liver energizer?

[DONKEY]

have you seen this stuff being sold? is it worth a damn? the contents say it contains ginseng and milk thistle. i know milk thistle is supposed to be good for your liver.
let me start at the beginning. i have this roommate who is a pretty cool guy but he has VERY high blood pressure. he had a stroke a couple years ago. he's been to doctors and hospitals etc.. taken to the emergency room last month because he collapsed at work. that cost him $8,000. the doctors didn't do shit, told him that he had high blood pressure and released him. he says the medicine prescribed for him don't really work.
so on the first of the month he got his food stamps so we went out to get the groceries and on the way out of the store there's this table with three people wearing white lab coats and looking at laptops. they check his blood pressure and it reads 191 or something crazy like that. start talking to him about how dangerous it is and eventually (i saw it coming) the dude pulls out this box with medicine bottles in it and goes in for the kill. at that point i'm like "HEY MAN OUR GROCERIES ARE MELTING LET'S GET THEM INTO THE CAR AND GO HOME." but this salesman posing as a doctor is so determined he keeps it up and just won't let my buddy walk away. keeps telling him he could die very soon etc.. shit like that.
it pisses me off so bad that this phony in a white lab coat sitting outside of a fucking grocery store is preying on this poor dude who already has medical bills out the ass, could realistically die soon, and is desperate enough to buy this guy's bullshit. my roommate is 51 and from Laos, no family and no education etc..
http://www.mira-care.com/content/le_en.html
there's a link to stuff being sold. anyone know anything about it?
one of the ladies in a white lab coat asked me if i wanted my blood pressure checked, i said "fuck no."
in the end he bought two bottles of medicine, $145. so that's only 20 days worth of medicine. i swear if he ends up in the ER again while taking this shit i might go back there and fuck their shit up. i think they sit around outside a lot of the Asian grocery stores around here just waiting for old people to walk by. plus i don't know how this guy is gonna pay his share of the rent while he's blowing money on herbs that he could probably find for much cheaper anywhere else.

[aelward]

Ginseng can actually raise blood pressure, depending on the variety.

Before he tries herbals, he might consider seeing a Chinese doctor. You can get antihypertensive herbs for $5-10 in many places. Look into JiaoGuLan.

[mungbeansoup]

I second that. Your roommate should look into Chinese medicine. Probably a combination of acupuncture and herbs. But is his problem hypertension or liver issues?

[Kuroyama]

+1

Ive also got HBP but havent been back to a western doc for quite some time. Needles, herbs, weight mgmt, and heavy monitoring of sodium intake.

They even put sodium in 100% fruit juice over here. They LOVE to sneak it into orange juice which I dont understand. While Ive had accupuncture for sore muscles, Ive never had pain during the process until I tried it for HBP. The face/forehead needles were particularly painful. In any case, they work.

And Id rather take a face full of needles than entrust myself to western drug companies at this stage. The needles dont have any unintended side effects (that Im aware of) Im also not saddled with med bills I cant pay.

Good luck to you and your roomie.

[mungbeansoup]

+1

Ive also got HBP but havent been back to a western doc for quite some time. Needles, herbs, weight mgmt, and heavy monitoring of sodium intake.

They even put sodium in 100% fruit juice over here. They LOVE to sneak it into orange juice which I dont understand. While Ive had accupuncture for sore muscles, Ive never had pain during the process until I tried it for HBP. The face/forehead needles were particularly painful. In any case, they work.

And Id rather take a face full of needles than entrust myself to western drug companies at this stage. The needles dont have any unintended side effects (that Im aware of) Im also not saddled with med bills I cant pay.

Good luck to you and your roomie.


Needles inserted into the face/forehead? Interesting. For HBP, usually the acupuncture points needled are located between the feet and the knees. Occaisonally GB20 (neck) is added if the client has dizziness.

[Kuroyama]

MB

You might know better than I. Though Ive never had any dizziness as a result of my condition. I had needles all over but only remember being surprised by the needles to the face. That was a first for me, and thanks to Clive Barker Ill never forget it. Now that I think about it though, I do remember the feet and that also being painful, but not as surprising as the face.

So, what should that have been for? (between the eyebrows, I dont know how many needles...)

[mungbeansoup]

MB

You might know better than I. Though Ive never had any dizziness as a result of my condition. I had needles all over but only remember being surprised by the needles to the face. That was a first for me, and thanks to Clive Barker Ill never forget it. Now that I think about it though, I do remember the feet and that also being painful, but not as surprising as the face.

So, what should that have been for? (between the eyebrows, I dont know how many needles...)


Needles on the face and between the eyebrows...well I can't say much about that unless I know your symptom presentation, diagnosis, point selection, etc.

But if it worked, then that's the main thing.

Regarding HBP, it is *usually* (but not always) due to a mixture of "deficient" and "excess" conditions. Usually deficient liver/kidney yin, "yin fire" racing to the top of the head (hence HBP), and if there is associated dizziness, "liver wind" as well. In this condition, the standard strategy is to calm the liver, nourish the liver yin (which also helps with the yin fire), allow the energy (qi) to descend (which is why points are usually selected on/near the bottom of the body), extinguish the wind (dizziness), and usually nourish the kidneys as well, since the kidneys and liver are closely related (ie if the liver yin is deficient, chances are the kidney yin is as well). There are also a bunch of OTC Chinese patents or a Chinese herbalist can customize a formula (meaning you have to decoct it first).

This is the basic presentation. Other variables can also be present.

And diet, stress, etc are also important.

[wuwei]

Pure scam.

Chinese medicine is about using the right herbs for the right conditions. It has to be done in person, these pre-made pills dont do shit.

And high blood pressure is not easy to cure at all, because its chronic. So dont really try to find miracle drugs, its not how it works.

[aelward]

MB

You might know better than I. Though Ive never had any dizziness as a result of my condition. I had needles all over but only remember being surprised by the needles to the face. That was a first for me, and thanks to Clive Barker Ill never forget it. Now that I think about it though, I do remember the feet and that also being painful, but not as surprising as the face.

So, what should that have been for? (between the eyebrows, I dont know how many needles...)

That is the YinTang point, it is generally a calming point. So if your HBP pattern arose from stress, then it might be used.

The other thing is that acupuncture came to Japan during the Tang/HeiAn periods, about 1300 years ago. Japanese acupuncture has evolved on its own; and later, during the Meiji Era, the Japanese starting approach acupuncture (and Kanpou Herbal Medicine) from a western physiological approach. Ironically, there are a lot of Japanese acupuncturists who go to China to study, come back and advertise as being "authentic"-- although they most likely learned TCM, which is a fairly modern fusion of a lot of families of Chinese Medicine.

[Kuroyama]

The biggest surprise I had when I got here was the application of conductive pads and the introduction of shocks to the body. the apply pads to points on the body and wire you up to a machine that delivers quick repetitive shocks.

I dont understand much about needle therapy but I understand that too deep is bad. with the shocks the doctor turns up the current until just before discomfort. You, as the patient are supposed to say "when". For me, ANY shock is uncomfortable, but its a matter of how much discomfort Ill tolerate. So with that being the case... Im just "manning up" and perhaps enduring more than Im supposed to?? I have had sessions where I say when too soon, and receive a therapy session that provides no benefits.

Now I just go to a different doctor, and I request needles only. Its funny, here in the Tokyo office, when I asked around about local accupuncture I got a bunch of references. When I was living in Miyazaki and asked around, people looked at me like I was asking for recreational amputation. "WHY would you WANT needles??" Then again, the average age is a little higher in this office. That might be a part of it. I rarely see people my age or younger when I go.