356: Hair Loss? Learn the TCM Approach to Treatment
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Welcome to the Ancient Health Podcast, where East meets West in the world of medicine. I'm Dr. Chris Motley, and here we explore how modern Western science and traditional Eastern wisdom come together to unlock the body's full healing potential. Each week, we'll dive into powerful tools, techniques, and approaches from both sides of the world to help you optimize your health and live with vitality. Let's bridge the gap between ancient practices and cutting-edge medicine. Let's get started.

Hello friends, welcome to the Ancient Health Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Chris Motley, and today we're going to talk about hair loss. Do you have hair loss, thinning hair, weak or brittle hair, or hair loss in certain areas of the scalp that comes without an explanation? Well, in this podcast, I want to talk to you about the organ weaknesses that are associated with hair loss, such as the kidneys, the liver, the spleen, and

and even the lungs. The loss of the hair on top of the head is namely associated with kidneys and bladder because that's where the bladder meridian runs on the body.

When you have it on the sides of the head, probably near the temples and it works its way back, that type of hair loss and on the sides of the head can be a relationship to the liver being weak and imbalanced. And even the gallbladder, because the liver and gallbladder sit right beside each other.

When you have hair loss that's thinning, like diffuse thinning throughout the head, that's normally associated with spleen weakness and deficiency, an imbalanced or weak spleen. And if you have any problems with hair loss on the body, yes, hair loss on the body, that is due to a weak lung issue.

So that's many things to go through with one podcast. So this may be, you know, a podcast that we have to go through in certain sections or certain routes, basically. So what we're going to do is we're going to take the first route, which is going to be the spleen. And the reason I'm starting with the spleen is because one of the questions I ask my patients daily is if they ever had mono spleen.

or any type of strep infection, Epstein-Barr virus, cytomegalovirus, adenovirus, any type of herpes virus. If you've had any form of strep when you're a kid, heavy ear infections, chronic ear infections, even eye infections, staph infections, E. coli, Marcon's, and even pesky salmonella.

These are a few of the common infections that I've seen in the office with patients' blood work and their urinalysis showing that they've had these types of infections in the past. Presently, you may not have heavy infection. You may not think that I have this infection right now. I don't have the symptoms. But if you look in your past and you remember you had any of those that I mentioned, you

And you've had a swollen spleen in the past, spleenomegaly. If you've ever had mono, confirmed mono, or you suspected it. The spleen can get injured and it's responsible for helping you produce red blood cells, white blood cells. It also helps you filter your lymph nodes. It helps with balancing your blood sugar. It has so many jobs that when we're talking about

spleen's ability to help you produce red blood cells then it makes sense that healthy red blood cells hold oxygen hold iron they are able to get to the scalp you're able to do what to basically help nourish the roots nourish all the proteins of the hair

In Chinese medicine, the hair is the extension of the blood and the kidneys are mostly responsible for encouraging the strength of the hair. But for today, this basic podcast part one is going to be about the spleen because I see there is so much strep out in our culture today and there's so much mono and even pneumonia type bacteria. So when you have the hair being the extension of the blood, the weaker the blood, the weaker the hair.

Now, I want you to look back in your past and say, yes, I had mono. I had chronic strep, chronic ear infections. If this is you, if you look at your past, you probably didn't have bad hair loss throughout your young years. In fact, the hair loss comes usually after 35. Some people say early 30s. But that's because in that time of frame reference of your life, that's when your methylation, your liver function really gets challenged.

You're younger, you have more stem cells, you have more energy, and your body can actually produce some stem cells, produce a little bit more growth hormone throughout the young years. But, you know, after you get to a certain age, your body stops producing them just as much because we're usually deficient in minerals and vitamins as we age. We usually don't take a lot, do we? So as you see this happening, the spleen gets fatigued. It gets weak. It gets infection-prone.

And these areas, especially around the head, if you see strep in the sinuses, in the nose, in the mouth, anywhere in the cranium, those toxins from strep can cause brain fog, memory loss, slow thinking can actually make you feel like you forgot what happened yesterday. But not only that, it can actually create toxicity to the hair roots, to the scalp. So you have a double whammy. You have the spleen that's been sick,

You've had the mono in the past, and now you have this infection that's been festering in the head and in the ears and in the eyes all these years. And as that grows, they produce what? A lot of strep will produce aldehydes or ethanol or certain types of toxic compounds that are very fancy names in biochemistry. But they basically reduce your nerve function, reduce the nerve flow. And some studies have shown that it actually damages blood vessels.

the blood vessels going to your hair roots but more importantly remember the spleen gets injured the spleen gets injured so if you remember you had strep or mono please take note of this if you have diffuse thinning hair all around the scalp so the spleen captures all that infection its job is to take all the mucus all the sinus congestion all the crud that's going down your throat and put it in your lymph nodes and go down to the spleen and help it filter it now the spleen

If it gets sick, can't filter your spleen lymph node connection very great. So you can't cleanse your lymph nodes efficiently. So your lymph nodes get stagnant. So that's where people get those lumps around the base of their ears or around their neck. They get hardened nodules. If you have that, this would show that you have some form of spleen toxicity, spleen stagnation.

