Gu Zheng

Gu Zheng

History/Translation

Hexagram eighteen (of the Yi Jing) is entitled Gu, translated as 'Degeneration'. It is formed by the trigram xun (wind) below and the trigram geng (mountain) above.... Interpretation:

a feeble wind not penetrating the base of a dense mountain creating a place not receiving air and thus becoming decayed and rotten

Gu = a cooking vessel remains unused for a long time and worms start to grow in it

Black Magic

Traditional medical texts define Gu as the verminous manifestation of evil that appears when a wide variety of toxic worms and insects are locked into a vessel, where they naturally become each others prey.After a period ranging from three to twelve months, only one snake-like worm remains, which is said to contain the vicious and toxic potential of all the others. The ‘seed’ of the ‘Gu worm’ (gu chong) is then ground up or administered in an unknown fashion to an unsuspecting individual. The victim of gu poisining appeared to die from a chronic disease, thereby regarded as a popular way to kill without exposing the attacker

In most texts gu zheng can be translated as demon syndrome equally as well as it can be rendered as parasite syndrome.

In medical texts, the character Gu most often describes a situation where the vessel of the human body is filled with thriving parasite populations that eventually bring about a state of extreme stagnation and mental and physical decay.

For our sake gu is a type of yin evil that does harm to people’s mental and physical well being

STRONG CONSTITUTION; chronic and debilitating digestive distress (gas, bloating, ascites, testicular swelling and pain, alternating diarrhea and constipation, irregularly shaped bowel movements, food allergies, etc); chronic aversion to wind, constant fluish sensation, wandering joint and/or muscle pain; chronic neurological symptoms(headaches, neck pain, sensation that something is stuck or embedded in the brain, muscle twitching, eyelid twitching, ticks, greatly enhanced sensitivity to noise and/or smell, altered taste, etc); gradually increasing mental-emotional symptoms (sudden mood swings, sensation of “feeling possessed,” anxiety, insomnia, depression, obsessive compulsive tendencies, etc)

Tongue: red, with damp yellow coating

Pulse: full, potentially rapid

C: Zi su ye, Bo he, Bai zhi, Dang gui, He shou wu, Huai hua

D: Lian qiao, Huang qi, Bei sha shen, Sheng di

A: Chai hu, Chuan xiong, Bai shao, Jue ming zi

Western Indications: all types of chronic and debilitating intestinal parasitism, including protozoan infections (amoeba, giardia, blastocystis,etc) and other degenerative infections (schistosomiasis, filiarisis, sheep and liver flukes, trichinosis,systemic candidiasis, brucellosis, etc); all types of chronic and debilitating nervous system inflammations (Lyme disease [borrelia burgdorferi] and other borrelia infections, tick fever [babesiosis, ehrlichiosis], Rocky Mountain spotted fever [rickettsia], bartonellosis, tick-borne encephalitis [FSME] and other formsof chronic encephalitis and meningitis, malaria, anaplasmosis, leptospirosis, West Nile virus, Dengue fever); chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia; HIV/AIDS

C: Dang gui

D: Zi su, Bo he, Bai Zhi, Huang qi, Gan cao, Wu jia pi, He shou wu, Bai he

A: Chen pi, Ze lan, San leng, E zhu

E: Ding xiang, Mu xiang

Freuhauf. Driving out Demons and Snakes

Flaws. Scatology and the Gate of Life

Gu vs Chong

Whether initiated by man-made Gu poisoning or by natural infection, a parasitic situation labelled as Gu syndrome traditionally warrants the presence of particularly vicious parasites, or a superinfection of many different kinds of parasites that combine their toxic potential to gradually putrefy the patient’s body and mind

Modern perspective for this definition of Gu syndrome points to an aggressive helminthic (worms), protozoan (giardia), fungal, spirochete (bacteria; Lyme disease) or viral afflictions that have become systemic in an immune-compromised patient (AIDS)

Historically, the term Gu was first introduced as a metaphor for stagnancy, debauchery, degeneration and hidden evil.

