Chinese Natural Healing

Herbal medicine, Acupressure, Acupuncture, Qi Gong and more.

Posts Tagged arteriosclerosis

Habits that help healing Arteriosclerosis, Atherosclerosis

Jan 16

Posted by conrad in Arteriosclerosis, Atherosclerosis, Diet / Nutrition | No Comments

Budding Winter Press Release (Draft V1)

So last two posts were all about healing arteriosclerosis and atherosclerosis with some Chinese recipe of some very convenient food. The extra chapter will be some habits to heal and prevent these diseases.

1. Avoid animal fat. Even vegetarian should avoid any food that are very spicy. Of course, veggie diet would be more healthy. Over-weight patients should avoid fine rice, meat and high carbohydrates food / high sugar food. Reduce food assumption when necessary.

2. Garlic contains vitamin B that helps reduce cholesterol and prevent heart attacks. Or eat some carrots or carrot juice before sleep.

3. After and before sleep, do an exercise called “arm swing”. Slightly bend your knees up and down, and swing your arms along  with the momentum of the knees movements. This will  increase the blood flow in the lower body while reduce the stiffness of the knees after exercise. Starting from 5 minutes (300 swings) and increase eventually.

4. Keep yourself calm. Because nervousness, annoyance are the seeds of heart diseases. Or if there are signs of danger like getting tired easily or breathing quickly at work. You’d better reduce the working hours. And, don’t ever run upstairs.

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Foods that help healing Arteriosclerosis, Atherosclerosis, Part 2

Jan 15

Posted by conrad in Arteriosclerosis, Atherosclerosis, Diet / Nutrition, Recipes | 1 Comment

(cont’d from Part 1)
We’ll continue talking about Chinese recipes for healing and prevention of arteriosclerosis and atherosclerosis. We mentioned garlic and vinegar last post. This post will be onion and tea.

Onion: To treat arteriosclerosis, we can fry 200 grams of onion with 80 grams of lean pork. Here are the procedures:
1. pour a little vegetable oil into the pan and heat it to about 80% boiled;
2. pour the lean pork and fry for a while then pour the onions to fry for a while before the pork is overly cooked;
3. seasoning with sauce and salt as you like;
4. accompany the meal with steam rice.

Tea: To treat arteriosclerosis, we mix 65 grams of banana, 30 grams of honey and 20 grams of tea leaves. Procedures are as follows:
1. Peel the banana and chop it off into little pieces;
2. Mix banana with the tea leaves into a mug of boiled hot water;
3. Add honey into the mixed tea;
4. Drink one mug per day.

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Foods that help healing Arteriosclerosis, Atherosclerosis, Part 1

Jan 14

Posted by conrad in Arteriosclerosis, Atherosclerosis, Diet / Nutrition, Recipes | 1 Comment

Atherosclerosis is the most common type of Arteriosclerosis. That means the wall of arteries gets thicker and lose the elasticity. Cholesterol and other fatty ingredients accumulate at the wall of arteries and narrow down the blood flow. Without efficient blood flow, the issues of the arteries wall become hardened and “crispy”, which is easy to break down. After middle age it’s easier to get atherosclerosis.

Healing atherosclerosis or arteriosclerosis usually is to adjust the metabolism of fat and the function of Appropriate exercises, reduce the assumption of animal fat and quit smoking are important prevention of arteriosclerosis. There are many Chinese recipes for healing and prevention of arteriosclerosis and atherosclerosis. The easier ones include onions, garlic, tea and vinegar.

This post I’ll just talk about garlic and vinegar first because they’re pretty straight forward.

Garlic: To treat atherosclerosis, eat RAW garlic more than 6 grams per day for a long period of time. Consistency is the key.

Vinegar: To treat arteriosclerosis, immerse 150 peanuts (without shell) into 300 grams of vinegar for 7 days. Then eat 15 every morning with an empty stomach for about one and half month.

(to be cont’d)

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Hand reflexology for headache and migraine

Jan 12

Posted by conrad in Acupressure (Tui Na) / Reflexology, Cerebral Anemia, Cerebral Hemorrhage (Stroke), Hand Acupressure/Massage/Reflexology | No Comments

So again after hand acupressure, we’ll talk about hand reflexology for headache and migraine.
As last post mentioned, headache can be caused by a lot of different reasons like flu, arteriosclerosis, brain tumors or brain cancers. Other than the serious problems, minor ones like toothache, season change, or even inappropriate size of shoes causing toe pain. It’s pretty often that menstruation period and menopause would cause headache as well. So if it’s not serious brain issue, headache can be caused by some environmental change. But consistent headache is definitely very annoying, and may eventually become a chronic disease.

