When you keep getting sick…

Do you keep getting sick? 🤒🤧

It’s like you just started to feel better and then the sore throat, runny nose, cough or achy body start again!

Ugh, what is that about??

There’s two main things at play here (looking through a Chinese Medicine lens):

1. A pathogen is unresolved, or

2. Our defences are not strong enough. 

In Chinese Medicine, colds and flus come about when there is a perfect intersection of defences being low and pathogenic factors being strong enough to get into the body. 

Ideally, a cold or flu is completely resolved by clearing out the pathogen and re-fortifying the body (hello rest, herbs and acupuncture!).

Oftentimes though, this doesn’t happen, because we don’t feel like we have the time and space to rest, or we can’t get to that acupuncture appointment, or we don’t have herbs to take. 

When this happens, a pathogen can stick around, rent-free in your body (rude 😒). 

Then, when we are next exposed to environmental pathogens (Cold, Wind, Heat, Damp, Dryness) or we are majorly stressed or under pressure at work and in life, it can dredge up the existing pathogen and bring it to the surface again and cold/flu 2.0 begins 😩

Another reason that we might be pendulum swinging between well and unwell repeatedly is that our Defensive Qi is weak and unable to adequately protect the body. 

If the Defensive Qi hasn’t got enough strength to protect the body, resilience against environmental pathogens and stress is reduced, and we can get sick. 

Our Defensive Qi can be weak constitutionally, but more likely it’s because of things like not enough sleep, overwork, exhaustion, and too much exposure to Cold via the environment, lack of sufficient clothing and diet. 

The good news is of course that acupuncture and herbal medicine are well-equipped to support either situation (yay!). 

I sound like a broken record but it’s prime time at the moment for these patterns to present, so if you need a little defence boost or need to clear something that’s lingering, make that appointment you’ve been meaning to make and let’s sort it out!