I Can Talk to the Internal Organs-Chapter 124 - 101: Amputation? Try Soaking Your Feet in Sugar

Diabetes?

Lu Jiu took a closer look at the woman.

Doesn’t look like it.

Right, makeup can be deceiving.

"Whether it can be treated or not needs a proper diagnosis. It’s too late today, come back tomorrow." Lu Jiu said.

Bai Xiuhong shook her head, "It’s not me, it’s my dad."

Lu Jiu asked, "How old is he?"

Bai Xiuhong said, "Seventy-four."

Lu Jiu asked, "When was he diagnosed with diabetes?"

Bai Xiuhong said, "Twenty years ago, he’s been on medication ever since to control it."

Twenty years?

When Lu Jiu heard that number, he knew things didn’t look good.

After a 20-year medication history, Lu Jiu didn’t even need to check before knowing that this elder’s liver and kidney functions must have problems.

Why?

The most commonly used medication for treating diabetes is Metformin. This medication reduces glucose synthesis in the liver and intestinal glucose absorption while also breaking down sugar in the body, helping diabetic patients make full use of endogenous insulin, lowering fasting and postprandial high blood sugar.

Seems fine, right? But reducing glucose synthesis in the liver and intestinal absorption means you are hindering the liver’s normal functions.

This is actually a rough intervention. When there’s too much sugar, the body won’t eliminate it just because you’re preventing glucose synthesis. Interrupting this natural physiological function means issues with liver detoxification, spleen transportation, intestine transmission, etc.

Why do diabetics suffer from indigestion or sometimes constipation?

Because these functions have problems.

But is this caused by diabetes?

No, it’s caused by diabetes treatment drugs.

A typical diabetes complication is diabetic foot. Doctors will tell you that diabetic foot is caused by diabetic neuropathy, diabetic vasculopathy, infection, trauma, among other reasons.

In fact, it’s caused by medication.

By preventing sugar synthesis and breaking down sugar in the body, these things stay inside, unable to be expelled, as they’re excluded from normal bodily function cycles and can’t be naturally metabolized out.

Where do these things go if they can’t get out?

The answer is the feet.

Viewed through the yin-yang theory, these unexpellable substances are yin excess. They will deposit downward in the body because consumed food undergoes small intestine qi transformation, separating clarity and turbidity, with wastes excreted through the large intestine, clear qi rising via the liver and spleen. Hence, only qi rises in the body, while substances fall, consistent with natural laws. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

When too much accumulates in the feet, it naturally becomes diabetic foot.

Many long-term diabetes patients prick their fingers for self-monitoring blood sugar, but if you prick your toes, you’ll understand where the sugar went.

But don’t try it easily, as foot wounds can be hard to heal, which would be troublesome.

Currently, this illness is conundrum because the prevalent treatment method in the medical field is drug control; you must take medication for life. So, even if most people know diabetes complications are caused by medication, there’s no choice but to continue as needed.

Not knowing these causes might make one feel a little better, at least there’s no psychological burden when taking medication.

Lu Jiu felt uneasy because of the 20-year medication history. Not mentioning diabetes complications, just the medication’s impact on the liver and kidneys is hard to manage. Once treatment starts, Lu Jiu needs the patient to stop medication. Whether his traditional medicine can alleviate the withdrawal remains uncertain.

This question, Lu Jiu isn’t sure himself.

He has only treated some patients with recent one or two-year diabetes using White Tiger Ginseng Decoction. These patients have a short medication history, mild withdrawal symptoms, and mostly belong to upper xiao category of diabetes—lung heat hurting fluids. This is easiest, and White Tiger Ginseng Decoction works excellently.

For mid xiao, either stomach heat excess or qi and yin deficiency exist, getting slightly troublesome as it requires fluid replenishment, stomach fire clearing, yin nourishing, qi boosting, spleen strengthening, etc.

For lower xiao, it might be kidney yin deficiency or both yin and yang deficiency, damaging liver and kidney roots, tough to regulate, especially with decades of medication history. Lu Jiu must contemplate undertaking such cases.

If such patients are taken, failing treatment is trivial; trouble arises if issues occur, holding Lu Jiu accountable.

Back at Jinling Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Lu Jiu witnessed many senior traditional medicine doctors face diabetic cases. Upon asking the patient’s age and years on medication, if over seventy and medicated for decades, they’d advise continuing medication control, avoiding traditional medicine treatment.

Why?

At over seventy with decades of controlled medication, no serious complications or emergency has occurred, why look for traditional medicine?

Perhaps life has minor burdens endured for decades, if manageable, continue. Meeting an unskilled traditional practitioner could worsen conditions.

"My advice is to keep medication control, skip traditional medicine, it’s pointless." Lu Jiu pondered briefly, providing his suggestion.