then you will almost certainly end up with Phlegm. That leads on to diseases caused by Phlegm, of which this syndrome is one.

Underlying this is a weak Spleen, unable to clear things away, from having too much bad food foisted on it. (If you can’t be bothered to click on every link here, I understand! But you’ll be missing a huge amount of the depth and complexity of Chinese medicine. ‘Spleen’ means your digestion in general, but also a lot more than that.)

Symptoms of Lung Dry Phlegm

Dry cough
Phlegm is difficult to hawk up and out from chest and throat
Chest feels heavy and hard to expand
Shortness of breath and wheezing
Head feels confused and heavy
Easily gets dizzy
Dry throat
Pale complexion, often dry
Snoring
Pulse: slippery and fine
Tongue: swollen. Coating is sticky and dry.

What does your Acupuncturist Do about this syndrome?

If Lung Dry Phlegm is your syndrome, your acupuncturist will aim to

clear the Phlegm (easier said than done and this will involve assisting your Spleen energy to work better), and
help your body moisturise itself;
nourish Lung Yin and
help your Lung Qi to descend again (because if Lung Qi can’t descend, it comes up as coughing)
advise you on diet and other ways to Help Yourself, see below

How to Help Yourself if you have Lung Dry Phlegm

First, food!

If you’ve understood the above causes of Lung Dry Phlegm, you’ll realise you need to:

Take advice and then eat the right foods, avoiding the wrong ones
Read my book “Yuck! Phlegm!” which, despite its lurid cover, goes into all the different main kinds of phlegm and helps you decide what works for YOU, as against all the advice you can read elsewhere on the web. See panel on right.
Not over-eating
Eat regular meals, taking time over them, chewing well, and then pausing for a few hours before eating again, and doing so preferably when hungry
Always leave some space in your stomach at the end of the meal. This means you usually forego the ‘sweet’ or ‘pudding’.
Eating foods of the right energy (ie not too heating ie avoid Hot Foods)
Taking enough fluids to allow your body to moisten and dissolve the dry Phlegm. However, drinking far more water than usual is not the way to do this because it puts too great a load on your Kidney Yang Qi.

Second, Exercise!

Exercise can help lung dry phlegm — Exercise for Health

If possible, move around for a few minutes after eating. Later, between meals, go for a walk. No need for major exertion! Just potter about, or walk for ten minutes, not ambling or window-shopping, but not hurrying either. When you walk, stand up straight! Don’t stoop!

This helps your Lungs, encourages your Spleen and ensures that gravity helps food to descend.

It also exercises your Lungs. Exercise and the right nutrition and eating habits begin to clear Lung Dry Phlegm.

Exercises to keep your spine flexible would be good. This doesn’t mean you should try extreme yoga poses – or not yet! But bending and stretching movements should gently test your limits each time. Hula Hoop Anyone? (Or read appendix 10 in my book ” Qi Stagnation” for an easy, safe and wonderful way to keep your spine toned up, in just a couple of minutes a day.)