Weight Gain and Menometrorrhagia (irregular bleeding)

This is the story of a patient who is seen in the office for a visit. She states that she has had significant increase in her weight. This is reportedly of the order of seventy pounds. She is also having high blood pressure and irregular vaginal bleeding. Is it possible to approach these problems from a Quantum Mechanics perspective?

First we must return to the model that Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) uses. This is the model previously described that considers five functional flows in the body. The first energy flow is that of response or adaptation. The second flow is that having to do with the incorporation of sources of energy. The third flow delivers energy to be utilized and the fourth has to do with the actual utilization of energy. The fifth recycles used material back to the original source. These five energy flows interact with each other and are given traditional mnemonic names to understand their relationship. This understanding can be used to explain energy flow in any system, animate or inanimate in TCM because it is seen as a universal flow.

The adaptive response in the human is initiated, first with preparation. For the human, it’s useful to shut down the process of internalizing energy and increase delivery to systems that utilize energy for response. This becomes the preparation for the adaptive response. The other systems that process and recycle are affected to a lesser extent. Thus the adaptive response of the organism starts this cascade.

This person states that she “stresses” about two things, namely her children and her appearance. What does she mean by this? This means that she worries about outcomes related to her children and choices others make about their perceptions of her. Note here she has control over neither. In anticipation of theses outcomes she “revs up” her major life threatening adaptive response. In western medicine this is seen as the fight or flight response, but it is the same for a major injury or for pneumonia. This has the effect of turning on the parts of her nervous system related to this. Her sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, the portions related the flows of response and delivery of energy are turned on. There is a shutdown of the portion responsible for taking the energy in (incorporation) as well. The net effect on her system is increase in cardiac output and peripheral vascular resistance giving higher blood pressures in anticipation of utilizing energy for a response in the larger muscles of the body, respiration, and immune system response to enable a protective and adaptive response. This results in increased cortisol production, increased blood sugars and increase in blood cholesterol. It also results in “stress” hormones such as adrenaline well recognized in western medicine for part of the “stress” response. In TCM it is seen primarily as a union of these three flows, from the perspective of a mnemonic, utilizing specific meridians as the agent of these flows. Now the trigger for this depends on her perspective as a patient, looking on the outcomes anticipated. If she feels herself an extension of her children then she responds for them. If she feels herself as subject to the opinion of others then she feels as if something is being done to her, which requires a defense. These applications of that perspective initiate the protective response which starts the cascade. Also, because this is a response over which she has no control, depending entirely on the behavior that others choose, it has no end point.

The result is that the blood sugars will stay elevated, and cortisol will help to redistribute this as storage deposited in the body. These blood sugars, cortisol and the weight response will also affect adversely the mechanism controlling her menses and the cycle will become irregular. Thus, all of her symptoms result from the original lack of balance created by the maladaptive response. Treatment for this patient, with anti-hypertensive agents, is initially successful but as the response becomes more established in time, she requires higher doses. As this is repeated, she also gains more weight thus making the irregular cycles more sustained. Compare this with Shifting perspective……