What your Chinese medicine practitioner means when they talk about dampness…
If you have been to a Chinese medicine doctor before, it is highly likely that you’ve heard them use the term dampness. This can seem strange to a Westerner who knows dampness to be a state of wetness, usually ascribed to the weather or to the environment. However, dampness is an extremely useful diagnostic concept established by Chinese medicine that can be used to understand and treat many different illnesses. Therefore, I wanted to talk today about how Chinese medicine is using the term dampness to understand your symptoms, so that you can have a better understanding of it.
As Chinese medicine originated far before the invention of the microscope, it views the pathogens (the things that make us sick)based on observations of the environment around and within the body. This means that the six main pathogens discussed in Chinese medicine literature are heat, cold, dryness, dampness, wind and fire. This can seem strange if you’ve grown up knowing about the pathogenic factors that can be seen under a microscope that cause us illness, like fungi, bacteria and viruses. However, while the two traditions use different words, they are describing the same phenomena.
I want to give you an example to help demonstrate this.
When you have an infection, for example, an infected wound, the main signs that indicate an infection are redness, heat and swelling at the sight of the infection, fever and potentially pus.
Western medicine would see this as an indication that your immune system has become activated due to the presence of a pathogen (most likely bacteria in this case) and is mounting an immune mediated response to fight the infection. Fever and heat at the local site raises the core body temperature to make the body hostile to the bacteria, swelling in the local area occurs as extra white blood cells come to the area to fight the infection and pus is the evidence of these white blood cells doing their job (killing bacteria). Western medicine would diagnosis this as a bacterial infection and treatment may utilize antibiotics to kill the invading bacteria and paracetamol (an anti-pyretic) to control the fever and ease pain if needed.
The disease process is described like this:
An opening was made in the skin (eg. cut) ----- this allowed the penetration of bacteria into the local area from the external environment ----- the accumulation of this bacteria triggered the bodies immune response ---- the immune response triggered inflammation ---- bacterial infection
In contrast, Chinese medicine would explain this process as an accumulation of dampness(swelling, pus) and heat (redness, heat, fever) in the local area. It would describe the disease process as something like this:
An opening was made in the skin (eg. cut) ----- this allowed the penetration of dampness into the local area from the external environment ----- the accumulation of this dampness blocked Qi and blood from flowing ---- stagnation leads to heat in the body ---- damp-heat accumulation
Look at how similar this is to the western medicine disease process (just with different words)!
Chinese medicine treatment would involve the application of herbal medicine and acupuncture that resolves dampness in the local area and clears heat from the body. Biochemical analysis of the herbal medicines that have properties to resolve dampness and clear heat, show that they are antibacterial and anti-pyretic.
Therefore, even though the words the two traditions use are different (bacterial infection vs. damp heat accumulation), and treatment goals are different (clear bacterial infection vs. clear damp-heat), and treatment methods are different (paracetamol and antibiotics vs. herbal medicine), the treatment is actually the same (antibacterial and antipyretic medicines).
So now you can hopefully see how even though it is using unfamiliar words, the Chinese medicine tradition is describing familiar disease processes. Words are important however because they helps us understand concepts in context. Therefore, by using the word dampness, we can understand something different about disease processes that other approaches cannot.
Where does dampness come from?
Outside –
As we saw in the earlier example, dampness can come from the outside environment into our bodies. This can occur through cuts in the skin, through the lungs (often causing a chesty cough) or through the skin when sitting in damp environments for a long time (such as sitting or standing in water).
Inside –
Dampness can also be produced inside our bodies when they are not functioning optimally. Dampness is intricately related to the metabolism of water in our bodies. Just like the food we put into our bodies, the water we put into our bodies needs to be metabolised too. This means that water is taken from the stomach and put to use around the body – both inside and outside of cells and in our blood vessels. Because we are 70 percent water, it matters where this water goes. When it is sitting in excess between the cells in the tissues of the body, this can lead to swelling and cause all kinds of problems. In Chinese medicine there are many meridians and organs involved in the metabolism of water and a Chinese medicine practitioners job is to determine which link in the chain is in dysfunction, and correct it. It could be an imbalance between Yin and Yang as dampness can be understood as excess Yin, usually caused by there being not enough Yang or fire.
Different manifestations of dampness can show up with many conditions and symptoms. Here are the common ways it shows up in the clinic:
Infections and inflammation
Oedema and swelling
Reproductive organ dysfunction - such as endometriosis, PCOS, fibroids and infertility
Joint pain and arthritis
Digestive system problems– such as bloating, abdominal discomfort, IBS and IBD
How is dampness treated in Chinese medicine?
Depending on the type of dampness, where the accumulation is and where it came from, different treatments will be applied. All treatments however, will usually include herbal medicine to clear dampness from the body. Because dampness causes blockages, treatment might also focus on moving Qi and blood throughout the body and relieve any pain. Acupuncture and herbal medicine may also be used to treat the underlying imbalance that caused the dampness to occur in the first place.
So there you have it, the concept of dampness (hopefully) demystified. As you can see it is a useful concept, that helps us to understand your symptoms and apply treatment correctly. Are there any other terms that your Chinese medicine practitioner says that you’d love to understand more about? Send me an email and I’ll write another blog! I’m passionate about sharing this medicine system in a way that we can all understand to help us all live healthier lives. It’s also good for our brains to learn to understand things from different perspectives!
If all this damp talk has resonated with you and you’re thinking that it might be the cause of your discomfort, come and witness the medicine in action and book in with me! I’d love to be of assistance.
