In Part 1 of this piece, I explained the Back Stories that motivated me to do a CMG Take on Lauren Axelrod’s epilepsy.
(I bummed out. I’m later editing this piece and adding in the related links. There was a great clip of Brian Williams of NBC News interviewing David Axelrod in his small office at the White House. David explained how much he missed his daughter, Lauren. He explained a painting by Lauren that hung predominantly in his office. It made me happy I spent so much time on a family like them. The specific clip is gone, but here’s a link to the entire series by Brian on a day in the Obama White House.)
Introduction:
A few months ago there was an excellent article in Parade Magazine about Lauren Axelrod’s epilepsy. I was unable to find other articles or videos that provided me with valuable information to do a CMG Take. I felt confident just based on the Parade piece, I could provide a valuable alternative Chinese Medicine view of Lauren’s epilepsy.
The research for Lauren’s epilepsy turned into an adventure, as detailed in the Back Stories, as I needed a new way to communicate what I knew about Chinese Medicine.
I don’t have enough information to explain Lauren Axelrod epilepsy as it pathologically changes over the course of her having seizure attacks for about 19 years. This lack of background information turned out to be a helpful, because just explaining her initial epileptic attacks was complicated enough to explain to anyone, especially Chinese Medicine beginners, which is the purpose of this website.
Above: The cover photo of Lauren and Susan Axelrod from the excellent Parade article mentioned above. Lauren’s face is superimposed on a baby’s body below to illustrate her epilepsy from a Chinese Medicine perspective. This blog is part of a series on people affected with epilepsy – so having the faces will help when I compare and contrast the different patient cases.
Relevant News Summary:
The following information was taken from the Parade article and will be used later for a CMG Take. The article was so well written, I’m only changed the extracted parts slightly for better flow, until toward the end, where I summarized things.
Lauren Axelrod was born perfectly healthy. Susan described her baby as adorable, healthy and perfect. When Lauren was 7 months old, the family’s lives changed overnight. Lauren had a (common) cold and she was very congested. It was impossible for the baby to sleep that night. In the morning, Susan found the baby gray and limp in her crib. Susan thought she was dead.
Susan was in shock, she picked Lauren up, and Lauren went into a seizure--arms extended, eyes rolling back in her head.
The Axelrods raced Lauren to the hospital. They stayed for a month. One moment, the baby was bright-eyed and friendly, only to be grabbed away from them the next, shaken by inner storms, starting and stiffening, hands clenched and eyes rolling. Unable to stop Lauren's seizures, doctors sent the family home.
The little girl was at risk of falling, of drowning in the bathtub, of dying of a seizure. Despite dozens of drug trials, special diets, and experimental therapies, Lauren suffered as many as 25 seizures a day. In between each, she would cry, "Mommy, make it stop!"
The excellent article goes onto explain some of the other problems it created for the little girl as she grew up. (I cried when I initially read it, and the tears are welling up now. I have insights on the following symptoms too, but it’s beyond the scope covered in this piece.)
Lauren lagged in abstract thinking and interpersonal skills. Her childhood was nearly friendless. The drugs Lauren took made her by turns hyperactive, listless, irritable, dazed, even physically aggressive. "We hardly knew who she was," Susan says. When she acted out in public, the family felt the judgment of onlookers.
Lauren had surgery, at age 17, in an attempt to cure her of the seizures. It didn’t work which motivated Susan to devote her life to finding a cure for epilepsy.
At about age 19, Lauren was put on a new anti-convulsion drug and she hasn’t had seizures since. Lauren is now age 27. While without seizures, she still has some problems -- like speaking slowly with evident impairment, problems with reading and math. Lauren said, “They make me hard with everything."
Thanks again Parade Magazine for your excellent and inspiring article.
CMG Overall Approach:
In Chinese Medicine, a patient sees a practitioner who evaluates what’s going on for the patient. The practitioner collects relevant information like I culled out above. Similar to Western Medicine, the practitioner then develops a diagnosis and a treatment approach.
