There's at least one point every year where patients start coming in telling me that they ate a [insert here the last thing they ate before getting sick] and got food poisoning. Everyone is listing a different innocuous food because in fact it is a stomach flu circulating through the community. Traditional medicine has many ways to avoid the bug getting into your digestive system or to make it unwelcome if it is already there. Firstly, stay warm. Keep your feet warm, your belly warm, your back warm. Keeping your belly warm can look like drinking ginger tea, eating cooked vegetables over raw vegetables, or sitting on the sofa under the covers with a heating pad or hot water belly on your stomach. Avoid iced beverages (including your coffees and lattes and waters) except in the hottest hours of the hottest days in order to keep your digestive cooking pot (your belly) appropriately warm. This helps food to go down at the right speed and come out at the right speed.
A hand is holding the base of an orange butternut squash cut in half. The seeds inside are sprouting. This squash was used to make a medicinal congee.
To prevent or recover from a stomach bug, make a pot of congee with short grained rice. Instead of the typical 2:1 water:rice ratio, add 8 to 10 times as much water to the rice. If you have butternut squash or any other sort of orange pumpkin, add some peeled cubes to the mix, along with grated ginger and bay leaf. The orange root vegetable will help to tonify your digestive system, ginger will warm your digestive fire, and the bay leaf is anti-diarrheal. The thick rice water that is generated is absorptive, and will help redistribute fluids in your digestive system to where they should go. Serve with a drizzle of sesame oil and soy sauce to taste; if someone is already feeling queasy they may prefer it without condiments.
Butternut ginger congee, drizzled with sesame oil and soy sauce. A medicinal and delicious porridge that strengthens the digestive system.
Another handy tool for your household's medicine cabinet is the Chinese medical formula 'huo xiang zheng qi san". It is for "sudden turmoil disorder". Sudden turmoil is when you are suddenly vomiting or diarrhea-ing or both at the same time. You can use it at the onset of disease, or use it prophylactically if others in your household or in your community are sick. While there are other formulas that very effectively treat sudden turmoil disease, this is a kind of generic formula that can be applied easily without need of diagnosis by a practitioner. We were recently travelling abroad and I brought some. We only used it once, after finding out friends that we had spent the week with were severely ill with a stomach bug. It is excellent for foreign travel, when it can sometimes take longer to navigate a different health care system in a different language. If you want to pick some up from the clinic to have at home or for travel, feel free to get in touch and let me know when you can stop by to pick it up.
Another very effective folk medicine technique comes to me via my Argentinian mother-in-law, and is practiced by women throughout Central and South America. El empacho means blockage and can refer to just about any digestive upset. Tirar el empacho is a technique of pulling quickly and sharply on the skin of the low back with the aim of producing a cracking sound. I have learned it this way: first apply talcum powder or corn starch to the low back to make it easier to grip. Beginning just above the sacrum, and just on either side of the spine, grasp a roll of skin and tug upward quickly and firmly. Repeat, going up the rest of the low back. The more cracking sounds and the louder they are, the more needed the technique was and the more effective it will be. Repeat 3 days in a row (although I confess to forgetting to repeat and the technique has still been very effective). My mother-in-law used this recently on our daughter when she was home sick with no appetite. Within an hour she announced she was hungry and wanted to eat. Another example: an elderly family member had diarrhea for one month, which was attributed to having eaten a chocolate (despite having eaten chocolates her entire life). She visited her doctors several times but nothing could stop this diarrhea. Long term diarrhea is quite serious in anyone, but especially in the elderly and in babies. It wasn't until her caretaker, who grew up in Mexico and is also familiar with the technique, thought to "tirarle el empacho", that it stopped.
I hope that these techniques and remedies help your household stay healthy and free of acute digestive disorders. If your digestion issues are long standing, East Asian medicine can also help. If you have trouble going to the bathroom, or go to much, or have pain with digestion, these are all signs that you could benefit from a more personalized treatment. Always feel free to reach out with any questions, or book an appointment with the booking button below.