 People are obsessed with mushrooms right now in the wellness space but going back thousands of years mushrooms have been used in a medicinal way within ancient China within Chinese herbal formulas. Now today I thought we'd talk about one which is called fuling. Hey guys Dr. Alex Hain, doctor of acupuncture and Chinese medicine. Now before we jump into this video there are two very 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 to my private practice in clinic right below this video and the second is for a free download which is four daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with Chinese medicine. Now one of our oldest books on herbs is called the Divine Farmers Classic of Materia Medica, the Shennong Ben-Saojin. It talks about the abilities and the uses of some medicinal herbs, stones, plants, animal parts, etc. Now in the entry for fuling it says, Fuling treats counterflow chi in the chest and the rib sides, worry and rage, fear palpitations, binding and pain below the heart, cold and heat, vaccination and fullness cough with counterflow. It stops parched mouth and dry tongue and it disinhibits urine. Taken for a long time it calms the hun and poa souls or spirits, nurtures the spirit and staves off hunger extending the years. Now that is a one-part clinical observation of its uses as well as a little bit mystical but practically there are a few uses of fuling day-to-day in the clinic. Now day-to-day when it comes to using fuling which often one of the ways it comes is in these rolled little almost little cigar tube looking ways. Sometimes it comes in fuling kwae which are these little squares like this, cubed and sometimes it also comes in these little sheets. So the fuling is very interesting. It's a commensal fungus that grows the base of a certain kind of pine tree in China. It's very interesting there's a video on a fuling farmer and the way he harvest and finds the fuling he was poking at the base of these pine trees that he knows as one of the species that has a commensal or a relationship with the plant and with the fungus and he would stab basically below the pine tree where the fuling ball might grow and if the tip of his little spear came up white he knew that there was possibly fuling there so then he would dig, harvest this ball and then prepare it or slice it. But day-to-day when we talk about fuling the two main uses I would say we use it in are anxiety, bloating and urinary issues. Now when it comes to discussing an iconic formula with fuling there's a modern formula that I don't use but it's quite famous called sujunzitang which is for gentlemen decoction. This formula is comprised of just four herbs renchen which is jinsing, faiju, attractolotis which looks like this, fuling which we just discussed and drigansal which is honey fried licorice. Now sujunzitang is a formula that is a base of what we call the treatment of spleen chi deficiency. Spleen chi deficiency basically as a pattern tends to be someone who has an issue with digestion, bloating, abdominal fullness, loose stools, they can often sometimes have palpitations, anxiety sometimes goes with it, sometimes urinary issues go with it but in general this formula is famous for regulating the digestive function of really what Chinese medicine calls the spleen. Day-to-day most people probably think of this as a formula for bloating or appetite or someone with a lower appetite that's prone to indigestion and prone to abdominal fullness. In that formula there is a power couple combo baiju and fuling that you find in lots of different formulas famous for thousands of years throughout Chinese medicine. Now the combination of these baiju for damp and fuling to drain some fluids is very very commonly used. So for example we say that one kind of low appetite is due to under functioning of the spleen with dampness. So just a little Chinese medicine physiology lesson we say the pathological factor of the spleen is basically dampness. In layman's terms, bloating, abdominal fullness, a lot of mucus or saliva that kind of thing. The baiju and the fuling help with the processing of the water. The baiju is a bitter herb that also will help move things downward so sometimes people who get indigestion a lot are basically the deficient spleen type who just have weak digestive function in general. That's different from people who have good strong digestion but just eat a lot of food or eat the wrong food. But in this case baiju helps expel some of this dampness through the stool, fuling through the urination. Now in the same vein because all of these herbs have multiple functions and even these formulas have a formula pattern. So one formula can treat five or six or sometimes ten symptoms and very often when it's diagnosed properly one formula let's say a formula that moves damp in the digestive system what it will do is people who have brain fog or a constant pressure in the head can be due to dampness. Stuffy noses, runny noses can be due to dampness. Bloating and abdominal fullness can be due to dampness. Frequent urination can be due to cold. There are myriad symptoms that can improve just from taking one formula like one with baiju and fuling and these are some of the most commonly used herbs for modern people especially because of how many people have GI problems and how many people have anxiety. So in the same vein fulings also use for anxiety interestingly enough and it's no surprise that many people that come in have both a lot of GI symptoms and food sensitivities and clinical anxiety. That's no surprise within my field. They very commonly go together. So that is a little bit behind fuling, its uses, the history of it, an iconic formula where we often use fuling but otherwise very interesting herb and very very commonly used day-to-day in the clinic. That's what I have for you today guys. Before you go, check out those links right below the video. Become a patient locally or get that free download and I'll see you guys soon.