In Western Medicine, the treatment often remains the same, like Lauren being on the same drug for her seizures for the last nine years. However, in Chinese Medicine, the treatment will often change over the life of the treatment with the goal being the body regaining its naturally healthy state, so no treatment of any kind is needed.
Likewise, the treatment for Lauren’s epilepsy would most likely be different, if she was treated the day after her first seizure or years later. From a Chinese Medicine perspective, untreated and unresolved problems often snowball from one pathological problem to another. I only have adequate information to make a good CMG Take on Lauren based on her initial epileptic seizure.
In China nowadays, a hospital has Chinese Medicine doctors and Western Medicine doctors working together for the patients’ best interest. I imagine Lauren coming to the hospital the next day after her first seizure. If the hospital staff is given the same information that was presented in the Parade article, I would bet that a Chinese Medicine approach would be taken for Lauren at that point.
CMG Diagnosis:
The diagnosis is wind/heat invading the body into the liver channel leading to liver heat stirring up liver wind that rises upward. The liver wind scatters the healthy qi creating phlegm. The phlegm rises upward with the liver wind to clog the brain, heart and throat.
Oh boy. How am I gonna explain what I just wrote above?
All I could think of while writing it was a Seinfeld episode where Kramer gets a common cold and goes to a whack job Chinese Medicine doctor. The doctor tells Kramer, he has wind/heat. Kramer is back in Jerry’s apartment attempting to explain wind/heat to Jerry and he does a pretty good job. Of course, it comes across as a total joke and I laughed too because it sounded ridiculous.
What I wrote above makes total sense to me, so give me a chance to lead you step-by-step through this new (although not really new) Promiseland. It’s really no different from learning something new -- like computers. You need to learn the lingo and then follow along slowly each logical step until the conclusion. Then see if it works in real life -- like seeing if the patient gets better as diagnosed and treated. Unfortunately, we don’t have Lauren Axelrod here at age 7 months old to get rid of her seizures to show that Chinese Medicine would work for her.
But maybe one day years from now, another little baby girl just starting to have seizures will go to a hospital and be treated by a Chinese Medicine practitioner using this formula, or another one, healing her and saving her from 18 years of misery.
Lauren was only 7 months old when she started to have seizures. In Chinese Medicine, one of the reasons babies are so susceptible to serious problems is that they’re so fragile and so easily prone to be injured. Like a lot of very old people, babies don’t have a lot of qi in their body to protect themselves from invasion from the outside environment.
As a result, an invasion can go unchecked by the body’s defenses allowing the pathogens to go deeper into the body causing other symptoms and more serious problems. Lauren was a healthy child up until the seizures, but she still was a fragile child, like all 7 month-old babies.
This is a valid reason why Moms often get afraid of their little babies having any physical problems as the problem can quickly escalate. In Chinese Medicine invasions from the environment are considered wind invasion, as the wind carries things like pollen, bacteria or viruses into the body. (Historically, Chinese Medicine doesn’t think in terms like pollen, viruses and bacteria. However, in Modern China, there are serious efforts to learn from Western Medicine and incorporate it into Chinese Medicine without adversely changing Chinese Medicine in the process.)
Sooo. . . wind is a pathogen and it often carries other pathogens into the body. It commonly carries the pathogens cold or heat into the body resulting in different symptoms for each one. Heat pathogen might have symptoms like high fever or a quickly moving disease progression. A Cold pathogen might be related with feeling chilly, wanting to pile on the blankets or a more slowly moving disease progression.
Lauren’s sickness had a very quick disease progression. In just one night, the baby went to the symptoms of a common cold to the next morning of having seizures and looking dead in the crib. Due to this quickly moving disease progression, the pathogen initially invading Lauren was wind, the carrier, and heat simply called -- wind/heat.
Above: Lauren as a little baby is invaded by the pathogens wind and heat. Simply called wind/heat.
Above: Lauren is invaded by wind/heat. However, being a baby her body’s defenses are low, so she can be overwhelmed by the pathogen. She has few Pacmen to naturally protect herself – whereas, a healthy adult would have many more Pacmen to protect themselves.
Wind/heat is often related to a common cold. In most people, the disease progression of wind/heat is the symptoms one often associates with a common cold in the West. The body often then heals itself, with or without medical intervention, by getting rid of the pathogens during the natural healing process.