There is a housewife who had been suffering with headache since her second child was born. The headache also get her into bad mood very easily. She uses a lot of pain killers but the side-effects are making her health get worse. She then heard about acupressure and came to a practitioner. She told the practitioner that she has headache even right at the moment. The practitioner put some lotion on the headache reflexive area on her thumbs (see diagram). Then he put her hands on his knees and clip her thumbs with his fingers and massage her thumbs towards her wrists. Afterwards, he uses his thumb and massage hard at the center of the palm which is called “Tai Yang Nerve reflexive area” for a few times, at the same time wrap the right thumb with cotton threads (not too tight). The practitioner then said, “Later on, you can put some lotions between fingers and massage your fingers like your praying.” 10 minutes later, this housewife already forgot about the headache.

Acupressure is actually a good way to heal headache, at least as a headache relief. If you’re busy and can’t do massage slowly, you can use a laundry clip to clip the head of the thumb, which are reflexive area for the head and the neck. A little tight will be even better. Until the thumbs get a little numb and turn a little pale, take the clips down a take a little break. Then clip them back and repeat. Stimulation can be harder if you want to get rid of the pain quicker.

For chronic headache, walking often is pretty effective for relieving the pain. 40% of acids in our body is burned by our brain. Headache actually means the our brain wasn’t active enough. So with exercise and walking we can ensure to deliver enough acids to the brain and activate the brain cells better. Deep breaths definitely helps too.

However, the headache caused by arteriosclerosis, cerebral anemia and brain tumors/cancers can’t be ignored. So check with the doctor if the headache lasts long.

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Hand Acupressure to prevent cerebral hemorrhage (stroke)

Oct 11

Posted by conrad in Acupressure (Tui Na) / Reflexology, Arteriosclerosis, Blood Pressure (see Hypertension), Cerebral Hemorrhage (Stroke), Hand Acupressure/Massage/Reflexology, High Blood Pressure (see Hypertension), Hypertension, Stroke | 1 Comment

In the last three posts I talked about hand therapy for high blood pressure and low blood pressure. One top disease related to high blood pressure that kills a lot of people is cerebral hemorrhage. It was the top cause of death before, but now it’s behind cancer and heart attack because of the change of healthier, less salt diet now. However, it’s still one of the top killers. Cerebral hemorrhage is mostly caused by arteriosclerosis, or artery hardening, which can happen when getting old, psychological issues, or too much fat in the blood, or diabetes etc.. Certain shock is going to break the blood vessels in the brain and ruin brain cells. Even if it’s a stroke that didn’t kill the patient’s life, the result of numbness, weakness and activities inconvenience are still terrible to anyone.

To people who have high blood pressure, diabetes, or under a lot of stress for long term, Any preventive method of cerebral hemorrhage is always a good thing to practice. Stimulating certain acupoints on your hand can also help prevention.  A lot of potential cerebral hemorrhage patients have reddish or even blackish spots on their fingernails. These spots indicate the inefficient blood circulation in your body, which is a big warning sign for a stroke or cerebral hemorrhage. When these spots appear, don’t panic. we can stimulate three acupressure points: on the roots of index fingernail at the corner towards the thumb (Shang Yang); on the roots of ring fingernails at the corner towards the little finger (Guan Chong); on the roots of little fingernails at the corner towards the ring finger (Shao Chung). See diagram.

Rub and massage these acupoints often until the spots disappear, and then keep stimulating these acupoints to help the blood circulation to help prevent the cerebral hemorrhage.

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Hand Acupressure/Reflexology for high blood pressure, part 2

Oct 7

Posted by conrad in Acupressure (Tui Na) / Reflexology, Arteriosclerosis, Blood Pressure (see Hypertension), Cerebral Hemorrhage (Stroke), Hand Acupressure/Massage/Reflexology, Headache (see also Migraine), High Blood Pressure (see Hypertension), Hypertension, Illnesses A-Z, Myocardial Infarction, Shoulder Stiffness, Stroke, Tinnitus | No Comments

Last post I talked about acupoints for treating high blood pressure. This second part, like usual, is about the reflexive area that you can massage to help control high blood pressure.

