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Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
Hey, everyone. Doctor Richard Lai here with Study Acupuncture with me. So if this is your first time here, I welcome you, and I thank you for stopping by. My name is Richard. I'm a doctor of physical therapy, and I'm an acupuncturist. And I'm all about making content for busy acupuncturists and acupuncture students just like yourself. So in this episode, I'm gonna talk about some of the things that have been on my heart. And then at the end of the episode, I'm gonna review 1 deficiency pattern of the heart, which that pattern is heart blood deficiency.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
So if you've been following me for a while, you know that in my earlier episodes, I usually like to start off the episode with And the reason I'm sharing this with you is because recently in my personal life, I've been struggling with comparing myself To others, you know, especially because with social media apps, it's really easy for us to just see everyone else's successes. And for me, when I see that, My internal dialogue was like, wow. They have so many followers. Like, they have so many views. They have so many likes on their post. Why do I even bother doing this? Do I just Suck. Is that why? Or I drive throughout the neighborhood and look at that house, and I just I want that house for my family, for my daughter, for Oh, and, actually, you don't even know this, but I have a newborn coming on the way next month. So more so, my mind is all over the place.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
It's going a 1000 miles a minute Because as a dad, I just wanna be able to provide for my family. I wanna be prepared financially. I want to provide a nurturing household. I just want so many things. And so my mind has been mulling over all of these different things, and I realized something through all of this mulling. And That realization is just that that comparison that I allowed to come into my life, what happens when we let That comparison into our life is that, basically, what we're saying to ourselves even subconsciously is that what we have right now in our life isn't enough. That's what we're telling ourselves when we're comparing our life to everyone else that we see on social media or out in the world. And honestly, if you really think about it and you really boil it down, it just it just isn't true.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
Right? That kind of thought process, It steals gratefulness from your life. It steals gratefulness for the things that you have in your life right now, And it actually led me to another quote while I was mulling over all these things, which is from Epicurus, which says, do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not. Remember that what you have now, You once hoped for. Basically, he's just saying, you once wished for what you have now. And so that's basically been my thought process these past few weeks. And it honestly got to the point where I even told my wife that I might just give up on this, you know, this study acupuncture with me stuff. Because what's the point? I don't make any money on this. I spend a lot of time on it.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
I put a lot of time and effort into it. And she told me something really insightful. She said that there are a lot of different restaurants out there, and that's because everyone has different tastes. And so just because there's so many different restaurants, it doesn't mean that A new restaurant shouldn't open up, which that's just that's just really smart. So so that really helped me. And then on top of all that, I really think, like, the universe has just a way of just working things out for you if you just let it. And recently, the universe had someone named Clara Cohen share one of my reels. And it came at a point where I really needed that to happen, actually, because if you don't know her, Basically, she runs Accupro Academy, and she pumps out amazing educational content, and she pumps out amazing courses.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
She's actually one of the acupuncturists in the education space that I I really look up to. So having her recognize me and see me in this time in my life, It just really meant a lot. And she actually even, you know, sent me a wonderful voice note when I reached out to thank her. And she basically said She basically said to me, continue to be consistent. Continue to be passionate about it. Even if you just change 2 people's lives, then you're making a Huge impact. And she said, you don't know that that's happening because they're not necessarily gonna tell you, so just keep at it. Keep going.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
Keep going. Keep going. Keep going. That's what she said. And she's it's just it's amazing that she was she took the time to do And I'll link her, and her page in the description of this episode, so be sure to go and show her page some love. So there you go. Those have been my thoughts It's on my heart for the past couple weeks. And I'm saying this to you and I'm recording this to you in this episode format.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
And I hope that it helps you even in some small way. Now I'm also saying this out loud as a reminder to myself that I just need to be grateful full for the abundance that I have in my life right now. So let's just let that sort of marinate for a minute. And now let's do some educational content. So let's review the heart with one of its patterns being heart blood Deficiency. Alright. So in the beginning of this episode, I shared with you a couple of Things on my heart. So now we're gonna go into the educational part of this episode where we're gonna talk about heart blood deficiency.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
Now in order to fully understand heart blood deficiency or any organ pattern, really, you have to know the function of that organ. So for this episode, it's the heart. And I actually have a video on YouTube about the heart functions, which I'll link in the description in this episode. So if you need a refresher on those functions of the heart, click on the link in the description because with organ theory, with identification of patterns according to organ theory, There's basically something that's affecting that organ, and it's affecting the functions of that organ so that it can help you understand the symptoms or the manifestations of that organ. So, again, click on the heart organ functions video in the description of this episode to watch and get a refresher. So right now, we're gonna talk about heart blood deficiency. So this is a deficiency pattern of the heart, and this pattern can be caused by a couple things. So it can be caused by, number 1, a poor diet.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
Now a poor diet means a diet that is not nutritious, right, because You need nutrition in order to produce blood, so you need to eat things like whole foods, whole grains, red meat, or at least just protein in general. So if you're not eating a nutritious diet like that, that can lead to blood deficiency overall. And what happens basically is that Since the spleen handles the transformation and transportation, which that's the function of the spleen, it transform and transports towards our food into usable food qi and food essences. And I'll put a pathway on the screen here where you see spleen. It transforms food qi and food essences and it takes that and it transports it to the whole body. Now one part that it transports to is the lung. And at the lung, Fu ji, it circulates into the heart, and we know that the heart governs blood. And here at the heart, that's where it combines that fu ji with kidney jing and with yuanqi, which is also known as original qi.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