*extreme pathological yin*

Gu Zheng Dx:

Herbs

The primary prerequisite for Gu syndrome is that the person has some digestive distress, coupled with neurological distress, such as body pain or mental symptoms—light symptoms such as fogginess, or severe symptoms such as hallucinations—that are otherwise not explainable with Western medicine nor TCM diagnostic patternings such as SP Qi Xu or Phlegm misting the Heart

Pulse: floating and big pulse or choppy

Tongue: red tongue tip or red ‘parasite dots’, little red dots that generally cluster on the front third of the tongue (shining through a greasy tongue coating); stagnation in sublingual veins; rooted damp tongue coating

Categories:

1) San Du= Disperse toxins with mild diaphoretics; w/ acrid and cooling: Zi su ye, bo he...

2) Sha Chong=Kill parasite

3) An Shen= Calm shen; LU/HT qi and yin tonics: Huang jing, Bai he...

4) Bu Qi Xue= Tonify qi and xue; w/ acrid/detoxifiers: Dang gui, Gan cao...

5) Xingqi Poju= Move qi and xue; w/anti-parasitics: Chuan xiong, San leng...

Acupuncture

• apply vigorous garlic moxibustion to GaohuangshuBL-43• apply moxibustion to Feishu BL-13, Zusanli ST-36 and Guikuxie (Demon Wailing Point)* LU-11ish• Acupressure with menthol preparations on the ‘Thirteen Demon (or Ghost) Points’ (shisan guixie)

selectively needle the Thirteen Demon Points

Su He Tang

Types of Gu

Internal (Hidden) Excess Heat

Jia Jian Su He Tang

Qi and Xue Xu

SP/KD Yang Xu

Snake Gu (she gu): chronic protozoan infections and other debilitating diseases of the digestive system; protozoan and worms

aka Digestive Gu

Emaciation Gu (gan gu): leprosy and other degenerative diseases of the nervous system; spirocetes, viruses

aka Brain Gu

same symptomology

WEAK CONSTITUTION

Digestive Gu

abdominal cramping and/or pain, nausea, poor appetite or ravenous appetite, peculiar food cravings, bloating, gas, ascites, loose stools or alternating diarrhea and constipation, or strangely shaped bowel movements, intestinal bleeding and/or pus chronic lethargy, brain fogginess or psychological symptoms like bad dreams.

Classical Pearls (Freuhauf patents):

Lightning pearls, thunder pearls, dragon pearls

Gu Sx

Demon or Parasite Syndrome

Gu Diet

Brain Gu

digestive distress coupled with neurological distress

Avoid (during or after the Gu treatment): chicken, duck, fish, shrimp, snails, gecko, snakes, insects of all kinds. Also food items that “easily breed worms” should be avoided, especially all forms of sugar, honey, jujube dates and other sweet substances.

Consume in increased amounts: tofu, celery, cabbage, spinach, lotus root, shiso (perilla) leaves, peppermint, garlic, horseradish, ginger, bitter melon, black mu’er fungus, lychee, longan, oranges, tangerines, grapefruit, plums, pomegranates,watermelon, vinegar, green tea, lamb and pork.

body pain, anxiety, depression,headaches, eye aches, visual hallucinations,strange sensations that there is something stuck in their head, suicidal thoughts, fits of rage, restlessness, insomnia; general sense of muddledness and confusion, chaotic thought patterns; visual and/or auditory hallucinations; epileptic seizures; sensation of“feeling possessed.”

Candida Diet

Chong Zheng

> Roundworm Infection (Ascariasis): migratory route to respiratory tract

• Rx: wu mei wan, Tx: bai chong wo (Hundred Worm nest)
• Roundworm Inversion (Biliary)-GB,Bile Duct

> Tapeworm Infection(Taeniasis): longest size and duration, egg packets

• Rx: qu di tang (flusing expulsion)

>Pinworm Infection (Oxyuriasis/Enterobiasis):

• at the rectum, itchy anus
• Rx: shi jun zi da huang fen

> Hookworms (Ancylostomiasis): through skin, cause anemia