Again, Lauren is a fragile baby with very little qi to defend herself, which is somewhat analogous to babies having weak immune systems from a Western Medicine viewpoint. The wind/heat goes deeper into Lauren’s body causing more havoc because the natural defenses in Lauren are weak. Just like the Chinese can waltz in and take over Tibet filled with a bunch of defenseless monks and peasants.
The wind/heat pathogens can go any number of places in the body causing problems there. A Chinese Medicine practitioner determines where the pathogen has been and where it currently is based on the symptoms and signs that appear over the disease period. The symptoms reflect what body systems the pathogens are screwing up.
In Lauren’s case, she had a collection of symptoms indicating the pathogen of wind/heat that was going into the liver channels. Uncontrolled body movements are often related with dysfunction in the liver channel, but not always. Uncontrolled body movements are also often related with wind, but not always. Not always should be Chinese Medicine’s middle name. Its first name should be: “Collecting all relevant symptoms and signs and then figuring out how all of them tie together into a diagnostically coherent whole and manifesting in all of the symptoms.”
Sooo. . . Lauren has wind/heat that invaded her body. It quickly got past the surface defense because it moves on from a common cold to something more serious. This wind/heat had to go somewhere, otherwise the baby would have recovered indicating Lauren’s body naturally got rid of the pathogens wind/heat.
The wind/heat went into the liver channel. The liver channel is inclined to be a magnet to pathogenic wind. The heat comes with the wind into the liver channel. The heat and the wind screw up the natural functions of where ever they end up -- and in this case -- the liver.
Seizures. In Chinese Medicine, the liver is responsible for proper contraction and relaxation of the tendons in the body. When the liver is functioning, the muscles and tendons work. However, the pathogenic wind results in uncontrollable movement of these tendons. Wherever the wind travels, it makes these tendons/muscles contract uncontrollably -- resulting in seizures.
Above: Seizures. Wind moves uncontrollably through Lauren’s body and whenever it passes over tendons/muscles it causes them to strongly contract -- causing seizures. The muscles/tendons contracting, wherever the wind is located, is indicated by the image of a baby having a seizure.
The wind and heat in the liver channel are pathological movements that result in scattering the natural flow of qi. The qi can no longer properly circulate the fluids in the body so fluids start to build up creating phlegm.
Wind and heat’s predominate pathological nature is to rise upward -- like heat rises to the attic of a house in summer making it unbearably hot. Wind takes things with it -- like on a windy day the wind will knock the leaves off the tree and take the leaves down the street along with the flow of the wind. Just like the wind initially carried pathogens into Lauren’s body starting her problems.
Congestion. The wind was pathologically rising upward toward the heart, head, brain and throat. The wind inside of Lauren took the phlegm upward into her throat and sinuses resulting in her being congested.
Above: Congestion. In (1) above, wind’s main pathological movement is upward into the head. In (2) above, wind takes the phlegm upward into the sinuses and throat resulting in Lauren feeling congested as indicated by little girls blowing their noses.
Unable to Sleep. The wind and heat rising into the heart and the brain make these organs pathologically overactive resulting in Lauren’s inability to sleep. Much like someone who has a common cold with a high fever will be unable to sleep -- even though that person is exhausted and desperate to sleep. This situation is similar to living in Chicago on a hot August night without air conditioning—anyone who has experienced this knows sleep is difficult – if not impossible. Heat can make one restless and unable to sleep.
More on Seizures. Sooo. . . When wind moves, it results in uncontrollable movement. Wind is inclined to rise upward. Wind also hates to be contained. As wind quickly moves through the entire body and as it passes over the tendons/muscles, it causes these muscles to contract creating seizures.
Wind tends to appear and disappear -- like the total stillness one feels before a storm having high winds. While wind is inclined to rise upward, its nature is to not be contained. Therefore, it can go anywhere in the body -- much like watching a football game on TV as the announcers feebly attempt to describe the wind direction at New York Giants Stadium. It might be incline to go in one direction -- but not always. Sometimes it appears to be swirling in many directions all at once -- much like the uncontrollable seizures of different muscles in Lauren’s body as a baby.