When you wake up in the morning and totally feel energetic about the busy work; in the next event you totally feel like a brand new person with a loud, confident voice and never feel tired; and then you think, “I feel really healthy and strong now.” If you’re really confident about it, you may really be the type that is young and healthy. However, another cause of this sudden “energetic” manner can be high blood pressure. Because a lot of high blood pressure patients or “potential” patients are quite energetic and even a little “hyper” with activities.

Many think that high blood pressure is a disease that mostly occurs in middle age group. Although it’s partly true, but many young people may have that as well, especially the genetic  ones. Usually when we were young, the blood vessels are more soft and flexible that can take more impacts with change of blood pressure. But if we’re over confident with our health, that may become a problem. Because working over time, alcohol, smoking, stay up too late, too much salt intake….for a period of time – will easily cause high blood pressure.

May be we can start massaging our hands everyday to start adjusting our body condition. High blood pressure is not a quick thing to cure no matter in eastern or western medicine. So, patience and continuation of hand reflexology is a helpful thing to do.

The reflexive areas treating high blood pressure are mostly on the thumbs. The palm side and  the back side of the thumbs belong to “head reflexive area”, “neck reflexive area” and “bronchus reflexive area”. (See diagram)

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Clip on the thumbs from the side of them to stimulate the area, keep twisting and waving the wrists at the same time. That may help lower the blood pressure. Massage the thumb tips every day whenever possible such as on the way to work. If blood pressure is already quite high, taking breaths in mind with the same tempo of the massage will make it more effective.

If we meet a person who got sudden rise of blood pressure, ask him or her to sit down and rub the wrist tendon on the little finger side with the direction from arm to hand. This should help lower the blood pressure immediately. And since that may cause a little temporary low blood pressure, that’s why the patient need to sit down first.

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Hand Acupressure/Reflexology for high blood pressure, part 1

Oct 5

Posted by conrad in Acupressure (Tui Na) / Reflexology, Blood Pressure (see Hypertension), Cerebral Hemorrhage (Stroke), Cholesterol (high), Hand Acupressure/Massage/Reflexology, Hardening of the Arteries (Arteriosclerosis), Headache (see also Migraine), Heart Attack (see Myocardial Infarction), High Blood Pressure (see Hypertension), Hypertension, Myocardial Infarction, Overweight, Palpitation, Shoulder Stiffness, Stroke, Tinnitus | 1 Comment

After a whole week of flu, I finally can come back to the monitor and write again. When I was coughing, I tried the hand acupressure I wrote about a while ago as well. And it did relieve my cough a bit, but the treatment took quite long to make it work.

Anyway, as I’ve been doing lately, I’m going to talk about hand acupoints for high blood pressure in first part, and reflexive area in the second part. High blood pressure means the blood flow in our body doesn’t go well because of certain resistance, and cause the heart to pump harder and give higher pressure to keep the blood flowing. The causes of high blood pressure vary. Most of the time is caused by other health problems, but overweight and inappropriate diet can also be catalysts of high blood pressure.

High blood pressure can cause some self aware symptoms like headache, shoulder stiffness, tinnitus, palpitation etc. But the most scary one would be arteriosclerosis caused by high blood pressure. It’s because when blood pressure is high, the arteries of the whole body will have to share the extra pressure evenly, some blood vessels get weaker and may cause stroke or myocardial infarction (MI)

Treatment of high blood pressure is usually taking medicine to control the pressure. But we can’t ignore the side effects of these medicines. So acupuncture and acupressure on acupoints would probably be a more natural treatment. There are 3 acupoints on the back and the side of the hands. The first one is called “Yang Xi”, which locates on the inner side of the wrist under the root of thumb, where the concave area is.  The second one is called “He Gu” on the back of the hand in between the thumb and the index finger,  locates at about the length of the first segment of the thumb counting inward. The third one is called “Luo Ling Wu” on the back of the hand in between the knuckles of index finger and middle finger. Most high blood pressure patient can feel the little pulse at those acupoints, so it’s not too difficult to find them. (See diagrams)

Here is the guide to stimulate those acupoints using finger massaging or rubbing, if problem is serious, use a bunch of 10 toothpicks or pointy device to stimulate:

