Blog & Columns
Useful information about health and Korean medicine.
Total 23 posts
The Exact Meaning of 'Your Tests Are Normal' — How Reference Ranges Are Made
The normal range is an interval cut from the middle 95% of healthy people. That's why kidney function can drop by half and still register as 'normal.' Tests look at items. And the place where you are struggling may be not an item but a chain formed by stringing items together.
If the Name of Your Illness Changes Every Time You Switch Hospitals
The diagnosis changing from hospital to hospital isn't because there's something wrong with you, nor because the doctors are mistaken. A diagnosis is a label seen through each one's own window. Instead of adding one more name, I look at what tilted, and in what order.
When You Breathe, Does Your Pelvis Move Along Too?
If groin pain, recurring cystitis and vaginitis, and a feeling that things are about to drop out come together, it may be a problem of one single place. When the pressure wave of the breath cannot reach the pelvis, that space pools and dries. I look first at how far the breath goes.
Two Ways to Calm Inflammation
For long-standing inflammation, forcefully putting out the fire doesn't work well. It's because the signal that keeps calling the embers back is still there. Before anti-inflammation, I first look at why the alarm keeps going off.
Why Does Long-Standing Diarrhea Drain Your Energy Too?
Long-standing diarrhea is not a problem of the gut alone. Absorption collapses, energy is cut off, and the hands and feet turn cold. I trace this sequence backward to find the place for treatment.
The Misunderstanding Behind Saying 'My Body Is Cold'
If you see cold hands and feet as a problem of temperature, then warming them becomes the answer. I see it as a problem of response. Tissue that has stalled does not start moving again just because you warm it.
When a Full Belly Makes Your Chest Tight and Your Heart Race
The heart exam always comes back normal. Yet every time your belly is full, your chest tightens and your breath grows shallow. The belly and the chest sit stuck together with only a thin membrane between them.
If You Find It Especially Hard to Get Up in the Morning
There is a fatigue that does not recover even after sleep. When the regulatory hormone that has sustained the body is spent over a long time, the morning becomes the hardest part.
Same Disease — Why Do I Treat Each Person Differently?
Even with the same disease name, the place that broke down first is different. I look not at the name of the disease, but at which axis broke down first.
What Time Does in a Long-Standing Illness
The same stimulus produces different results depending on how fast and how long it was applied. Time is not the backdrop of illness; it is one of the axes that create it.
The Illness That Returns When You Stop the Medicine
If you are fine only while taking the medicine and it returns when you stop, it was not that the medicine was insufficient. It was that the environment stayed the same.
Immunity Is Decided in the Gut
We often say that immunity has dropped. I look at where the baseline of that immunity is set. The place where the body's immune cells gather in the greatest numbers is the gut.