It happens to the healthiest of us…we wake up one morning and feel the onset symptoms of a dreaded cold. It always seems to come at the worst time…right before that big meeting or project is due, or worse, heading off on a vacation!
Chinese medicine looks at a cold as an Invasion of Wind-Cold or Wind-Heat. What does that mean? Let’s look a little further at Wind-Cold and Wind-Heat and how you know if you have been invaded.
Wind-Cold
This form is the milder of the two and appears when the cold is just in the beginning stages. Usually this is what people are feeling when they say “I think I’m coming down with a cold.” Some of the symptoms may include:
- Acute onset
- Aversion to cold or wind
- Shivering
- Sneezing
- Scratchy throat
- Running nose with white-watery mucus
- No fever or slight fever or chills
- Body aches
- Stiff neck especially in the occipital area
- No sweating
- No thirst
Wind-Heat
Many times symptoms present immediately and more severely as wind heat. The pathogen in this case invades the body quickly and its defensive response is to increase the body temperature in order to literally kill off the bugs. Some symptoms include:
- Acute onset
- Sensitivity to wind
- Fever
- Sore throat
- Swollen tonsils
- Sneezing
- Slight body ache
- Cough and running nose with yellow or green mucus
- Slight sweating
- Thirst
If you can’t ward off the Wind-Cold or Wind-Heat, here are some tips to help you heal faster:
You start to notice a stiff neck: Food is medicine. Make yourself a scallion tea. Take 5 scallions and slice from the bulb to the light green part. Add it to 2 C of boiling water and simmer for 15 minutes. Cool, strain, then drink. If a scallion tea is strange to you, you may add 1 TBS of miso paste and make a soup. Follow with a warm Epsom salt bath for 20 minutes, bundle up and go back to bed. Repeat the soup as needed until you break a sweat. This treatment will only be useful in the very beginning stages of a cold. If scallions are not your thing, try substituting 5 slices of fresh ginger instead.
The stiff neck persists and now you’re getting a headache, congestion, body aches, and possibly a sore throat: Now it’s time for acupuncture and herbs! If you come in right away it may only take one or two treatments to help your body release the Wind-Heat or Wind-Cold. If it usually takes a week or more to get over a cold, and treatments will reduce your recovery time and severity of symptoms. So don’t worry about being sick, call me up and get in for a treatment quickly!
You’re constantly getting cold symptoms: This suggests a more serious chronic problem where regular treatments will be helpful in supporting your immune system. Your diet needs to be evaluated. In Chinese Medicine, Wei Qi is your protective qi that is likened to your immune system. Its strength is derived from the food that you eat. If you don’t eat highly nutritious foods you’re not going to have a strong immune system. Emotional stress can also play a large role. In Chinese medicine, the Lung qi is responsible for dispersing and diffusing the Wei qi to the surface of your body for protection. Grief and sadness suppress and weaken the Lung qi thereby leaving your exterior vulnerable to constant Wind invasion.
Remember: Eat well, get rest, and make sure to always grab your scarf and bundle up when you go outside. Wishing you a healthy winter!