 Look, we've all had it. You go out for a big meal with your friends and you have a couple margaritas and a few hours later you're not only burning up to your throat, you have mucus in your throat, maybe even feel a little bit nauseous, but you know that you're just having acid reflux. Now reflux or GERD is a pretty common condition and I think most people probably in the developed world have experienced it at least once in their lifetime. Now this video I thought I would share some of the very common organs that are the causes of this within my field, traditional Chinese medicine and what you can do about it. Hey guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hain, author of the health book Master of the Day and doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. So before we jump into this video, there are two very important links right below it. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, you can contact my private practice with a link right below this video. And the second is for a free guide I've put together, which is four daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. So let's talk about the two very common kinds of indigestion and reflux that I see. You know in Chinese medicine we're always concerned with what we call is a pattern from deficiency or is it from excess. Now our culture and our modern world is filled with a lot of both honestly, but let's start with the deficiency type of person who's prone to indigestion and reflux. Now this kind of person, this pattern most often involves more deficiency findings. So this person tends to be what we call a spleen dash pancreas and stomach pattern. So very commonly this is a result of deficient digestive enzymes. And so this person benefits from supplementing with digestive enzymes. Now we do the same just with Chinese formulas. But the organs that are related to this are primarily revolving around what we consider deficiency and cold. So deficiency is sort of weak digestion. And so the person has a tendency towards being indigested more than normal. What's very important about this pattern is that as opposed to the other person who may be genuinely overeating or they're eating spicy Korean chicken or fried food and drinking three glasses of wine a night. This person can actually eat a decently healthy diet, but they actually just have weak digestion or potentially even low stomach acid. That leads to them feeling indigested very often. So this pattern is typically person tends to run cold. Appetite generally but not always is on the lower side. Easily bloated, getting a food baby, tend to have looser bowel movements or a lot of bloating or food sensitivities. And they're tending towards either a lot of mucus in the throat or just not having a strong appetite or they say they have a small stomach, that sort of thing. And they tend not to like eating large meals. So large meals tend to be a trigger for this sort of indigestion. And sometimes, honestly, even just eating three meals a day is enough of a trigger for this constantly indigested or constantly full sort of constitutional type. So this is what we consider more of a cold and deficiency pattern as opposed to, for the other people, is more of a disease or a pattern of excess. Now when we talk about the mixed type, which is more of the excess type, this is where we start to see what we consider gallbladder involvement. So clear signs of this are typically traditional reflux, burning, strong, painful indigestion, more nausea, more of that bowel and discomfort in the throat, and really though burning being one of the key symptoms. Another key symptom that differentiates the type one versus the type two is that sour or bitter or metallic taste in the throat. Now within my field we consider this a dead ringer that is more of an excess finding, more of a gallbladder liver sort of finding than the other finding. In the first sort of deficient and cold reflux pattern, more of the spleen pancreas, typically this person does not have a lot of burning or a lot of this sour bitterness. That very often is what we consider a Xiaoyang or Xiaoyang organ founding. So in this pattern the difference is that there's also symptoms sometimes of gallbladder distention or gallbladder pressure. So in the right upper quadrant pressure, distention or if it's severe pain and gallbladder attacks that kind of thing. And typically if they go in to the emergency room they'll find gallbladder sludge or gallstones or sometimes neither. But there is often subjective distention in the right upper quadrant there or pain radiating to the back behind the shoulder blade. So first pattern, more spleen pancreas stomach. Second pattern, same thing but now we have the liver and the gallbladder that are getting angry as well. So how do we approach these clinically? Now within my field there are common formulas that we use to treat these and approach these. If it's more on the cold deficient side, if it's more the spleen pancreas that has issues. For example, there are no hard stools, there is no mixed bowel movements. They don't miss bowel movements for two or three days. It's more soft stools, mushy, diarrhea, that kind of thing. A very commonly used formula is called Li Zhongwan, which means regulate the middle pill. If it's more on the excess side that we talked about, more of the gallbladder and liver, a very commonly used formula is called Ban Xia Sheshen Tang, which is Ban Xia purge, drain the heart formula. So interesting, even in ancient times, we call this heart burn. But even in ancient times, this was almost similarly named in a certain way, 2000 years ago. Because you would need to basically see someone to have those prescribed most often, dietarily, and in terms of lifestyle habits, I recommend three things. The first is meal volume. So having meals that are either half the size or three quarters of the size. I find that for many people, gallbladder triggers tend to be meal volume by itself can be a trigger, even if it is somewhat healthy food. Excessively overeating puts a lot of burden on the stomach and the gallbladder in my field. The second thing is what I call meal temperature. So in Chinese medicine, the temperature of things is considered really, really essential in terms of your diet and in terms of the herbs that you consume as well. So for the more deficient type, these people need more warming spices and warming herbs, but not excessively spicy. So cooking with herbs like ginger or cinnamon or cardamom or pepper can often help people here, especially to improve the appetite. But on the excess side, this is what we call often constrained heat. So a lot of these people are triggered by things like coffee, alcohol, spicy food. And so they should really stay away from excessively spicy warming foods like that. So very commonly I recommend more of a Mediterranean diet that's balanced with more starches, more vegetables, more whole grains, and some meat, but sticking with cooked vegetables primarily. And staying away from triggers that are coffee and alcohol. So beer tends to be harder on the spleen stomach, right? A lot of people with sensitive guts will get a lot of bloating from beer. And liquor tends to be harder on the liver and gallbladder from our perspective. So it generates more heat. So if there's more heat in the system, more of the gallbladder involvement, coffee and liquor, like red wine, for example, and liquor can be problematic for these people. So these three lifestyle habits tend to benefit a lot of people. Smaller meal size, more balanced meal temperature, less spicy, less warming, and then staying away from these excessively warming substances, mostly drinks, coffee, wine, and liquor, that kind of thing. We'll tend to improve these symptoms a lot for people. So that's how we view reflux and GERD within my field Chinese medicine. Most often, that's what I see clinically, being the most common patterns. And again, before you guys go, check out those two very important links right below this video, and I'll see you in these related videos here.