Wind comes and goes without any predictable pattern – such was the case with Lauren as a baby: one minute she’s a happy, healthy baby and then she’s having a seizure and being rushed to the hospital.
Wind is a pathological movement. When Susan attempted to pick up Lauren the next day to take care for her, this extra movement of the caring mom set off the wind inside of Lauren’s body leading to seizure attacks.
Looking imp and lifeless. Lauren was a baby with little qi. And the little qi she had was being scattered by the wind in her body -- like high winds that take down power lines disrupting the natural flow of electricity/energy/qi through these wires. When the wind temporarily died down in Lauren’s body, she had little healthy qi left in her body, so she would appear lifeless in the crib between seizure episodes.
Above: Looking limp and lifeless. In (1) above, Lauren being a baby didn’t have a great deal of qi in her body as indicated by a less than half-filled gas tank. A good deal of healthy qi was consumed by the seizure itself and the pathological scattering of the healthy qi by the wind/heat. This resulted in (2) above, with Lauren’s gas tank of qi running on low. Qi is needed to feel alert and full of life, which Lauren didn’t have after an intense seizure attack resulting in her looking limp and lifeless in the crib.
Eyes Rolling Back. Wind is prone to pathologically rise up and it takes things with it. During a seizure attack, the wind was moving upwards into Lauren’s eyes moving the eyeballs upwards too -- resulting in the eyes rolling back into Lauren’s head.
That’s it. That ties all the symptoms together as explained in the Parade magazine. If Susan and David brought Lauren into the hospital and that was all the information I was able to obtain, this would be my Chinese Medicine Diagnosis.
The next step is to treat the baby her first day in the hospital, which is the point in time the diagnosis is based on.
CMG Treatment Background:
I’m obviously passionate about Chinese Medicine and within Chinese Medicine, I am even more passionate about treatments by herbs and herb formulas. I taught these subjects at a Chinese Medicine school. I’ve spent many years just focusing on this aspect of Chinese Medicine. Acupuncture could help Lauren, but I want to focus on my strength -- just like some Chinese Medicine practitioners might practice just herbs or acupuncture depending on their talents and passions.
Fortunately, I have studied with Chinese Medicine masters and in particular two of the lead authors of a masterpiece book on Chinese Herbal Formulas. I’m standing on this book’s shoulders, for sure. Without this book, there would be no epilepsy blog entries or anything like it. I’m not exaggerating.
As I researched Lauren’s case and all the other epilepsy cases, to be presented in future blog entries, this book was my constant companion. I used it to develop a diagnosis and treatment plan for Lauren. The process is not as linear as described in this blog entry.
Without this formula book, I wouldn’t have figured out the Lauren’s diagnosis or treatment. I needed a masterpiece book to reference to get me through the research. The authors stood on the shoulders of 2,000 plus years of Chinese Medicine history to compile their book.
This book is way too advanced for a beginner. It just is. I still reference the formula used in this book, as a way of taking more accomplished Chinese Medicine students to a much deeper level many years from now. I want to give credit where it belongs and it’s not with me. I’m just putting the words in that book into more accessible language. It’s like Dr Oz on Oprah explaining an important biochemistry point that I get, but if I read it in a Western Medicine textbook, I’d be clueless.
Enough of the treatment background. Onward.
CMG Treatment:
The formula chosen for Lauren on her first day in the hospital is called in Chinese, “Feng Yin Tang”. In English, it’s called “Wind Drawing Decoction” as to draw in/reign in the pathological wind from causing havoc in the body. The formula is on page 639 of the Chinese Herbal Formulas book. The formula contains 12 herbs. The formula’s purpose is to extinguish the wind, clear the heat and to calm the spirit. I won’t go into detail how each herb in the formula plays it’s important role in achieving the formula’s overall purposes. This is way too detailed, but years from now I’d love to teach it to interested students.
I want to show how this formula would ideally getting rid of all the symptoms Lauren experienced, so Lauren would recover completely. Ideally, after the initial treatment she would not require any medicines or herbs at all. She’d return to the same happy health self she was before having the initial disease.
