Dampness in Traditional Chinese Medicine | How Does it Look Like and How to Treat it.

I’m sifting through my books right now and I came upon a summary I did about Dampness in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), it reminded me of a conversation I had with my cousin a couple of weeks ago giving her a free consultation (that’s what happens for studying medicine) because she was catching a cold and the phlegm was bothering her a lot. I told her to stop eating sugary foods and ice creams because that would cause Dampness in her lungs worsening the phlegm. She didn’t understand a word I said so I thought it would be good to explain what TCM means when it says Dampness.

Dampness is a Pathogenic Factor that refers to damage to your body’s capacity to properly metabolize fluids, creating a buildup of them and causing a wealth of symptoms and signs. Dampness is characterized by a general sensation of heaviness and feelings of sluggishness. It can be caused by an external factor like excessive sugar consumption or a damp environment, or by an internal factor like a disturbance in the Spleen functioning (Spleen Qi deficiency). Dampness interferes with the body’s natural rhythm by bogging down and stagnating its processes.

​What is Dampness in Traditional Chinese Medicine

Dampness is a Pathogenic Factor according to TCM theory, it is one of the causes of disease and it is of Yin nature. It happens most in the late summer when it is raining and the climate turns damp, according to the Five Elements theory it is part of the Earth Element, late summer, and with the Spleen Organ network, keep this last one in mind because it is important.

Dampness attacks the body and creates a damp environment, it can be an External factor or an Internal one depending on their origin. External Dampness can be caused by living in a damp environment, by continuous contact with water either by the circumstances of your job or by wearing wet clothes all day due to sweating. Dampness tends to be sticky, tends to have weight, and tends to bog down the body’s functions.

When thinking about how Dampness manifests in the body I want you to think about a damp liquid, thicker than water, sticky. Think about a humid environment, not a wet one.

Imagine you are going to wash the dishes after eating, and suddenly you have to take care of an emergency and leave home, leaving the dishes covered in water. At night when you get back home you find the dishes have a crust in them that needs some effort to get off. Dampness works the same way, and sometimes it can lead to chronic entities.

With that in mind let’s see how it manifests and how you can spot it.

​Symptoms

As I said, Dampness tends to be sticky, tends to have weight, and is thick. When dampness enters the body, all of those qualities interfere with your body’s functioning. That’s why your body feels heavier, especially your head which feels like you have a towel wrapped around it. The Chinese say it feels like in a sack.

Given that in Traditional Chinese Medicine everything that attacks the body also affects the mind, I’m going to describe the signs and symptoms of Dampness in your body and mind. I will separate them for better clarity but keep in mind that they happen together at various levels.

​Body

Starting from Dampness’s characteristics: sticky, thick, weighty, and lingering, we can have a clearer view of how it affects the body. A healthy body maintains a smooth flow of Qi, Blood, and Fluids, all in their right amounts. Dampness creates an environment with its qualities (sticky, thick, weighty, and lingering).

The most notable sign of someone with this Pathogenic factor is that they avoid or fear Damp environments. This is a general rule of thumb that applies to all of the Weathers.

Once it penetrates the body and begins to bog down the flow of the substances, the body begins to feel a general lassitude and a sensation of overall heaviness. The ‘Nei Jing’ explains that Dampness tends to go downwards, so the lower body will be the first part affected by it.

That’s why the limbs will feel sore and heavy because of the buildup of Dampness in them. In the skin, it will cause oozing ulcers and abscesses. It can also cause pain, swelling, and soreness in the joints.

Dampness has the most affinity with and affects the Spleen network the most therefore interfering with its functions. The Spleen likes to work in a dry environment, when Dampness invades it will impair its functioning preventing the Spleen from carrying out its function of extracting nutritive essence from food, this causes symptoms like sensations of fullness in the abdomen, bloating, indigestion, and lack of appetite.

Dampness can also manifest as an excessive deposit of adipose tissue (Increased body fat).

This pathogenic factor interferes with the proper flow of Qi causing it to stagnate, this causes a sensation of fullness in the chest, nausea, and vomiting. As well as a sweet taste in the mouth (the taste related to Spleen and Earth is sweet).

Dampness affects the distribution of fluids and moisture around the body which creates a vicious cycle of dampness affecting moisture and thus creating more dampness. This then causes the secretions and excretions from the body to become thicker and more abundant: the sensation of sand in the eyes, turbid urination, copious vaginal discharge, leukorrhea, coughing with phlegm, and expectoration.

