 In Chinese medicine, one of the most incredible things that I have so much respect for is how we look at the interrelationships between things, how things are related is very, very important. You know, when you have a toe problem, you don't go to a toe doctor in Chinese medicine. We look at the pattern and the pattern is often where the toe problem is coming from because the body is all related. It's not these separate parts that we're so accustomed to because in conventional medicine, you know, everything is broken into these individual specialists and even the surgeons are looking at the individual body parts, you know, the thumb and the forearm and the bicep. But in Chinese medicine, we treat according to certain patterns and that's what I think is the very unique genius of it. And honestly, why it's often so effective, especially when they are confusing or mysterious symptoms. Hey guys, Dr. Alex Hein, author of the health book, Master of the Day, Doctor of Chinese Medicine and licensed acupuncturist. So before we jump in here, very important links below this video. The first is if you'd like to become a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine, link right below this video is to contact my office and my private practice there. In this video, I thought I would just share some very simple common signs that I see of liver and gallbladder dysfunction. Right. So these are pathologies that are still in the physiological phase, meaning they're not progressed to the structural level where it is more serious than before. You know, for example, where a person needs a gallbladder removal because there's necrosis. But recognizing the early signs is really, really, really important to prevent more serious pathology and illness. So the liver and the gallbladder in Chinese medicine, depending on your diagnostic framework, are considered the wood organs, wood phase. So this is describing a kind of function in the body and a physiological and pathological process. But I thought I would share some common signs and symptoms that are super common clinically that I see very, very often, probably in the top five things that I treat. The first sign is stomach dysfunction, i.e. reflux, gurd, indigestion, or you're noticing excessive burping now. So very commonly I see sourness in the mouth or bitterness, often in the morning, burping more often, indigestion, gurd, reflux, burning, stomach, or epigastric pain. Now this is more serious from our perspective than just what we call spleen sheet efficiency, which is kind of like a pancreatic enzyme deficiency, where the person is low appetite, burping, food kind of sits in the stomach. It doesn't quite go down. It sits like a rock, people say, slow, sluggish digestion. This is an increased pathology, because now there's development of what we consider heat in Chinese medicine, and that's the gallbladder involvement. Now the second sign that's very important is more systemic. So menstrual irregularities, abdominal pain, or bowel changes. So the liver in Chinese medicine is one of the organs really strongly related to regulating a woman's menstrual function. Menstrual regularity, blood quality, the bleeding duration, et cetera, et cetera, as well as the PMS symptoms, you know, the lack thereof or extremely severe PMS symptoms. But another very important thing to recognize is that the liver is also the organ, one of the organs that takes the brunt of stress. So when people are excessively stressed out and they're existing in this state of sympathetic dominance, always being on, we will often feel more tension in the pulse. So it's called a wiry pulse. The wiry pulse is a pulse of what we call stagnation. So if you can imagine, if you're feeling rushed and stressed, and your kid says something to you and you want to bite their head off, that quality is mirrored in the pulse image, if that makes sense. So it's this pulse image of frustration or agitation or that feeling of you want to honk at someone in traffic. That image, that metaphor, physically in the pulse. So the liver is one of those organs that begins manifesting some of that stress, in addition to the heart, tachycardia, heart racing, palpitations, as well as the kidneys. So there are four or five other signs that fall into this category as well, maybe more of the liver aspect, but I thought I would share these because they're useful to recognize, to be careful. The first would be waking around 3 a.m., which is around the liver time of night, which is a very, very common time, probably the most common time I see patients say they wake. The second is headaches, especially band or tension headaches around the head, sighing or having a lump in the throat, gynecological irregularities like irregular menses, severe PMS, breast tenderness or fibrocystic breasts, and finally chest stuffiness or fullness in the ribs. This is all liver, gallbladder, the wood category in Chinese medicine. So those are some key signs and symptoms of liver and gallbladder involvement. And I share these so that you can recognize the early signs of imbalance before they progress to something more serious or more structural. So that's all I have for you today, guys. Before you go, check out these related videos right over here.