Treating damp heat w/kidney yin vacuity & overweight? Also, did epinephrine 'reset' me?

you don't say anything about your ancenstral ethnic mix, but from the hints you've included, i'd guess that you have a lot of essentially viking or nordic lines. i would also gues that the information behind standardized american weight, cholesterol levels, and diet information has failed you miserably. it is far too shallow and politicially biased to take as anything more than current best guesses.

an example of the kind of problem i mean comes from the cholesterol broohaha. this is a tangent, but not irrelevant. i feel for the distress you've obviously lived with, maybe unnecessarily. always doing your best and doing the wrong thing for who you are. the only way i can think of to make my point is through this tangent.

the person who put all the original money behind research on today's approach to cholesterol was a businessman, not a scientist. by now so many careers and companies are dependent on the status quo that changing anything will be very hard. there are alternative, potentially valide, medical research and theories that have been excluded, and there are questions that the current theory and research completely ignores, especially in relation to women, ethnicity, and climate. also, research on non-human primates from the 1970s showed that reducing cholesterol tended to increase male violence for primates. and strangely enough we just happen to have this epidemic upswing of male violence that has followed the cholesterol hoopla in time. hmmm.

this is not to change your mind about cholesterol, just to say that you should be cautious about swallowing "scientific medicine" whole hog. science can be applied to medical activities and processes, but ain't no such thing as "scientific medicine." medicine is not a science. when really done right, it's an art. and all arts, fully engaged and done right, have the potential to help heal. now back to you and the artist who is trying to help you engage yourself as a hale, whole human.

to give both of you a broader base of information, try reading sharon moalem's book called survival of the sickest. it opened a lot for me. dr. moalem looks at current genetic and biological research and worldwide genetic disease patterns as well as how nutrients are metabolized and survival happens under various conditions. then he speculates from this information in relation to comparative human genetics and the conditions that shaped the gene pools of prehistoric humans. information from this book could possibly help you and your acupuncturist. you might also want to be consulting someone who reads research on cold-climate peoples.

there may be hints in this information about shifts that could lead to both better health and a more enjoyable life for you. some might indicate a mild shift in diet that you hadn't thought of. you might want to make sure your practitioner is following current research and techniques in both china and japan and that they have access to consultations either there or with experts here that trained and practiced there. or you might look around for a bright student and work through a clinic in a school for a while.

last fall, the combination of a third-year student with a bright, open still highly questioning mind and her clinical supervisors, added to the depth of my prior recovery, was what allowed us to finally get down under the initial assault on my digestive system when i was less than 6 weeks old. additional factors were that she is a chinese immigrant leaving a well-paid professional career in the u.s., had apprenticed with a specific acupuncturist before her formal schooling, and just come back from a summer of observations in japan. a recent immigrant from japan was training her in a massage technique during these treatments, and there was often a combination of the latest in japanese acupuncture and massage combined. with adjustments for my size and strength, the treated my aged body as if i were in part a baby and in part the old lady that i am.

their part worked. but it wouldn't have worked without my part. i treated myself like an invalid, rigorously laid myself flat and started with kanjee and chicken soup, ate only small amounts at a time, rested, and made sure that i never ever pushed. it took almost 6 months for me to even be able to clean house well without reversing the progress, and i still don't go walking yet. this took discipline and choice, but it's been worth it. i can feel that my body is finally beginning to throw off some of these deep problems that she's been carrying, some for over 60 years.

i'm not saying you should do this, only that you should take your treatment very seriously and follow through as if it were one of the most important things you could do. but the first step for me was learning to recognize and experience my bodily self, from the inside, as she is, apart from any external definition of how she should be or any given idea of what or how a human is. this is what you must do too. when the inside is doing well and happy, the outside is beautiful, no matter what the age or size. the same is true for me, for you and for anyone else.