Just like the crust on your dish, this Pathogenic factor has the characteristic of being lingering and being difficult to treat and can tend to chronicity.

​Mind

Given that this pathogenic factor affects the Spleen the most, the Spleen Shen (Yi) is going to be affected too. The Yi is in charge of clear thinking, decision-making, pondering possibilities, of a conscious assessment of the self and the world around them.

Picture your psyche and mind as having a transparent glass between your mind and the world. When you have a healthy mind your thinking and emotions are clear and well communicated. With Dampness, that glass becomes turbid and blurry giving rise to psychological symptoms.

When invaded by Dampness, clear thinking becomes impossible leading the person to fall into excessive rumination and worry (which is the Emotion that affects the Spleen), the person becomes unable to make decisions for themselves, and suffers from mental unclearness.

Emotionally, the person becomes over-nurturing, prioritizes helping others to the point of self-neglecting, and behaves in a clinging way (like a walking bubble gum), this exemplifies the archetype of an unhealthy Earth-type. A person with this factor affecting their Shen will notice that the activities that once were rewarding no longer are.

​Examples of Diseases by Dampness

Now you have learned how Dampness affects your body. Let’s take a look at some examples of defined Western entities that fall into the definition of diseases caused by Dampness or with elements of it within them.

It is important to note that there are almost no pattern in Traditional Chinese Medicine that is composed by just one Pathogenic factor alone. Almost always there will be a combination of two or more. Many of the diseases you will see have traits of other Pathogenic factors.

Here are the diseases:

• Asthma: Characterized by heavy coughing with expectoration and phlegm.
• Common cold: Coughing with phlegm, expectoration, fever, all traits of Dampness (fever being a trait of an External factor invading).
• Shingles: It is a disease that has elements of Dampness in it, the fluid-filled skin lesions, especially in the lower body.
• Abscesses: As said before.
• SIBO (Small Intestine Bacterial Overgrowth): Characterized by bloating, poor digestion, gases, and diarrhea, includes components of Dampness.

• Pneumonia: A bacterial infection of the Lungs that courses with heavy coughing, phlegm, and expectoration. It has elements of this pathogenic factor in it.
• Fluid retention: As Dampness interferes with the distribution and diffusion of the Fluids in the body, one outcome is fluid retention.
• Obesity, increased body fat: Traditional Chinese Medicine sees the accumulation of body fat as stagnant dampness, this affects the Spleen and its digestive function which is why many overweight and obese people have digestive problems and poor metabolism, this in turn creates more Dampness hence the need for maintaining a healthy body.
• Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs): Certain infections that include heavy and turbid urination have Dampness components in them.
• Vaginal infections: The ones that concur with leukorrhea such as yeast infection can be defined as having dampness components in them.

​

​Causes

Now let’s get into some important facts because of course you want to know what causes Dampness so you can avoid it, right?

This Pathogenic factor can be caused by simple things like living in a lowly placed damp environment like a basement (or being locked in a wine cellar for a long time), to more complicated causes like an affected Spleen network. Let’s go over some of the most common:

• Damp environment: This is the most obvious one. The constant aggression of the environment overcomes your body’s protective Qi and invades it. However, living in a damp environment does not necessarily have the outcome of Dampness. You can live in a damp place and develop a Cold pattern.
• Working in water: If by your job’s circumstances, you have to spend a considerable amount of time inside water you are in a high-risk state of developing a Dampness pattern.
• Excessive sweating: Shares the same reasoning as the previous cause, if you sweat a lot and you cannot change your clothes that often you are at greater risk of developing that kind of pattern.
• Greasy foods: Excessive consumption of greasy foods creates Dampness by straining your digestive system and affecting your Spleen Qi. Greasy and fried foods must be avoided by people with Dampness.
• Ice cream and sweets: Work the same as the greasy foods. Must also be avoided.
• Spleen Qi deficiency: When the functioning of the Spleen gets affected by a deficient Qi the Spleen cannot extract the nutritive essence and transport it for creating the vital substances, this creates a damp environment that leads to the onset of a Dampness pattern.
• Digestive overload: The Stomach (coupled organ to the Spleen) needs space to properly ripe and digest food. If it gets overwhelmed, whether by copious amounts of food or by too much snacking, it will put a strain on it and the Spleen as well, causing eventually the onset of Dampness. This is why you must respect meal times and avoid excessive amounts of food.
• Excessive seating: This behavior strains your Earth Element (your Spleen and Stomach), when taken past the normal range, sitting for long hours depletes your Spleen Qi potentially leading to the apparition of Dampness.

