Arthritis, Rheumatism, Sciatica, Muscle & Joint

Of the six excesses, wind is the primary exogenous pathogenic factor, since cold, damp, dryness, and heat may all depend on wind to attack the body.

Pathogenic wind manifested conditions include: diseases involving excess movement of the body: epilepsy (rare convulsions) and Parkinson’s disease; diseases involving symptoms appearing in different parts of the body at different times: early stage rheumatism involving differing joints or skin rashes that appear in different places; diseases involving loss of movement: stroke, paralysis, tetany, and coma; various pain, numbness, and spastic syndromes, sometimes referred to as bi syndromes, including headache, toothache, limb numbness, tendon spasms, arthritis, deep bone pain; diseases that are acute: common cold, influenza, sinus infection, skin eruption, sore throat, cough, eye disorders; and diseases that affect the surface of the body (skin or flesh, rather than viscera): chronic eczema, leprosy, scrofula, hair loss.

Internal wind, not necessarily aroused by exogenous wind, is described as being closely related to the liver and displays four causative factors: liver yang excess and yin deficiency generating endogenous wind (mainly the result of emotional frustration); extreme heat (usually in the advanced stage of febrile diseases); yin deficiency (usually due to prolonged illness that consumes body fluids); and blood deficiency (usually from insufficient blood production or from excess blood loss).