So that combination that combination ends in the production of Blood. So if there's a kink in any part of that pathway, that can lead to blood deficiency. And, of course, at the root of all that It's if the spleen just isn't receiving the nourishment or the building blocks that it needs. So that's why it's really important that your patient ingest foods that are nutritious because if they don't, that could lead to blood deficiency. Now number 2, another cause for blood deficiency could be stress. It could be stress. It could be any emotion that basically possesses you, and it can cause an injury to the heart. Because Sadness can be okay, right, if it's controlled.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
But if it's not controlled, sadness can deplete Qi. Right? It can dissolve Qi, so it can cause Qi deficiency. Now with the heart, and we know that the function of the heart is that it governs blood, and the heart is a part of the blood producing pathway. So those emotions like sadness, like stress, they can injure the heart, so therefore, they can injure the blood. And since blood It is the residence of the mind. It can also injure the mind. Now all that ultimately can lead to blood deficiency. And then with blood deficiency, another cause can actually just be excessive blood loss.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
Now excessive blood loss, that's when someone loses a lot of blood. So for example, if they're in a car accident and they lost a lot of blood from the trauma or maybe they're pregnant and they lost a lot of blood through the delivery, That can also lead to blood deficiency. And then another cause for blood deficiency could be spleen Qi deficiency because the function of the spleen is to transform and Transport. So if there's a clean Qi deficiency, that function of transformation and transportation is gonna be in pair. So that means the lung and the heart, it's not gonna receive the food Qi and the food essences that it needs. So that way, it won't efficiently produce Blood through that process of combining that food qi with kidney jing, with original qi, so therefore, it's gonna lead to blood deficiency. So now with that being said, now let's go over the manifestations of heart blood deficiency. So I'm gonna put up on the slide here some manifestations of heart blood deficiency And I actually have the key manifestations folded there for you as well, which you'll notice a lot of these manifestations are mind related, and that's because Blood deficiency.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
The mind is housed in the blood. So if there's deficiency in the blood, meaning a deficient amount of blood, There's not a strong foundation for the mind, so that's why you see these blood deficiency type manifestations. Like, for example, you see the insomnia, you see the dream disturbed sleep, you see the poor memory, the anxiety, even this Propensity to be startled or being easily startled or jumpy. We also have here palpitations, which that's a key manifestation that's related to the heart. So if you see palpitations on an exam question, then that's how you know that the hearts could be related for that exam question. We also have here in this list a dull pale complexion. We also have pale lips and with complexion. If the exam question says pale, then you know that it's a deficiency type complexion.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
So what you should be looking for then is looking for either For a dull pale complexion or a bright pale complexion, so that's dull and bright. So if you see dull and pale, And that's indicative of blood deficiency. On the other hand, if we see bright and pale, then that's how you know it's Yang deficiency. So here in this example, we have a dull pale complexion. So that's indicative of blood deficiency. Now we also have pale lips, which pale lips is a characteristic that's indicative of blood deficiency. If the lips, for example, were redder than normal colored red, then that could be heat. If you find that the lips are purple, then that could be blood stasis.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
So the lips can tell you a lot about the health and status of the patient. Now in this case, we have here also a pale tongue. That pale tongue is thin and slightly dry. And we know that with all tongue diagnosis, we're looking at 4 things. We're looking at the tongue body color. We're looking at tongue body shape. We're looking at the tongue coat, and we're looking at the moisture of the tongue. So here we have the tongue body color being pale.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
We have the tongue body shape being thin, and then we have the moisture being slightly dry. Now we don't have any information here on the tongue code, and that's okay. Now a pale tongue, what does that tell us? It tells us that it's deficiency. If it's pale And it's slightly dry, then that's indicative of blood deficiency. So that's actually the textbook definition of blood deficiency. If, on the other hand, you get the exam question and it says that the tongue is pale and it's slightly wet, then that's actually a Yang deficiency type tongue. So When you're looking at the exam and you're going through the questions and you're identifying these manifestations, what you're doing is you're identifying the pathological change That's related to that symptom. And that way when you get the whole picture, you start to see a pattern forming.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
So with the manifestations that we Just went over, we saw palpitations, which is related to the heart. We saw poor memory. We saw insomnia. We saw dull, pale complexion. These are related to blood deficiency. And then when we looked at the tongue and we looked at the pulse, we saw more blood deficiency symptoms. Actually, we didn't go over the pulse yet. So With the tongue, we just went over the pale and the slightly dry tongue.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
And now if we look at the pulse, the pulse is a choppy pulse. It's a fine pulse. So a choppy pulse is the one that's like a knife scraping on bamboo. Now this is indicative of blood deficiency And so is a fine pulse. A fine pulse is a thready pulse. There's not a lot of blood in the vessel, so that means it's blood deficiency. So when you put all of that together, you get heart and you get blood deficiency. So that's basically how you work through the manifestations in the question so that you can come to the conclusion of a pattern.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
Alright. And so that brings us to the end of this episode. I'll remind you here of my email list. I hope that you sign up for my email list so that you can hear from me. And if you are on my email list, you will get study related PDFs to your email with each theory based episode. So how do you sign up? You can sign up just by going to www.studyaccu with me.com. A form should appear on the website, and you can sign up right then and there. Alright, everyone.
Dr. Richard Lai DPT LAc:
Until next time. God bless, and happy studying.
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