My grandfather, a TCM master, gave me three precious inheritances on the day he left: first, the experience of shrimp swimming in the vein, second, the characteristics of sweating, and third, a medical recipe.
That day, when I walked into the room, my grandfather's face was rosy, but I keenly felt a sense of desolation. He told me that this was the shrimp swimming pulse, the kind of pulse that moved and stopped, hidden under the skin, a sign of impending death.
I held my grandfather's hand, teary-eyed, and felt the sweat – cold and sticky. And that worn-out note became a guide light for me to walk the path of medicine, allowing me to step in the footsteps of my predecessors without losing my way.
I remember that spring, a hypertensive patient came to me. 8 years of high blood pressure history, several years of antihypertensive drugs, seems to have failed to control this high pressure. His body, like a frozen river, and his blood pressure that could not go up and down, made him uneasy day and night.
So, I prepared for him according to the recipe in my grandfather's notes: ephedra, aconite, spices, hawthorn, ox knee, kudzu. In just a few weeks, his body began to change, his blood pressure gradually returned to normal, and symptoms such as dizziness and cold limbs disappeared.
Why does this recipe work? In short, high blood pressure is like a river frozen, so what we need is a way to heat the river. This "heat source" in Chinese medicine is yang qi.
Ephedra, aconite and fine spices in the formula, their role is to replenish yang, restore the temperature in the body, so that the blood can flow smoothly; Hawthorn, ox knee and kudzu, on the other hand, are responsible for regulating blood circulation and ensuring that blood flows unimpeded.
Sometimes, conventional wisdom is really so magical.
Today, I continue this legacy and hope that those ancient remedies will continue to help more people. And my grandfather's teachings will always be engraved in my heart, guiding me forward.