 You know, one of the biggest frustrations that I hear from my patients is this very similar conversation that has manifested itself in hundreds of ways, but I've heard it so many times. Why is it that my doctor says they've run all the tests? Nothing is wrong, but I don't feel that well. There's a very, very, very important reason for it, and I wanted to talk about it in today's video because I think it will help you. Hey guys, Dr. Alex Hein, author of the health book Master of the Day and Doctor of Chinese Medicine. So before we jump in and answer this important question today, two very important links right below this video. The first is if you would like to become a patient of mine in Los Angeles or virtually a telemedicine, you can contact my private practice right below this video. There's the contact info to reach out, and we'll get back to you. The second is for a free download, which is four daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. So those are right below this video. So one of the most common frustrations I hear from my patients and I myself had experienced is this idea or this experience of not feeling quite right. And you go to the doctor, they run all the conventional tests, they run labs, sometimes digital imaging, and nothing shows up. And you're very confused because you still don't feel well. But your doctor says there's nothing wrong with you. Just go home or more often they say, take an antidepressant or go to the psychiatrist or you're just stressed. And you know that this doesn't connect internally. You know that this does not resonate because you don't feel that well and you know what it's like to feel well and you know that this is something new for you. Now, on the sad side of the story, very often I see this in patients who then go on to be diagnosed with something later, six months, two years later. But for most cases, there is nothing really wrong from the traditional medical perspective or biomedically, nothing is showing up. But what's really going on here? That is really the million dollar question. And let's talk about this today from a Chinese medicine perspective because I have heard this many, many, many times. And it is in these early stages where you really have to nip things in the bud and recognize that something is wrong. But it may not be measurable from a traditional medical perspective yet. A couple examples that I see frequently are people who end up getting persistent or frequent indigestion. And maybe it's that last meal of the night where you're getting a lot of mucus or phlegm in your throat. Food doesn't quite feel like it's going down. Maybe you're getting that knot in your throat that Chinese medicine calls plum pit chi. And maybe even you go as far as getting an endoscopy or a colonoscopy due to other bowel issues. And of course, it's negative. Another one is maybe you feel really anxious or you're not sleeping well or you're feeling really depressed. And again, the same story. You know you're not yourself. But when you go to get all the conventional diagnostics done, nothing shows up. So what gives? So let's talk about three reasons why you do not feel well and yet all the conventional labs and traditional forms of diagnosis and even technological forms of diagnosis are not showing anything. Number one is that there's something going on with your nervous system. I call it nervous system level disease for lack of a better word. And many different parts of your body can be affected by your nervous system. It's the reason why you can think about an anxious experience and then you can get indigestion next meal you eat. It's why there may not be anything diagnosed and yet you're sleep messed up. You're still getting headaches. You're still getting digestive upset. You're getting menstrual cycle changes or you just don't feel right. But there is nothing measurable that can then be diagnosed or treated. Reason number two, Chinese medicine calls this one symptom plum pit chi. So plum pit chi is the particular sensation of that not in your throat that when you swallow, it won't go away. So it is not something necessarily materially there. There's no tumor. There's no, in this case, there's no thyroid disease. There's nothing that is measurable, but the person feels like there's a lump in the throat when they swallow. Now, often this is linked to strong emotions, the most obvious being sadness. If you've ever gone to cry and for whatever reason you can't at this exact moment or you hold it in and you feel that not in your throat as if you're about to cry, you've experienced how emotions can cause a physical symptom very acutely. And then as time goes on or as you cry or as that emotion passes, that plum pit chi will go away. Plum pit chi, the way I think about it is that there's a chi level of illness that precedes material illness. And emotion is probably the most useful example because someone can experience the not in their throat, loss of appetite, sadness, but then it doesn't progress into anything else, right? Or it may, right? Chronic lump in the throat because I'm always feeling anxious or sad or depressed or whatever it is, may then progress to a structural illness later, or it may not. And the quote chi level illness can just be anxiety. The chi level illness can be an emotional upset that then affects a woman's menstrual cycle. It's well documented that women's menses are affected by emotions, but they can also be from low body fat and it can also be from all kinds of other issues. So when we're talking about this idea of chi level illness, the way I like to think of it is pre structural illness or pre measurable illness. It is not real. It is real, but it is not going to show up on any traditional diagnosis or any traditional labs, maybe not yet. Now one final example of pre material illness is let's say diabetes. Diabetes is a great one, right? Cardiovascular disease still the number one killer in the United States. And when we're talking about the predisposing factors, chi level pre material illness, maybe it is you're noticing a little bit of frequent urination or you're noticing some issues with your eyes or even more likely you're noticing getting really tired after meals. That's a key symptom of pre diabetes, right? So maybe at that point blood sugar is measurable, fasting glucose is not where it should be or maybe, you know, the urinary symptoms or maybe there's some hypertension creeping up or maybe A1C is showing up on some labs, moving in the wrong direction, right? But that will not show up right away either. That can be years in the making. And obviously there are probably millions of people running around with undiagnosed prediabetes or diabetes. But now let's say the person has full blown diabetes and now let's say 10 years have gone out and now a small percentage of those people have developed cancer and now a tumor is actually showing up, whether it's prostate cancer or whether it's colon cancer or whether it's some other kind of cancer. So 10 years ago there was nothing really measurable, right? Just a little bit of indigestion, a little bit of maybe gallbladder problems, a little bit of blood sugar is not looking very good or cholesterol is not looking great. But before that there was nothing even measurable, but maybe you had some low grade symptoms and now 15 years later there are tumors. So this idea of that I like the most is prematerial or pre structural illness that is moving in the wrong direction, but maybe cannot be quantified yet. So understanding that many illnesses maybe most start off from an immeasurable or immaterial level, maybe that immaterial level is purely physiological and it's not quite measurable yet. It's not quite structural, but eventually it will lead and progress to the structural, the measurable, the tangible over time. And I think this is often why many illnesses begin from the immaterial or let's just say let's call it nervous system level because it makes it a little bit more tangible. It may start off as a nervous system disorder or just symptoms of being in a sympathetic dominant state where we're in fight or flight, but then eventually may progress to something more material or more serious. And so it's important to catch things when they're in the let's call it nervous system sensitive state and we can prevent it from becoming something more serious further down the line. Alright guys, so I think that is very important to talk about because it is one of the most common things I hear probably from half my patients that basically stopped going to their traditional medical provider because they didn't feel like they were getting their needs met, ended up coming to see me and when they were clearly helped they were wondering why I was able to treat something that their doctor was not. And this is frankly the reason why that is the case. It's very common within my field as well. So just some food for thought. Again, before you guys go, link below this video. If you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, you can contact my private practice right below this video. There's also a free download there for you for daily rituals that potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine. So check out these other related videos before you go and I'll catch you in the next video.