What is dampness and why you should pay attention to it?
Some patients ask, 'What is dampness?' I like a simple analogy: Imagine a car that has been driven for decades, and its engine, transmission, fuel tank, fuel lines, both on the surface and inside, are all filled with dirt and grime. The composition and causes of the greasy dirt in each part may be different, but there's no need to get caught up in analyzing exactly what makes up the dirt in each location. You just need to know that you must remove this dirt to make the car run better.
The causes of dampness can vary, and one classic scenario involves hot summer days when you work outside, sweat profusely, feel overheated, and then suddenly enter a cold air-conditioned room or take a cool shower. Your body was trying to release heat, but your pores close due to the rapid drop in temperature, trapping excess heat and sweat between your fascia, muscles, and skin. Over time, this excess moisture can turn into dampness. Another example is when you've had a long day, return home at 8 pm, and decide to treat yourself to a large meal. Afterward, you fall asleep, and your digestive system struggles to handle the excess food consumed late at night, resulting in overnight food becoming dampness in your digestive tract. There are various ways to develop dampness, and it can affect different parts of your body.
Dampness can lead to a range of symptoms, such as hypertension, fibromyalgia, bloating, a heavy feeling in the body, mental fogginess, arthritis, stroke, dementia, and fatty liver. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, even excess fat tissue is considered a form of dampness. Interestingly, dampness can both be the result of certain causes and also the cause of other health issues. There's an old saying that goes, 'A thousand colds are easy to alleviate, but dealing with a single dampness is challenging.' 千寒易除，一濕難去.
Because of its sticky nature, dampness often tends to worsen existing health conditions, leading to recurrent illness. Fortunately, our bodies are far more intricate than cars; they continually attempt to self-cleanse and remove dampness. When we're young, our bodies are efficient at getting rid of dampness, but as we age, this efficiency decreases. When our body's self-cleansing speed can't keep up with the rate at which dampness accumulates, our health starts to decline. If left untreated, things can worsen quickly. For instance, if dampness accumulates in the knee joints and encounters cold stimuli, it can lead to knee arthritis. Simply relieving pain without addressing the dampness will likely result in a recurring condition.
Similarly, when dampness obstructs the area around the uterus, it can lead to conditions like Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), a condition that modern medicine struggles to fully explain. Prolonged dampness hindering the circulation of Qi and Blood can lead to the combine of cold and dampness, creating an internal environment conducive to uterine tumor.
If we fail to understand the overall progression of diseases and resort to using hormones to control symptoms, it can delay proper treatment. Missing the opportunity to address the problem in its early stages can have significant consequences.