These are not all of the causes of Dampness but the most common ones. Keep an eye on them, assess yourself, and see where you are letting yourself go.

​A Public Health Concern

You must have noticed that many of the causes and manifestations of Dampness are very common nowadays to the point of being a huge public health concern. There is a roaming obesity epidemic in the Western world like there has never been before, people are spending most of their waking hours sitting whether at a desk or at home, thus creating a breeding ground for Dampness to settle in.

To make matters worse, more and more highly processed and sugary foods are becoming more predominant in our diets, substituting sometimes necessary foods like meat, fruits, and vegetables.

As an old Chinese saying goes: ‘A hundred diseases begin in the Stomach’ highlighting the need for proper nutrition.

Now let’s dive in into what we can do to prevent or treat it.

​How to treat it

Dampness is a difficult entity to deal with and it can take longer to treat it. Traditional Chinese Medicine follows an intuitive approach to deal with the Pathogenic factors:

• What is cold must be warmed, and vice versa.
• Dampness must be dried.
• Dryness must be moistened.
• The wind must be dispelled.

In the case of Dampness, the core objectives are to disperse Dampness, and tonifying the Spleen, Qi, and Stomach.

​Diet

If you want to get rid of Dampness you must follow these tips:

• Avoid sugar: Excess sugary foods are one of the main causes of Dampness in your body. Avoid sweets, ice creams, and any other sugary food you can think of.
• Avoid fried and greasy foods: As discussed earlier, fried foods and greasy foods create Dampness and strain the Spleen. Stay away from those foods, for now, that also include sauces.
• Apply the Hara Hachi Bu principle: This is a Japanese principle used in blue zones like Okinawa that says you must eat up until your stomach is 80% full. This gives your stomach plenty of space to digest properly therefore avoiding the creation of Dampness.
• Follow the Organ Clock: Don’t eat after 7 pm, from 7 pm to 9 pm is the time of the day when the Spleen is at its lowest energy point, and symptoms of deficiency like bloating and poor indigestion are most likely to happen at this point. To avoid stressing and harming your Spleen, don’t eat after the sun has set. This will also help you lose weight and act as a type of intermittent fasting.
• Eat drying foods: If you want to get rid of Dampness then you have to dry it. Foods like onions, ginger (raw or roasted), cooked yams, and asparagus are ideal. Avoid using excessive oils.

​Herbal Therapy

This is a selection of herbs you can use to disperse Dampness and tonify Qi.

• Raw ginger skin
• Cinnamon twig,
• Astragalus
• Ginseng
• Tangerine or orange peels

​Exercise

Physical exercise is also a great way to promote the dispersing of Dampness and to strengthen your digestion and Qi. Doing cardiovascular exercises like jogging, riding a bicycle, taking aerobics classes will help you lose weight and also get rid of Dampness.

Another set of exercises is Qi Gong routines like the Baduanjin (8 Brocade), and the Five Animals Play which will move our Qi and increase our vitality. Perform them until you are breaking a sweat and feel better.

​Acupuncture

Here is a selection of points you can use to disperse Dampness from your body. Massage each point for three to five minutes three times a day.

• Spleen 6: Located 3 cun (4 finger breadths) above the tip of your inner ankle, just below the edge of the tibia.
• Spleen 9: Keep moving upwards from Spleen 6 along the edge of the tibia until you get to a curve, that is the condyle of the tibia, there is the point.

• Stomach 36: Place your four fingers below your kneecap, your lowest finger must be in the tip of the tibia, now move outwards 1 cun (1 thumb breadth) in the direction of the tibialis anterior muscle. There is Stomach 36.

• Gallbladder 34: It is located lateral to Stomach 36, 2 cun to the outside of the leg, in the depression anterior, and distal to the head of the fibula.

All of these points help disperse Dampness by promoting urination, better digestion, and tonifying your Qi.

​Final thoughts

Dampness is a Pathogenic factor that is becoming more and more common each day. It is particularly difficult to deal with and it tends to produce chronic entities. Spotting the symptoms early on will give you an advantage and higher chances of quicker recovery.

You need to combine food and herbal therapy along with exercise and Acupuncture for better results.

Hope you have learned something new today. Make sure to share this article so you can also help others.

See you in the next post!