Fever

I have two recent and interesting cases I'd like to share.



The first case involves a 54-year-old female client of mine who had symptoms of a bloated stomach. Two days later she experienced chills, but no sweat, headache, no appetite, low energy and constipation. This lasted for about a week. When she finally came to see me, I checked her tongue, pulse and body temperature which was 39.2 Celsius. My assessment was that she had a cold blocked Tai Yang Meridian with interior heat. The Tai Yang Meridian acts like a gate and when it’s blocked with a cold (caused by pathologic factors such as viruses, bacteria, etc.) the internal heat has nowhere to escape resulting in a high fever.



Treatment was to clear the cold in the Tai Yang Meridian and accumulated internal heat. After acupuncture and cupping, my client felt immediate relief. After giving her herbs, she sweated and had a bowel movement. On the second day, her body temperature dropped to 38.3 Celsius. On the third day of treatment, her temperature was 37.0 Celsius, her headache less severe and appetite increased. On the fourth day, she was back to normal, so I gave herbs to help nourish her body. In a week, without any drugs, my client had fully recovered.



The second case involves my husband. He is 36 and has been a cigarette smoker for more than 15 years. I’ve tried to get him to quit smoking, but, unfortunately, he doesn’t listen. Two weeks ago he started having fits of coughing at night. He took some cough syrup and it got better. He then developed a slight fever which I didn't really pay much attention to because I wanted to take this opportunity to scare him into possibly quitting smoking. I wasn’t really thinking about what herbs I should be giving him and ended up giving him whatever was on hand and easy to take. Then his situation took a turn for the worse and he developed a high fever pattern. The pattern was a normal temperature reading in the morning and as the day progressed it would get higher and peak between 3pm and 5pm at 38.8 Celsius. He began taking antibiotics (he doesn't believe in herbs), but this didn’t help him get better.



From my experience, and from a Western medicine perspective, this meant 3 possible diagnoses: infection, tuberculosis or cancer. According to my husband’s research on the internet, his pattern was most reflective of cancer. Needless to say, he cut back drastically on his cigarette smoking.



There wasn’t any time to see our family doctor because it would take too long before we could get an appointment and he had a flight booked for China. I finally forced him to come to my clinic and, ignoring his bargaining (he is chicken with needles), I did acupuncture and cupping. According to his fever pattern, the heat was already deep inside in the Yang Ming Meridian (pathologic factors from surface to interior goes like this: Tai Yang - Shao Yang - Yang Ming; the deeper the problem is, the harder it is to cure) so I used strong herbs for him. They were quite bitter, but they worked; his temperature finally started to lower. With his body temperature getting better, I knew there was a lesser chance of him having tuberculosis and cancer. I advised that he have an x-ray taken just to exclude the possibility of other diseases.



Within three days, his body temperature dropped down to 37.3 C. For his flight to China, I gave him some herbal pills instead of the herbal tea treatment. During his flight I was worried because I knew it was going to be a long ride and I was afraid that without enough rest his fever might return. We spoke when he arrived in Shang Hai and he let me know that he had no fever. Thank God. Now it's my turn to have a rest.