in this video I'm going to share this little ballpark process for figuring out in terms of generalities what organ or location or pathway in the body is most likely the cause of your health issues you know when I was staying in a monastery in China which was actually near chungu I had this conversation with a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine and we got into this great discussion about where health problems come from right what is the actual root cause of certain issues people have especially when they're so chronic for some people years and years and
years and he said something that really aligned with the classics of traditional Chinese medicine when he said you have to understand what is a root problem and what is a branch problem so in this video I'm going to share this little quiz I've put together to help you figure out what is a root problem and what is a branch problem hey guys it's Dr Alex hin board licensed acupuncturist and doctor of traditional Chinese medicine and author of the health book master of the day so let's jump in now in traditional Chinese medicine we focus a
lot on trying to understand what is the root I.E constitutional or genetic tendency your body has that is often the root problem and the branch problem is typically just what is the symptomatic pattern that we're seeing right now right so say for example someone can have ordinarily very very good digestion genetically and then that guy or that woman takes on a stressful role as a leadership position in a company in New York or in La they're working crazy hours and they eat like crap so as a result they're coming into me because they have massive
acid reflux their bowels are all funky and they're not sleeping well now 5 years ago they may not have had a single one of those problems that may have been purely damaged from lifestyle but then you have other people like for example me I grew up in a family that always ate healthy even when I went to college I was still cooking healthy meals and eating oatmeal for breakfast and that kind of thing and yet ever since I was a kid was always complaining about my digestion and so while I was the kid that was
eating so meticulously and eating such a specific narrow diet my friends were eating Taco Bell and they weren't having any issues with their digestive system and I'm over here eating you know sauteed greens veggies in an egg and I couldn't digest anything so that points to really a clear constitutional route as we call it or a genetic tendency so for some people there is a very very strong genetic tendency that runs in families and we use the word constitution for my own Constitution a lot of what I saw in my maternal line as I looked
through it with a traditional Chinese medicine lens was that on my maternal side there was my mom who constantly complained of GI issues whether or not she'll admit it and my grandmother who complained of the exact same issues whether or not she'll admit it sometimes people don't talk about the issues or sometimes they just take Pepto Bismol all day long and they don't think they have a problem but I can look back and see wow okay there really was a root problem a constitutional genetic tendency running in that family other issues I may have had
throughout my own life can revolve around overworking and overstressing and in general doing too much but the Constitutional root of it the origin the core through line of your life like that one problem you keep having under stress that is the root problem now the reason this isn't talked about in conventional medicine is that frankly 95% of conventional medicine purely is symptomatic medicine and there's nothing wrong with that but it doesn't fix people right you will never take an anti-depressant and be better 6 months after taking it you will never take hypothyroid medication and in
6 months be healthier than you were before if you stop taking it you will never take gird or acid reflux medication and in 6 months be healthier than you were before they're not designed to do that so we want to get down to the route and that's why I want to share this brand new little root cause quiz I've put together here so as I go through this quiz I've put together guys you can actually go and download it it's the first link below this video so you can have a digital copy that you can
actually check off and score yourself on right so this is like a 10-page document I've also put together a whole bunch of related resources and links to other videos we've shot on these exact symptoms and organs and that's going to be something really really helpful so download it below and we'll walk through this together so let's go through five or so Oregan networks you know in traditional Chinese medicine why I say something like the person has what's called spleeny deficiency most of these functions and these symptoms don't actually anatomically relate to the spleen organ it
relates more often to the pancreatic function especially pancreatic enzyme production it relates to issues with the stomach issues with the small intestine so when we try to translate these ancient Concepts like what's called translated as spleen sheet efficiency it really is a lot more complex and it really does involve a lot more other locations in the body so let's do an overview of the top five organ networks that I see people having problems with and then we'll jump into a few diagnostic symptoms of each so organ Network number one we'll call it the spleen stomach
and pancreas now when we're talking about this diagnosis of spleen sheet deficiency that is very commonly diagnosed from acupuncturist a lot of what we're seeing is primarily the symptoms revolve around the digestive system like the textbook person with this kind of diagnosis typically has a bit lower appetite they typically are thinner more pale complexion they get food baby a lot after meals prone to loose stools sibo gut disbiosis issues and sometimes they also have low immunity and catch colds easily so if you take a look at this little first quiz here we see issues like
abdominal bloating unintended weight loss fatigue undigested food there are some women's health issues here and also issues like chronic throat clearing so if you have issues that constitutional genetic tendency to have spleen stomach pancreas issues you will often see some of these symptoms throughout your life especially once you are imbalanced right you go through a bout of insomnia or a long bout of stress you go through a divorce or something happens you will see the Constitutional roote that remember it's the through line right it's like your core tendency under stress you'll see that come out
