Good morning Readers

Today we are going to talk a little about the view of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Hyperhidrosis.

Hyperhidrosis is a condition that causes excessive sweating, in which patients can sweat a lot even at rest.

According to Western Medicine, sweating is a normal condition of our body and helps to maintain the temperature. It is normal to sweat when it is hot, during physical activities or in certain specific situations, such as moments of anger, nervousness or fear. However, in hyperhidrosis, excessive sweating occurs even without the presence of any of these factors. This is because patients’ sweat glands are hyper-functioning.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the Heart is the organ responsible for controlling sweat. Sweating is a consequence of the excess body fluids (Jin Ye) produced by the Stomach.

When the Heart has an energy imbalance, especially a Deficiency of Qi and / or Blood, there is a difficulty in absorbing the Jin Ye into the blood vessels, which will thus be expelled, resulting in sweat.

To treat hyperhidrosis in Chinese Medicine we need to know if the Heart is the cause or consequence of the imbalance. When it is the cause, key points of the meridian such as HT-7, HT-5 and HT-3 will already help in the symptoms, however, when the Heart becomes unbalanced due to the malfunction of another organ, we have to treat the causing organ.

According to Maciocia, we can know the origin of the imbalance according to the location of the sweat:

• On the head: Heat or Heat-Humidity in the Stomach.
• In the upper and lower limbs: Deficiency of Stomach and Spleen.
• Only in Hands: Deficient Lung Qi.
• Palms, Soles, Thorax = “Sweating 5 of palms” or Heat of 5 palms: Kidney Yin deficiency.

Remembering that all the above organs: Spleen, Lung or Kidney have connection with Heart through the 5 Elements.

Deficiency of Spleen leads to Deficiency of Heart (law of mother and child) – to tone the Spleen, SP-2 and SP-3 are good points.
Deficient Lung Qi will overload the Heart, leading to Deficiency in the medium term (law of contra dominance. Lung Deficiency will lead the Heart to excess and then exhaustion) – to tone the Lung Qi, the points are recommended Lu-7, Lu-9, BL-13.
Deficient Kidney Yin will lead to Deficient Heart Yin (as the Kidney nourishes the Yin of the whole body) – to tone the Kidney Yin, the KI-6 and CV-4 points are the best. You can also open the Ren Mai Wonderful Vase (LU-7-KI-6).
** If the problem is stomach humidity, points ST-40 and SP-9 are recommended.

In auriculotherapy we always use the points of the Heart associated with the points of origin of the problem, that is, Spleen, Lung, Kidney or Stomach. You can also add the points of greatest sweat occurrence, such as the hands, feet or spine.

That’s it folks. There are still many other issues to be discussed in hyperhidrosis, but without a doubt, this is a good start.

A big hug to everyone.

Profa. Fernanda Mara.