Daniel: August 19, 2020, 10:51pm
I had a new patient yesterday. Her main and only complaint – several months ago (the day COVID lockdown
started here), she developed an odd uncomfortable fullness feeling on her right foot, involving the middle three
toes and the ball of her foot below the middle three toes. It was kind of a pain, but not full pain. It was very
uncomfortable and persistent. Her big toe and pinky toe were completely unaffected. It was clearly Yang Ming
territory. I asked her the fully battery of Sa’Am questions. There was nothing. Nothing at all. Clinic was moving,
time was moving. We were in the treatment room. She was on the table. I had nothing to go on except this
symptom. At the last moment, I realised I had forgotten to ask about skin . . . . ‘Any skin issues?’ . . . . ‘yes! I have
chronic long term and quite severe eczema.’ ‘Where is it?’ ‘on my right forefinger and down into the webbing with
the thumb and along the this area’, pointing to her thenar eminence. And there it was – BOTH on the right . . . and
Stomach – Lung channels . . . and fullness in one, dryness on the other. She did report working two jobs to pay off
her mortgage fully by next year so she can have more freedom to travel to Aruba a lot which she has fallen in love
with so definitely a back drop of ‘resource relationships’. HUGE sigh of relief in that final moment just before
needle insertion – going from sheer desperation of nothing to hang my hat on to a quite elegant Sa’Am pattern
expression of ST-Lu . . . . Anyway , I decided this was damp on the inside (the foot fullness), dry on the outside . . .
so I supplemented Stomach on the Left. She got off the table after treatment and reported the foot felt a whole lot
better. We will see if it holds next week. . . . and ultimately, if her right forefinger eczema responds.
Adina_Kletzel: August 26, 2020, 7:21am
Hi, What made you decide damp on the inside – when fullness in the foot close to the skin could also technically be
damp on the outside? You also had the lack of resources factor – working 2 jobs in the – which may have also
pointed to St excess. Was her LU 10 area inflated or deflated?
Daniel: August 26, 2020, 4:31pm
yes, so often – those choices are tough. Her body type clearly pointed to Lung Excess and it seemed to me the
‘swollen-ness’ in her foot was quite certainly internal . . . so I felt pretty confident opting for Stomach
supplementation . . . with the body type, the right thumb eczema, etc