Let’s take each of the symptoms Lauren had and show in detail how the formula gets rid of them.
Seizures. The most important one first -- the seizures. Wind in the liver channel was traveling through out her entire body causing the seizures. The formula puts out this liver wind by using herbs that are heavy and enter the liver channel to anchor down the wind. Much like throwing an anchor overboard to help steady a ship uncontrollably rocking by the wind. The heat in the liver channel can also lead to liver wind -- just like during Hurricane Katrina, the greater the heat over the ocean became, the stronger the related wind got. So cold herbs are used to enter into the liver channel to cool off and clear away the heat there. Just like adding cold air conditioning can put out the heat in a hot room.
Congestion. The wind and heat were scattering the healthy qi making the qi non-functional. The fluids were no longer naturally circulated by the qi leading to fluids accumulating creating phlegm. By putting out the wind and clearing away the heat, the qi will no longer will be pathologically scattered. The qi will again naturally move the fluids in the body so that no phlegm is created. Without phlegm and without the wind to bring it upward into the sinuses, the congestion will naturally go away.
Unable to sleep. By putting out the wind and clearing away the heat, neither of these pathogens is still present in the body to rise up to the brain and heart, creating sleeping problems. Sleep problems caused by making the heart and brain pathologically overactive, like the wind and heat did, often need additional herbs to calm the spirit. (In Chinese Medicine, the spirit is closely related with the brain and heart.). By doing all these things, sleep naturally returns.
Looking limp and lifeless. The wind and heat were scattering the baby’s healthy qi. Lauren being a baby didn’t have a lot of qi -- even when healthy, as babies typically need a great deal of sleep to build up their resources including qi. By putting out the wind and clearing away the heat, the qi no longer will be pathologically scattered. The qi will again be functional allowing the baby to naturally look alive and active.
Eyes rolling upwards. By putting out the wind and clearing away the heat, neither of these pathogens is still present in the body to rise up into the eyes to move them rolling upwards.
Summary. The formula put out the liver wind, cleared away the liver heat and calmed the spirit. The formula eliminated Lauren’s pathogens that were causing the symptoms. The baby could regain her natural healthy state without any seizures or accompanying symptoms. Ideally, Lauren wouldn’t need any more herbs. She wouldn’t need any Western Medicine because she wouldn’t have any seizures. The pathological processes were corrected, allowing natural and healthy body processes to return to her including a seizure-free life.
Western Medicine often wants to compensate for the body’s pathological processes. The Western Meds Lauren has been on for the last 9 years hasn’t corrected the pathological processes creating the seizure or she wouldn’t needs these anti-seizure Meds.
In contrast, Chinese Medicine assists the body, via a herbal formula in Lauren’s case, to correct the body’s pathological processes, so natural healthy body functioning can return requiring no medicine of any kind.
CMG Related Blog Entries:
Hey Barack: Health News Events -- Quick Shots in the “More Headaches in Warmer Weather” section. More people go to the emergency room for treatment of headaches in warmer weather. As heat is absorbed into the body by the warm weather and the heat rises to the head creating a headache. In Lauren’s epilepsy piece, the heat, along with the wind, was also pathologically rising to the head. In Lauren’s case the wind and heat were bringing phlegm up with it causing congestion. Also, the heat was rising into Lauren’s brain and heart making her unable to sleep. Similarly in warmer weather, it is difficult to sleep well in a hot room as the heat is agitating the brain and heart.
Ivory Tower: Cold Hands & Feet. In Lauren’s piece, the herbal treatment is considered as whole. It does not show how each of the 12 herbs in the formula each individually play their unique role in achieving the overall formula’s functions. The Cold Hand & Feet blog entry was one of the earliest and most time-consuming blog entry. It contained a slide show with voiceover from yours truly. The voiceover explained among other things, how each of the herbs in the formula achieved it’s overall purpose within the herbal formula. This is the only blog entry that goes down to an individual herb level -- as it was too detailed and time consuming to create for all blog entries. However, it is a nice example what could be done for all blog entries containing an herbal formula.
