Health Blog
Written by Dr. Heo Ji-young. Each piece takes a single symptom and follows what is actually happening in the body.
Aching, Stinging, Cold — These Are All Different Words
There is no sensor fitted to the body dedicated to 'throbbing'. A feeling comes out of which few kinds of sensor have switched on and in what proportion. So the words a person uses are not clumsy description — they are a clue.
Sweat Is Not Only for Cooling You Down
When blood gathers at an injured place, fluid between the tissues increases. But the body is not a sack — it is a compartment, and when fluid increases the pressure rises, and that pressure in turn presses on the vessels and the lymphatics from outside. The pores are the valve that lets that pressure out.
The Swelling Has Gone Down, but It Still Feels Stiff
That an injured place turns red, swells, and grows warm is not three faults but the outward look of one piece of work — the work of sending more blood to that place. Pain alone is switched on somewhat differently, and recovery falls behind not on the sending side but on the side that gathers back what was sent.
Your Back Hurts, and I Look at Your Foot
The body works out what posture it is in through sensation. When you are standing, the place that information leans on heavily is the sole of the foot and the ankle. When the information goes blurry, the calculation that keeps you balanced wavers, and the burden of that is usually felt somewhere else.
What You Can Tell by Laying a Hand on the Belly
When you breathe in, the pressure inside the abdomen rises. And that risen pressure helps with breathing out. The belly is not a load that gets in the way of breathing but the place holding one side of the breath, so laying a hand on it lets you feel whether that work is going well.
They Say They Have No Energy — So Why Are They So Oversensitive?
A child is worn out, yet reacts strongly to small things. You would think that when strength drains away they would go quiet, but instead they get louder. This place, where reactions grow larger as reserves shrink, is something Korean medicine has long had a name for, and modern pharmacology has a name for it too.
When Period Pain Is Bad Enough to Keep Her Out of School
Period pain comes from a substance made inside the uterus squeezing the uterus hard. The squeezing reduces blood flow, and the place where it is reduced becomes painful. This is also why painkillers work well, and it is the same point that I work on.
He Says His Stomach Hurts Only at School
There are children who are fine at home but say their stomach hurts and their breathing feels tight the moment they get to school. The body has read the situation in advance and gone into a state of readiness, and that state does not touch only one place. This is why the stomach and the breath come together.
Since Starting Daycare, She Has Had One Cold After Another
A child who has started daycare catches colds often and does not eat well. These two are not separate matters. Losing one's appetite while ill is something the body does, and so the order of recovery is set as well.
My Child Gets Nosebleeds Often
A child's nosebleeds usually come from the same spot. It is a place at the front of the nasal septum where blood vessels gather close to the surface. If they come often, you have to look at what state the lining of that spot is in, and the knack for stopping them depends on the spot as well.
No Matter How I Wake Him, He Cannot Get Up in the Morning
Past the upper elementary years, a child cannot get up in the morning. It is easy to see this as having become lazy, but at this age the body's clock really does shift later. That it stays that way even when they are given plenty of sleep has been confirmed in the laboratory.
Bruising Easily When the Blood Tests Are Normal
Bruises appear on the forearm with no memory of bumping into anything. The blood tests come back normal, which makes it more frustrating. In these cases I look not at the blood, but at what used to hold the vessels up.