IDENTIFYING A PATTERN OF BLOOD STASIS ACCORDING TO TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE
A pattern differentiation of blood stasis must be made prior to using Dragon’s Blood. Pain is a common feature in blood stasis patterns with a unique presentation.
Signs and Symptoms of Blood Stasis1
Stabbing, piercing, or gripping pain in a fixed location.
Pain that worsens at night.
A dim or dark complexion.
Purplish or bluish lips.
A dark and purplish tongue with possible stasis macules or ecchymosis, or engorged hypoglossal veins.
Rough, dry, lusterless skin at the sight of blood stasis. May also have red speckles and purple macules.
Spider nevi and/or varicosis.
A rough pulse.
Blood stasis can be described as a dysfunction in the normal free flow of blood. The blood circulation may be impeded or even cease to flow. The causes are many including external trauma and such root problems as qi stagnation, qi vacuity, blood vacuity, blood heat, and blood cold
2. Enduring or chronic disease will usually result in blood stasis. The statement, “Enduring disease enters the collaterals and is blood stasis”, explains the theory that long term disease will move deeper into the body eventually reaching the minute channels or collaterals. Another statement also makes this clear; “Enduring diseases must have stasis, strange diseases must have stasis”.As chronic or long-term disease will eventually result in blood stasis in the affected organ(s), the blood stasis may also give rise to bleeding. Other difficult, knotty diseases are most often associated with blood stasis.
Modern Science and Blood Stasis
Microcirculation: Blood circulation is the most basic physiological condition required to maintain life and health. TCM has a saying, “The myriad diseases arise from stasis.” It is believed that numerous diseases are the result of impeded blood vessels, hence the statement, “Where there is free flow, there is no pain; where there is pain, there is no free flow.” The body’s microcirculation allows cellular metabolism and nutrient exchange to take place. If an impediment materializes, the hindrance of blood flow will decrease oxygen and nutrition to cellular tissues resulting in metabolic imbalance. This physiological change will eventually lead to pathological change.
Dual hemostatic and hemagogic properties: Quicken blood, dispel stasis and constrain the blood, staunch bleeding are the bipolar aspects of Dragon’s Blood(*). Modern medical research shows that when living organisms receive physical trauma, the blood vessels in the affected area powerfully contract and substances deposit at the site of the trauma, eventually leading to the impeded flow of blood. A condition such as disseminated intravascular coagulation due to septic shock requires hemostatic and hemagogic actions. The disease process consumes clotting factors that reduce blood platelets and consequently leads to generalized bleeding.
The aging process and youthful vigor
: Blood circulation is the force for life’s vitality. Weakness, fatigue, and exhaustion from qi and yang vacuity will affect blood circulation as understood in the statements, “blood is the mother of qi; qi is the commander of blood”, “qi governs the blood”, and “when qi moves, blood moves”. A new theory has been posited in the world of Traditional Chinese Medicine that the chief mechanism of aging is loss of regulation and harmony of the qi and blood due to blood stasis3. Subsequently, as we age our bodies gradually undergo degenerative changes. The body’s cellular antioxidant function decreases as free radicals increase. Modern medical research has shown that as free radicals increase in the body, low-density lipoproteins will oxidize and become harmful deposits that attach themselves as plaque to blood vessel walls. Eventually, this will lead to atherosclerosis, which in turn will impede blood circulation. Of the many diseases that afflict mankind, such as cancer and cardiovascular disease, many are coincident with the increase of free radicals.