 So if you're someone similar to me and you've always had this persistent clearing of the throat for many of us our entire lives, it's not necessarily something to worry about and there are often very simple fixes for it. Now in this video I thought I would share biometically as well as in my field, Chinese medicine, how we treat this and where it comes from. Hey guys, I'm Dr. Alex Hein, author of the health book Master of the Day and doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. So before we jump into this video, 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 reach out to my private practice and clinic right below this video. And there's also a free guide I've put together for daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with Chinese medicine. So those are right below the video. So let's start with some of the biomedical causes of this constant flame in the throat. One of the most common areas is related to GERD, so acid reflux where very commonly people not only have burning, indigestion, throat clearing, or a lump in the throat. And this is just refluxing of the stomach contents. So one area is from the stomach itself. One area is essentially down, right? We have up and we have down and is related to sinus issues for some people. So sinusitis, post nasal drip, congestion, that sort of thing. For other people it's related to things like food allergies and food sensitivities. So for example, I would say the most common three that are clinically studied tend to be wheat, dairy, and corn. Eggs are another one as well. That tend to be a big trigger for some people. So overview, that's the biomedical side. That's most likely when you go to your primary care physician, what you're going to hear are the causes for this mucus in the throat. But Chinese medicine has a very, very distinct cause of this. And in my experience, it's very, very easy to approach this with Chinese formulas and what we do clinically. So let's start with a very brief lesson in Chinese medicine physiology. So the organs that are related to this primarily are what we consider the spleen-pancreas. So this pattern of flemminess, mucus in the throat is often what Chinese medicine considers a side of dampness. Dampness is a cluster of symptoms together in what is called spleen-chi deficiency. So I like to think of this as spleen-pancreas function deficiency. And this commonly occurs with other symptoms, for example, loading, looser stools or a tendency towards diarrhea for people, food sensitivities, excessive abdominal fullness overall, sometimes edema or fluid retention. This is like the traditional yeasty or candida constitutional type. Thick white tongue coat is very, very common, excessive saliva in the mouth overall, and the symptom of annoyingly having to clear your throat. So this is sort of a flemmy constitution in Chinese medicine. And this is primarily in my experience a constitutional finding, meaning it is genetic. It doesn't mean it's not treatable. It is very treatable in my experience. But what we typically see is that this runs in families. So just like me as someone who's had this for my entire life, going back to my earliest memories being in school and being in a home room where we're waiting and it's quiet and I'm the little kid, always clearing his throat. Much to the annoyance of my other classmates, you typically see that it runs in families and that's how we know that this is a constitution. So very common for my patients to say, I'm always clearing my throat and honestly if it's bad, I hear it right in the visit all the time. But then they'll say my mom was like this, my dad was like this, my sister is like this. So it is primarily constitutional. This is the chink in your armor. This is one of your Achilles heels in terms of your constitution. Now by itself, it doesn't necessarily mean anything, right? It is, I guess, technically a pathology, but it's more knowing symptom on its own. But it commonly occurs with other symptoms as well. But we call this dampness. So how do we approach this clinically? Very often I find that this is very successfully resolved and is very, very typically not difficult to see an improvement in the symptoms utilizing Chinese formulas. My main expertise is internal medicine with Chinese formulas. And typically what we use for this constitution is warming and drying herbs. So warming herbs like high doses of dried ginger and what we consider drying herbs, a famous one being Baidu and fuling. Baidu is a tractolodes and it's an herb that even when you take it as a raw herb decoction in water, you can actually feel it dry the tongue code almost immediately. It has a drying quality to it that you can feel just by drinking it right away. Completely a very strong subjective sensation. We say that the spleen hates dampness and has a tendency towards dampness. So dietarily, foods that are going to cause an issue, for example dairy, is a very mucus and phlemi-producing food. So people who have issues with sinus congestion, mucus tendency towards asthma should avoid these certain food groups in general. But also, in my experience, I don't tend to recommend a lot of dietary therapy only because I find that the formulas are so effective at alleviating the sort of pattern. The formulas we use, one for example is called Li Zhonglan, which means regulate the middle pill, is for herbs, ginseng, dried ginger, Baidu tractolodes and honey fried licorice and is one of the most effective formulas for this sort of pattern and works 99 out of 100 times for treating this sort of picture. These herbs are said to strengthen the spleen function, which is really the pancreas. They dry the dampness that the spleen has. That's the combination of the dried ginger and the Baidu. These warming and drying herbs dry out what Chinese medicine views as dampness and strengthens the function of the spleen and the appetite. And then from there, these herbs regulate the overall digestive system. So for example, people commonly have gastroparesis in this pattern where there's often a feeling of excessive abdominal fullness after meals. If it's severe, people will just have low or no appetite at all. But in general, Chinese medicine views this as primarily a spleen pancreas finding. And we use these kind of formulas to address this sort of picture. And generally it's very, very easily improved. So it's not something that is curable in the large sense because it is a constitution, right? This will be your tendency throughout life. But by improving the digestion, these symptoms can be greatly resolved and are usually not very difficult. My two cents on the constantly fleming throat, it's something I commonly see. It is not usually a red flag for anything that I see on a day-to-day basis. And Chinese herbs work very, very well for it. So that's my two cents for today, guys. Again, check out those links right below this video. And I'll see you in these other videos right here.