1. Maximum blood pressure > 160mm reading on the meter: stimulate the first one “Yang Xi”

2. Maximum blood pressure > 180mm reading on the meter: stimulate the second one “He Gu”

3. Maximum blood pressure > 200mm reading on the meter: stimulate the third one “Luo Ling Wu”

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Single-herb formula to treat Arteriosclerosis

Sep 13

Posted by conrad in Arteriosclerosis, Cholesterol (high), Diet / Nutrition, Hardening of the Arteries (Arteriosclerosis), Herbal Decoction, Herbal Healing | No Comments

Arteriosclerosis, commonly known as hardening of the arteries, is a condition in which the arteries lose elasticity because of calcium deposits within their lining or because of muscle and elastic fibers being replaced by fibrous tissue. Both types can be characterized by a thickening of the arteries walls and a narrowing of their channels, hence causes hypertension. The inefficient blood circulation through arteries can cause bigger concern when it affects the coronary artery that delivers blood to the heart.

Arteriosclerosis happens to mostly older people, but it can affect any age who doesn’t care much about their health, with regard to diet and exercise. To improve circulation and keep the arteries elastic, traditional Chinese medicine suggests herbal therapy, walking, massage and certain gentle exercises like Tai Chi (a gentle martial art). And low cholesterol diet can help reducing its deposits narrowing the channels of the arteries. Red meat, dairy products, salt, refined sugar and alcohol should be avoided. Obesity and smoking also make arteriosclerosis worse.

There’s a single-herb formula recommended by TCM to treat arteriosclerosis, and the herb is called “Shan Zha” in Mandarin (山楂), which is known as Hawthorne Berry or Hawthorn fruit.  It tastes sweet and sour and you can even find some very nice snacks made of Shan Zha in Chinese grocery stores. One of the famous snack is called Haw Flakes. There are also Shan Zha patent medicine as well.

Shan Zha tea (Hawthorn Berry Tea)

Ingredient: 15 grams of Shan Zha (Hawthorn fruit)

Description: Take Shan Zha tea several times a day is an effective way to reduce fatty lipids in the blood, lower cholesterol and softens the arteries. This formula should be used for a long period of time like 2 to 3 years. Shan Zha also improves digestion and circulation of blood, help hypertension and coronary heart disease.

Preparation: Use a tea cup, add 8 oz of boiling water to about 2 teaspoons of Shan Zha; cover the coup and wait for 10-15 minutes. Strain off the Shan Zha herb and drink the tea.

(sources: Chinese Herbal Medicine made easy by Thomas Richard Joiner, Streetwise Guide: Chinese Herbal Medicine by Wong Kang Ying and Martha Dahle)

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Hand Acupressure for Overweight / Obesity

Sep 11

Posted by conrad in Acupressure (Tui Na) / Reflexology, Diabetes (see also Hypoglycemia/Pancreas Disorders, Hand Acupressure/Massage/Reflexology, High Blood Pressure (see Hypertension), Hypoglycemia (see also Diabetes/Pancreas Disorders), Myocardial Infarction, Obesity, Overweight, Stroke | No Comments

Overweight….this is probably the most popular “illness” that people are interested to treat. Many people, especially ladies, care more about how they look than their health. At the same time, there’s a trend (or a myth) in the society that if you can’t manage your health, that means you can’t manage other things or people neither.  That’s why more people are going to gym now, which is not necessary a bad thing.

But what is called overweight? Usually if your weight exceeds [(body height in cm -100)x0.9]x20%, that is overweight. Overweight also means you have too much fat in your blood – the real fear of overweight should be the diseases caused directly or indirectly by it, such as diabetes, high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis, stroke, myocardial infarction etc.

To  reduce weight, the best way is to control the function of the stomach and reduce the appetite. The acupoint or acupressure point or reflexive area that help control the appetite would be the area along  the edge of the “raised” part below the root of thumb on the palm side (see diagram), and the other supplementary reflexive area would be around the center of the back of the hands, between the middle finger bone and ringer finger bone (see diagram). That area affects the internal secretion, so it helps reducing the appetite as well.

To reduce the function of the stomach and hence reduce the appetite, STRONG stimulation is needed. Either pinch or massage hard on these areas 7-10 times or use a toothpick to stimulate 7-10 times until you feel painful. Do this every day and make sure the stimulation is so STRONG that you feel painful, or otherwise it’s going to stimulate the function of your stomach and raise your appetite instead – because it’s the same reflexive area to heal the lack of appetite with moderate stimulation. That’s important to remember.

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