 Digestive problems are probably in the top three most common issues I see in my patient base and if you've watched my videos you know that I got into Chinese medicine because of my own digestive problems. But in this video I thought I would enhance and embellish and speak more on this idea of spleen chi deficiency being one of the most common digestive patterns that I see and three different little subclasses or similar patterns to spleen chi deficiency because it's very very common and these are the three most common GI patterns that I see. Hey guys Dr. Alex Hein, author of the health book Master of the Day and Doctor of Chinese Medicine. So before we jump into this video there are two important links right below. 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 and contact my private practice that way and there's also a free guide which is four daily rituals that could potentially help you add years to your life with Chinese medicine. So let's talk about these three patterns of spleen chi deficiency. So the general spleen chi deficiency pattern is really kind of a pancreatic enzyme deficiency in layman's terms because what do these people experience? Typically lack of appetite, often pale face, often more on the anemia side of the spectrum or certainly look that way. Bloating either constipation but not really hard stools. They're often irregular or soft when they come out. Sometimes soft diarrhea stools, liquid stools, bloating, food sensitivities is very very common, sensitive stomach, picky eaters, all of this really falls into that pattern of spleen chi deficiency. Now that's a very common pattern by itself. Food allergies and SIBO are big big issues I see in a lot of people today and that's not the only pattern though that I see that's kind of my pattern but there are two others that I think are important to know. The second one is called spleen yang deficiency. Now in spleen yang deficiency basically what we see more of is more abdominal pain and looser stools. So spleen yang deficient people basically will feel cold, tend towards pain and will have much looser stools. So what is the most common scenario that I see is people say my stools are always kind of on the verge of diarrhea or there's undigested food or they're having many loose bowel movements throughout the day. The most severe being for example ulcerative colitis which is not just spleen yang you know there's not just diarrhea 20 times a day there's blood in this pus it's really severe but in terms of spleen yang deficiency person feels cold so the actual immune healing force so to speak quote unquote is depleted to the point where their body cannot recover and much more frequent stools and often pain. And the third pattern here that I see is let's just call liver gallbladder constraint and spleen chi deficiency. So now what we see is more liver gallbladder involvement which commonly manifests in two or three ways. Most commonly some kind of stomach dysfunction i.e. reflux burping indigestion a lot of eukis in the throat but very often acid reflux indigestion picture is some liver or gallbladder involvement. The second way it shows up is in the stools. So alternating bowel movements hard and soft sometimes hard at the start then soft varying pebbles and then some days diarrhea stools that's more of that liver gallbladder pattern. And then for women varying menses or menstrual regularities or painful menses or variable menses all of that can fall into this pattern as well. So the difference here is that there's not just a lower GI pattern of bloating the food baby the food baby is kind of the archetypal spleen chi deficiency pattern but on top of that there's some dysfunction going on with the stomach for sure there is usually reflux going on here people will often say they get burning or acid reflux that kind of thing. So these kind of patterns are almost three grades of the same thing because one spleen chi deficiency can be pushed into spleen young deficiency or commonly people with spleen chi deficiency that then don't eat well don't eat good diets and they have that genetic template then we have the saying that an excess of chi becomes heat. Now a simple explanation is in layman's terms if you continue to eat over eat eventually you produce too much congestion right over eating basically harms the stomach when you continually do that for many of people what the experience is some signs of sourness or bitterness in the mouth from our experience that is where the liver and the gallbladder begins to get involved that is where their beginnings of gallbladder problems where even someone who eats a good diet if their spleen chi is really really weak the enzymes are really really weak what happens is that if they're not careful and they still eat a crappy diet then they can begin to have gallbladder problems and some people even if they eat a healthy diet will have gallbladder problems if they have severe spleen chi deficiency anyway. So these are almost a progression in many ways but I think they're useful to know because I see all three of them on a weekly or a monthly basis it's very useful very interesting to know and sometimes just by knowing what's going on it can produce a little bit more calm and a little more sense of security but three common GI patterns spleen chi spleen yang liver gallbladder and spleen that we see commonly in Chinese medicine that are worth knowing because they are really degrees of severity in many ways too that's all I've got for you today guys if there's anything else you'd like to see on dietary stuff just comment below and let me know all right I need some new ideas for you and I'll shoot whatever is the most interesting or the most appealing and otherwise watch these two related videos here more on the spleen chi diet