Heat signs, internal or external

twedgle: August 27, 2020, 11:58am
I’m new to Sa’am! This forum has been a tremendous help already.
Can you help me understand how Sa’am characterizes heat signs? Symptoms like: burning in their joints or
muscles, burning acid reflux… I’m getting confused when these heat signs show up independent of any damp or
dry signs, or when the patients show mixed cold/heat as well.

KristinWisgirda: August 27, 2020, 2:14pm
Welcome to the forum @twedgle! Glad to hear that you are finding it helpful.
Characterizing heat and cold in Saam isn’t different than in other branches of our medicine. At times it can be a
challenge to make sense the dynamics that create a mix of hot and cold seeming symptoms. Here are a few ideas.
A member of our forum just presented a case of burning urination that was relieved by a hot water bottle that
responded well to H+ : Brain tumors and UTI
The scenario of burning NOT being heat is really common. Burning can happen with all kinds of diarrhea because
anal tissue start to break down and become irritable with frequent bms. Burning in heartburn can just be irritation
of acid being in the wrong place.
More reliable pointers are:
Better/worse with heat/cold
Prominent/persistent red and warm subjective/objectively or blue and cold subjectively/objectively
Temperature can also be thought of in terms of speed. Too fast=hyperfunction= heat. Too slow=hypofunction=cold.
The only pulse finding used traditionally in this tradition of Saam is fast pulse pointing to heat and Heart excess
and slow pulse pointing to cold and UB excess. The more chronic and more out of range the rate of the pulse is, the
more clinical significance. So you don’t give much clinical weight to a pulse that is occasionally 65 bpm, but if a
pulse is consistently 50 bpm you think Ub excess.
Classic examples of hypofunction are paralysis or huddled in a corner dissociative shock. An example of
hyperfunction is a non-stop fast talker.
Feel free to send along more questions or cases. Writing up cases is a great way to develop your Saam chops.
Please refer to these guidelines for some helpful pointers on how to organize your Saam thinking and present cases
in a way that you and your readers will be able to see your patient more clearly: Case Study Format
Anybody else have ideas on characterizing heat and cold?
1 Like29/01/2024, 12:19Heat signs, internal or external – Sa’am Clinical Insights – Qiological Community
https://forum.qiological.com/t/heat-signs-internal-or-external/1245/print2/2

twedgle: August 30, 2020, 12:02pm
Thank you, Kristin! This is incredibly helpful. I also found the post on the degrees of heat and moisture which
brought some more clarity. I think I just needed a way to understand a person’s subjective experience of heat
against what we know about heat (is it really burning or just burning from irritation, as you mentioned), and then
the way to counterbalance it with the varying degrees of heat that come from the channels in Sa’am!

KristinWisgirda: August 30, 2020, 7:33pm
twedgle:
I think I just needed a way to understand a person’s subjective experience of heat against what we know about
heat
If it is possible, having the patient expose the area to heat or cold can be helpful- opening the freezer or the hot
oven and breathing in the air, running the area under hot or cold water, etc.
1 LikeI’m new to Sa’am! This forum has been a tremendous help already.
Can you help me understand how Sa’am characterizes heat signs? Symptoms like: burning in their joints or
muscles, burning acid reflux… I’m getting confused when these heat signs show up independent of any damp or
dry signs, or when the patients show mixed cold/heat as well.

KristinWisgirda: August 27, 2020, 2:14pm
Welcome to the forum @twedgle! Glad to hear that you are finding it helpful.
Characterizing heat and cold in Saam isn’t different than in other branches of our medicine. At times it can be a
challenge to make sense the dynamics that create a mix of hot and cold seeming symptoms. Here are a few ideas.
A member of our forum just presented a case of burning urination that was relieved by a hot water bottle that
responded well to H+ : Brain tumors and UTI
The scenario of burning NOT being heat is really common. Burning can happen with all kinds of diarrhea because
anal tissue start to break down and become irritable with frequent bms. Burning in heartburn can just be irritation
of acid being in the wrong place.
More reliable pointers are:
Better/worse with heat/cold
Prominent/persistent red and warm subjective/objectively or blue and cold subjectively/objectively
Temperature can also be thought of in terms of speed. Too fast=hyperfunction= heat. Too slow=hypofunction=cold.
The only pulse finding used traditionally in this tradition of Saam is fast pulse pointing to heat and Heart excess
and slow pulse pointing to cold and UB excess. The more chronic and more out of range the rate of the pulse is, the
more clinical significance. So you don’t give much clinical weight to a pulse that is occasionally 65 bpm, but if a
pulse is consistently 50 bpm you think Ub excess.
Classic examples of hypofunction are paralysis or huddled in a corner dissociative shock. An example of
hyperfunction is a non-stop fast talker.
Feel free to send along more questions or cases. Writing up cases is a great way to develop your Saam chops.
Please refer to these guidelines for some helpful pointers on how to organize your Saam thinking and present cases
in a way that you and your readers will be able to see your patient more clearly: Case Study Format
Anybody else have ideas on characterizing heat and cold?
1 Like29/01/2024, 12:19Heat signs, internal or external – Sa’am Clinical Insights – Qiological Community
https://forum.qiological.com/t/heat-signs-internal-or-external/1245/print2/2

twedgle: August 30, 2020, 12:02pm
Thank you, Kristin! This is incredibly helpful. I also found the post on the degrees of heat and moisture which
brought some more clarity. I think I just needed a way to understand a person’s subjective experience of heat
against what we know about heat (is it really burning or just burning from irritation, as you mentioned), and then
the way to counterbalance it with the varying degrees of heat that come from the channels in Sa’am!

KristinWisgirda: August 30, 2020, 7:33pm
twedgle:
I think I just needed a way to understand a person’s subjective experience of heat against what we know about
heat
If it is possible, having the patient expose the area to heat or cold can be helpful- opening the freezer or the hot
oven and breathing in the air, running the area under hot or cold water, etc.