Day 1 // Nov 6 – started experiencing mild insomnia, waking up in the middle of the night. Super unusual for a sound sleeper like me. I guess I should count this as Day 1 of this crazy flare up. Went to sleep at a reasonable hour and no known irritating foods (spicy etc)
Day 2 // Mild insomnia persists, but still able to fall asleep rather quickly within an hour or so. Had a 2 pieces of sesame and red bean pastry for dessert and could feel a mild flare up coming, skin drying out and fingers getting hard to bend.
Day 3 // Nov 8 – work event went on until late and didn’t fall asleep until 1:30am. Slept through the night with no insomnia
Day 4 // Nov 9 –
Allergies – sneezed a million times as soon as I woke up, used up 30 pieces of tissues, extremely runny nose persists throughout the day.
Skin – continues to itch but no crazy flare just yet
Dinner– had four pieces of raw sushi (salmon roe and california roll). 6 small pieces of avocado rolls were cold but not raw. Had some ginger slices and wasabi that usually come with sushi. Last remembered bowel movement (explosive diarrhea right after having raw sushi)
Sleep – severe insomnia starts, waking up at 2:30am up to around 3:30/4am before being able to fall asleep. The start of a week of insomnia.
Day 5-7 // Nov 10-12
Allergies improve, skin starts to flare. No food to note, insomnia at night waking again at 2:30am to 4am. Text my TCM on Day 6 to let her know the craziness on skin and insomnia and she asks me to come in on Monday.
Day 8 // Nov 13
Allergies (sneezing and runny nose all gone). Wake up and I have the hands of frankenstein. Skin has completed dried and yellow oozing starts again. I start wondering again – is it dishydrotic eczema or tinea manuum as previous derm suggested? I can’t tell but I think back to previous protocols – months of intraconzole protocol had no impact on any rashes where as doxycycline cleared up most of the rashes on my body within 5 days, plus the concoction of Long Dan Xie Gan Tang medicine that the previous TCM prescribed that cleared me up in a matter of days. A fungal infection would never clear up this quickly. Debating in my head next course of action – I can’t live like this. Do I go to another dermatologist for a second opinion, continue to press on with TCM or go with a functional medicine doctor? Not many of the latter in this city. I decide that I have the funds to proceed with a bunch of tests, including allergy test and gut microbiome and I should invest in this over anything else (like a new iPhone for example).
I’m so irritated by my skin (extremely itching and oozing at this point) that I start going to the internet again, searching tinea manuum on reddit to find what other fellow sufferers are saying and any useful protocols they’ve tried. I find one OP that saw incredible success mixing Vitamin B3 and Colloidal Silver. Interest peaked after reading and comments over the last three years gives me an immense amount of hope. But given where its on my hands which are extremely visible I’m still thinking to get the second opinion first.
Visit my TCM doc and seek her diagnosis – damp heat liver (meridian?), same as root cause as the flare up last time in July. This is my pattern she says and most of my eczema flare ups are caused by this. The precursor or cause of the liver heat dampness is spleen qi deficiency, which every TCM I have ever seen has told me I have this. I start googling again. Is the damp heat in the meridians or not? What is a meridian anyways? When they reply they say it’s in the meridian but looking online its in the liver organ. Which is it? I don’t get it – how can I be getting damp heat so often, like once a quarter. I’m not doing anything crazy like eating cold foods, or sleeping crazy late or super stressed. This website I found and keep linking to Me and Qi btw is awesome, I just found it yesterday and I’m still exploring. It’s simple but it beats me having to look up everything in Chinese. I also find that Chinese articles don’t always explain things in the same ways that Western medical articles do on the same topic – and I’m talking about writing styles in paragraph / article formats, with a clear how-to or explanations. Anyhow, I convince my TCM to give me the same protocol as last time with the Long Dan Tang, even though it’s super cooling and my period is about to start. She gives me two days to start and a hand soak that will dry up the oozing. I neeeeeeed my hands to heal, I’m basically an invalid and my partner is doing everything. Makes me feel like a terrible human being needing someone to look after me and be my pair of hands even though they do so lovingly.
Also stumble upon a podcast about two MDs switching to functional medicine, and Cynthia Li’s story gives me a lot of hope. Two experienced MDs experienced severe health situations that Western medicine couldn’t resolve. Again, I feel immense hope. Dr Cynthia Li briefly mentions the circadian clock in TCM and going back to ancestral living which gives me hope I’m on the right track sticking with TCM. Plus I know my body, I have responded amazingly well to Chinese medicine in the past whereas antihistamines, steroid creams and wet wraps are usually just band aids.
Fall asleep before midnight but am woken by the feeling of needing to go pee at 2am but insomnia persists even longer this time until almost 5am, also accompanied by stomach cramps (was the leftover soup I drank too old? It might have been 5 days old oops…). Desperately start google acupressure points for stomach cramps in the middle of the night and find zhusanli. I start massing it in the dark (I manage to find it because as soon as I pressed that point, man it was sore! Moved my thumb one finger space to the left and right and those other points don’t hurt as much, so I’m guessing the painful one is it). Massaging it causes me to pass small bits of gas frequently and my stomach feels just a tad less uncomfortable. Must be working. Thumbs get sore tho.
five hundred home 