Damp Bi

Damp Bi

Damp Bi syndrome is also called Heavy Bi or Shi Bi.

  • Zhao Bi also: fixed.
  • He Xi Feng: stork's knee wind. Dampness predominates.
  • Cao Xie Feng: straw shoe wind. Swollen foot, so painful that only those straw shoes can be worn.
  • Ji Bi and Ron Bi means meat, muscles. Reflects that at the same time as the pain there is weakness, something of Wei Syndrome, which is located at the muscular level, that loses tone, strength and volume.

Dampness is deforming, obstructing, has a connotation of pasty, fixed and dense. Dampness can be external, from prolonged exposure to it due to climate or work. Or internal: eliminating foods from the diet that produce dampness improves your pain (dairy, refined sugar..). If there is Spleen- and Kidney-Yang deficiency, worse. Most of the time internal and external dampness favor each other. Dampness favors accumulation of phlegm and Blood stasis.

Symptoms

  • Pain with fixed location and sensation of heaviness, installs in a progressive way, chronically. Osteoarthritis, for example, may be from two years ago, increasing.
  • Dull pain, less strong than Cold Bi, with joint swelling if dampness is important. If it remains for a long time there is deformation.
  • There may be numbness.
  • Worsens with cold, damp climate, weather change brings on the pain. All chronic problems are treated in the opposite season: winter illness is treated in summer. If it is from rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, if it comes in winter you simply go after the symptoms. Yang energy in winter is deep, internalized. In summer you can treat the cause because Yang exteriorizes and is easier to modify, it is for preventive and curative treatment. June and July, August is already end of summer. Taking sun as moxibustion, goes well.
  • Improves with heat, with massages. Heat dries dampness and helps move Qi and Blood.
  • Normally there is limitation of movement or slowed movements. Sensation of joint stiffness that improves throughout the day.
  • Oedema articular, periarticular or generalized, especially in lower limb.
  • There may be digestive symptoms: pasty stools, lack of appetite, postprandial distension.
  • Tongue with thick, greasy, moist coating. Pulse slippery, soft, fine, delayed.


Treatment

Eliminate dampness especially through strengthening the Spleen so it transforms dampness.

If there is Kidney deficiency add Kidney points. The previous ones of Kidney Yang.


Example:

  • Elderly person with knee pain. SP-9 (RM and ST-28 would not be applied as much in this case) Then I focus on Spleen and Kidney, plus KI-3 or KI-7 plus local knee points. Generally it is the external compartment, it is Yin in this case.
  • Swollen foot SP-5 is indispensable, think about channel. Not so much Back-Shu. It has no strength, GB-41, great foot point that gives strength to the leg.


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Page updated on December 22, 2020

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