Excessive sweating and facial flushing
forum post
Excessive sweating and facial flushing
Published on 03-05-2012
"anon34981" - this is their first post.
For my whole life I've suffered with severe facial flushing and excessive sweating. Over the last year I've been seriously looking into finding a remedy, but so far my efforts have yielded nothing. I was hoping someone here could help me.
First I should mention that I'm slim, and reasonably fit (I'm a Yoga teacher). I have a healthy diet (veggetarian, lots of fruit and vegetables and nuts, not much dairy), and don't drink or smoke.
My symptoms: with mild physical excertion I will start to sweat and flush. (By mild I mean walking for 10 mintues.) If the weather is hot I sweat and flush profusely - particularly in humid heat. However, I also can't handle the cold - my feet get cold very easily, but even in snowing weather when I walk for a couple of minutes I will sweat and flush. even though I don't feel like I'm exerting myself physically. I also flush when I'm tired, nervous, embarassed, dehydrated... anything really!
I feel thirsty all the time, and my mouth feels dry, but my body can't seem to retain the water - I pee most of it out, and have dry hair and skin - particularly on my lips. I have a tendency towards IBS, or else I'm constipated. I have high cholesterol, and very light periods.
I have a lot of difficulty sleeping, and sometimes get night sweats. I'm emotionall and I can be quite anxious. I'm also extremely sensitive to other people's energy. I get exhausted and burnt out very easily, and my head is very busy.
I have a fast heart rate, but low blood pressure. I have prominent spider veins on my thighs. I was born with heart murmer, but it sorted itself out. And here's a weird one - I find it hard to take a really deep breath without yawning!
From what I've read in TCM it seems like my flushing cheeks could be caused by Heart Yin deficiency. But my body type looks more Yin (frail shoulers, tendency to hunch.. I am making myself sound super attractive here, lol!), and also my personality would veer more towards Yin - I'm emotinal and withdraw a lot. A friend did Shiatsu massage on me and she said that my kidneys were quite empty, and that my heart had lots of emotional knots around it.
I've had tests for diabetes and problems with my thyroid, and both are fine. I went to a few TCM docs but to be honest I felt like they were just out to make money - they diagnosed me in a matter of minutes and then kept hounding me to buy herbs from them (I didn't)
Anyway, now that I've listed everything minute personal thing that's wrong with me I hope someone can help lol. In general though I'm in good spirits and I don't have a chronic health problem (just chronic sweating :P)
This post has the following associations:
Patterns: kidney yin deficiency
Comments / Discussions:
comment by "anon34981"
on Mar 2012
Thanks for getting back to me Chad :) I am very open to herbal medicine, and I will look into finding a good TCM doctor. Do you think cupping would help as well?
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comment by "ChadD" (acupuncturist)
on Mar 2012
Cupping for yin deficiency (assuming that is what you have) would not be my first choice. While it still might be appropriate for localized tension, it's not going to help you overall. Cupping, generally speaking, is more for excess conditions. With yin deficiency you have some symptoms that appear excess (i.e. sweating) but they are really coming from your bodies inability to control it's own internal activity which generates heat and comes out as anxiety, sweat and/or insomnia (among other ways). In other words the word deficiency is important. The overall key is to build the yin (generally done best with herbs - black beans are also good).
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comment by "ChadD" (acupuncturist)
on Mar 2012
Profuse sweating is generally yin deficiency and/or qi deficiency. When you add in the nightsweats, the insomnia and anxiety - yin deficiency rises right to the forefront. While treatable with acupuncture (and I would get acupuncture)... yin deficiency - in my opinion - is one of the few patterns in Chinese Medicine that almost requires herbal medicine to improve quickly. There is a whole elaborate explanation I could give for this, but suffice it say yin deficiency is sort of a daily battle of you against yourself internally and the herbal medicine with it's daily help to balance the yin helps you win this battle more reliably... Herbal medicine is inexpensive and you would only take it until your symptoms are under control (i.e. resolved) - not forever like many western medicines. Generally something like Da Bu Yin Wan, Tian Wan Bu Xin Wan or Liu Wei Di Huang Wan - all on our Kidney Yin Deficiency page would be a place to start. As always though, working with someone who can both diagnose you after physically seeing you and monitor your progress is best.
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comment by "archived-user"
on Mar 2012
You have IBS means Live and Spleen disharmony, light period means blood deficinecy, sweating day & night means Qi and kidney Yin deficiency, with anxious and insomia problem, flush on face also heart yin deficiency. So the diagnosis is Liver & Kidney yin deficiency with blood deficiency, use Dang Gui Liu Huang Tang is better.
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