here organ Network number two we'll call the kidney and the bladder now traditionally when people have a constitutional kidney and bladder origin root cause of a lot of their issues some anatomically relate to that organ right these are people who have nighttime urination since they were a kid they have UR urinary frequency particularly worsened with anxiety if you're under 50 and not a man it is strongly correlated with anxiety most of the women that I see come in that have urinary frequency I treat it the same way that I treat anxiety and the urinary frequency
goes away for these kinds of people let's start with the most obvious ones we see symptoms like frequent urination nighttime urination it also includes things like sexual dysfunction but also the kidney very important is one of the organs we say is related to like adrenal function so for example lots of people with what we call Kidney Chi deficiency or kidney yangang deficiency can have symptoms of basically HPA AIS or adrenal fatigue right they can have things like palpitations insomnia anxiety so for these kinds of people we also see one final thing that you don't see
is autoimmune disease lots of issues related to autoimmune disease are related to the kidneys in traditional Chinese medicine that is something that you will never hear and interestingly lots of autoimmune diseases do affect the kidneys too organ Network number three let's call this lung spleen large intestine and mucosal issues now for this kind of organ Network you know you do see overlap with what we talked about the spleen pancreas for example lots of people that are genetically very flemy they clear their throat a lot they also have postnasal drip and they also sometimes have a
tendency towards catching respiratory viruses going around so the mucosa you see in the lungs you see in the ear nose and throat organs you also see it in the stomach all of these areas that can produce mucus to buffer the delicate lining of uh the mucos here so issues involving mucosa also fall into this bucket so when we talk about this you know for this kind of organ Network we see issues with chronic coughs with sputum can also be chronically clearing the throat chronic post-nasal drip you see issues with catching colds easily aversion to AC
or giraffes or even chronic runny noses we say this is the lung and spleen and large intestine so again this person can present with a lot of GI issues but also lots of respiratory issues and lots of ENT issues organ Network 4 we're going to say is the heart kidney and small intestine so when we're talking about the heart for example of course it does relate to functions that are related to the anatomical heart right like for example issues with circulation and issues with blood pressure issues that can be related to cardiovascular disease but the
heart also relates to the nervous system we talked about the heart being like the emperor the center of the spirit of a person and so what happens is when there's a what we call a diagnosis of heart Chi or heart Yang deficiency this mirrors symptoms of sympathetic dominance heart palpitations tacac cardia an elevated heart rate you're under a lot of stress and definitely all kinds of irregular heart beats issues related to the anatomical heart but also let's call it the physiological heart symptoms that are physiological in nature and not structural in nature so stress response
palpitations elevated heart rate spontaneous sweating issues with even dizziness but also lots of issues with sleep in the final organ Network we're going to call this the liver gallbladder and the triple warmer this is the only organ in traditional Chinese medicine that does not have an anatomical correlate meaning there's no organ that is the triple warmer it explains several zones of the body and larger physiological functions when we talk about the liver and the gallbladder what are some of the main symptoms people see the most common symptoms that I see related to acid reflux gird
acid reflux all kinds of upper GI issues you also see chronic sinusitis falling into this picture lots of people come in with chronic inflammation in the sinuses we treat it from what we call a liver and gallbladder pattern which means an issue with inflammation in the body now paradoxically you also see issues with bowels and women's health issues so for example you can see irregular menes painful menes dysmenorrhea you can see women who get three Cycles a year uh varying kinds of even PCOS sometimes relate to the liver and the gallbladder we call liver blood
stasis now what do you do about all of this right like what if you've gone through you've seen these you've downloaded the guide below and you're like great Dr Alex so what exactly do I do about what you call the heart or what you call the pancreas so there's a number of things number one is I want you just to sit down and think back to throughout your life what was the main pattern in terms of health issues when you got imbalanced maybe it was University maybe it was a stressful year maybe it was a
relationship ending what did that stressful year cause inside your body because not everyone gets migraines right not everyone gets irregular Menses not everyone gets acid reflux think about why that is that points to a constitutional or genetic tendency of your body under stress from there think about the branch problems those branch problems either they relate to an unresolved root problem or they relate to damage from lifestyle like I had constitutional GI issues my whole life no matter how healthy I ate and then later on I had issues with insomnia and palpitations and panic attacks but
that was damaged from overworking so recognizing what's the root what's the branch can be very helpful beyond that the last page in this free guide is a link to a bunch of these little videos that we've shot over the last year or two that can help you understand symptoms of that organ and what to do about it so there's a whole bunch of little links to other prior videos there that will help but I think that's a good starting point now I hope this guide helps you guys don't forget if you want to take this
a little bit further I see a limited number of new patients every month in my clinic in Los Angeles or virtually via tele medicine so if you want to reach out just go to the link below this video or go to Dr alex.com clinic and you can book or call me there and then don't forget there's another really good video on figuring out what is the root cause of your symptoms right here
