George_Mandler: March 5, 2020, 1:46pm
In the Coronavirus crowdcast Michael recorded with Toby last week I got thrown for a loop when Toby said that he
would be cautious with Stomach because it can move the pathogen deeper into the body.
The in/out movement applies to Jueyin/Shaoyang. Yangming is mountain, dryness. Stomach is Earth. In Sa’am it is
inner dryess and outer dampness.
Can someone please explain this concept of the Stomach going inward? Is the Earth the inward movement? I
understand Stomach has a downward movement. Just wondering where the inward comes from.
What does this mean clinically? If someone has say acute bronchitis, overweight, dry skin do we need to be
cautious with stomach as it can drive things deeper? Same with early stages of an EPI where maybe BL+ isn’t right
but with presentation ST+ seems appropriate?
sweiz: March 5, 2020, 5:50pm
Hi George,
I didn’t hear the crowdcast (how would I access that?) but I wonder if this idea comes from the idea from the
Neijing that the Yang Ming closes (Taiyang opens, Shaoyang pivots). Though the Yang Ming has to be open
through, it also has too close. The ministerial fire comes down and that must not be discharged below like waste
substances. The bitter flavor not only goes down and can purge, it also “hardens the kidneys” and is the flavor that
supplements kidney in this way. Feng Shi-Lun calls Yang Ming the Interior Yang with spleen being the Interior
Yin. I wonder if that is what is meant by going inward. I have no idea if this is what Toby meant.
I wonder about this idea that stomach can “drive a pathogen deeper.” I just can’t quite get my head around this. It
seems to me that, if the stomach is not going down, a pathogen could be much worse. From what I know about the
corona virus symptoms, they quickly move into what looks like a Yang Ming Shi Gao kind of pattern, which is
Yang Ming NOT going down the way it should. In a stomach deficient person in the SAAm sense, maybe St +
would be perfect. It seems to me that treating the most out of balance channel would always be the best thing to do.
2 Likes24/01/2024, 11:45Stomach moving pathogen deeper – Sa’am Clinical Questions – Qiological Community
https://forum.qiological.com/t/stomach-moving-pathogen-deeper/939/print2/3
empiricalpoint: March 5, 2020, 7:42pm
Going to take a stab at this. Toby studied a lot with Jeffrey Yuen. I have as well. Jeffrey used to tell us that the
stomach is the pivot between the exterior and the interior. Would have to go through my notes more extensively for
the who what where when and why. But this is what popped into my brain when I read George’s question
KristinWisgirda: March 5, 2020, 10:32pm
@sweiz You can find the corona virus crowdcast along with other offerings here: https://www.saambenevolentsociety.org/online-
classes/
I just watched it paying particular attention to the part discussing Stomach+ as having potential to drive the
pathogen deeper. Toby kept peppering that particular part of the discussion with “theoretical” and “thought
experiment”.
Same as the SI+ potentially spreading cancer discussion- theoretical. In that case Toby shared that he treats SI+ for
cancer patients all the time.
George_Mandler:
Can someone please explain this concept of the Stomach going inward? Is the Earth the inward movement? I
understand Stomach has a downward movement. Just wondering where the inward comes from.
Part of the thought experiment included that maybe downward could translate to inward. Maybe for extreme
fatigue you don’t want to be supplementing the counterbalancer of the Lung.
The discussion also reiterated that with our medicine you match the treatment to the patient. My best guess is that
Toby would treat what he sees.
Never having treated pandemic disease, never mind with Saam, my own thought experiment on this subject has me
asking how I would weight signs and symptoms especially in relation to morphology and constitution. Dry people
get damp diseases, cold people get hot diseases. I’m a fundamentally cold person but last May I was really sick
with a dry super tight cough with tiny flecks of hard yellow phlegm that was painful to expectorate. In the prior
week I had experimented with SP+ and had an adverse reaction so didn’t want to use it. I was warmer than usual
but not uncomfortable. SI+ did nothing. UB+ gave immediate wonderful relief. As a patient, I wouldn’t have been
able to report my unusual warmth. I only made note of it because UB+ worked so well- so I must have been hot.
My take-away from this and treating other patients is to put more weight in the acute symptoms. Anybody concur
or have other experiences?
sweiz: March 6, 2020, 11:04am
24/01/2024, 11:45Stomach moving pathogen deeper – Sa’am Clinical Questions – Qiological Community
https://forum.qiological.com/t/stomach-moving-pathogen-deeper/939/print3/3
I just listened to the crowdcast and it was great. Toby is so level-headed. His whole way of approaching is so
practical that it is calming…if it’s like this…do this. if it’s like that…do that. Also responsive to the various ways it
could show up. For prevention, just treat what is there, rather than just “strengthening the immune system.” I love
the idea of treating the heart when people are fearful.
I still wonder about the whole stomach thing, and Toby’s thought about possibly not treating it. It feels
counterintuitive to me when thinking about heat. In herbal medicine, when there is that strong Yang Ming heat, we
do use bitter cold or descending cold to open the Yang Ming. This opens the pathways so the heat doesn’t
accumulate so much. It doesn’t drive heat inward but rather discharges it vertically. I’d love to have a conversation
with Toby about this.
michaelmax: March 13, 2020, 1:35am
sweiz:
I still wonder about the whole stomach thing, and Toby’s thought about possibly not treating it. It feels
counterintuitive to me when thinking about heat. In herbal medicine, when there is that strong Yang Ming heat,
we do use bitter cold or descending cold to open the Yang Ming. This opens the pathways so the heat doesn’t
accumulate so much. It doesn’t drive heat inward but rather discharges it vertically. I’d love to have a
conversation with Toby about this.
Good point @sweiz, and I remember in the conversation we were talking about not using +ST as it might drag a
pathogen further into the body. It’s conjecture on Toby’s part, but something worth considering.
As to yang ming heat, I suspect when using Saam, we’d tonify the UB for that in Saam.
and now I’m wondering how the open, close, pivot might come into play here as well