This would in turn mean that your red blood cells are not being produced properly and neither your white blood cells. If you have those lumps, those hard nodules, please go get them checked by your primary care doctor if they are suspicious or very hot or very red. Now with this, with the spleen being injured from mono, one of the things I always ask my patients is this. Remember that we're definitely going to have to check the emotions. When you're young and you get the mono issue,

We're going to look now, even if you don't have necessarily major symptoms. But one of the things I want you to notice is the prolonged symptom of emotions. The spleen is part of the earth element in Chinese medicine. The stomach is connected with it. So you have this earth element and the earth is the root or earth is the foundation where every other element basically puts its feet in. It means it's very sustainable emotionally.

The trees, the wood element can put their roots into the earth. The water sits in the earth. Someone argue that the earth sits in the water anyway. But usually earth element organs are there for comfort, for sustaining, for bringing what? Some kind of foundational aspect to people's lives. So if you have ever been that kind of foundation for somebody else, have you always been there for somebody else? You're the kind of person who's always there.

The program is running in your family line to be foundational, to help others, to think of others before you think of yourself, to care for others more than you care for yourself. And if you find yourself doing this, you could actually worry, which it is, worrying about others more than yourself, worrying yourself to sickness. So if you're worrying so much, this in turn can send signals to the earth element. It can send signals down to your spleen, especially, and your stomach.

The signal to the stomach is stop producing high amounts of acid because I'm going into fight or flight. So energize my arms and my legs to run and my brain to think. The other is to tell the spleen, all right, everybody else's thoughts and concerns are more important than mine. And I really don't have to worry about myself. So don't worry about sending the white blood cells out to the extremities or to the legs to help clean up my body.

Don't worry about producing high-efficient red blood cells to carry the best oxygen and iron to the rest of my body. Your body will listen to how you're thinking. So that area of your life means that there will be decreased immune function and decreased blood flow, functional blood flow. Now, if you're thinking this way and you know you have –

And that you had the strep or mono when you're young, it's basically coalesced. It's really that you had this program running when you're younger and probably come from the parents or one of the parents. And now it's in your body and you programmed your body with this. So you didn't mean to. It just means that's how you function. You're a very caring person. So it doesn't mean that you stop caring for individuals. Not at all. Or start giving love to others. It just means that you need to start caring.

Basically showing yourself as much respect and love to others or to yourself as you do to others. So it just means that you need to share that amount of love and respect to yourself as you do other people. When you do this, it balances the yin and the yang. So the yin and the yang is balanced.

And you start to signal to the spleen that it's okay to make really great red blood cells. It's okay for me to send the white blood cells out to help clean up all the infections in my body, clean up my lymph nodes. Let's get to work. So now we're thinking that – let's get back to this. Well, whenever you start to think a certain way and you start to see that you have thought this way, it's not a blame to you. I want you guys to just realize that I need to start taking care of myself, loving myself.

And you can actually help your diffuse hair loss if you basically help the spleen and function of the lymph nodes. Now, we're going to talk about other organs in the next podcast. But some of the things I use are just a few things. Maybe you guys have some good recommendations. But I love spleen desiccated. Now, you don't have to use standard process. You can use different desiccated spleen or spleen organ. I like desiccated spleen by Plastidium.

Bystander Process. I also like Grass-Fed Sheep Thymus, which is a lymph organ by Supreme Nutrition Products. I have it here on my shelf. Supreme Nutrition Products Thymus Gland. It's Sheep Thymus. It's organic and grass-fed. And it will build, these two will build lymph tissue. It's a glandular that will help you with building the strength of the lymph nodes. Now,

When you build the strength of the lymph nodes, one of the things that you want to make sure is that you take enough to where you feel the flow of the lymph. So when you start taking it after about, I would say, after about a week of taking one to two of these a day, you should start feeling less heat around the areas of the lymph, like the underarms, the inguinal area near the groin area, even the back of the knees or around the neck or throat.

When I say you feel flow, you're going to feel the flow because it's going to help decongest because the strength of the spleen is returning and the lymph nodes and the lymphocytes and all the cells in the lymph start to flush. So I love the desiccated spleen. I love the sheep thymus. I also love a great Ayurvedic herb called mannagista.

It's called Rubio, R-U-B-I-O, but it's called Mangista, J-I-S-T-H-A, Mangista. And it is a great lymph tonic. They use it in Ayurvedic medicine. People use one to three a day to help with the actual flush and movement and strengthening of the spleen and the lymph nodes. It's fantastic. Look up that on Supreme Nutrition Products. If you have stagnant lymph or old spleen issues, look into this product. It's amazing.

I have a couple more I want you guys to look into. Schisandra. Schisandra is a Chinese medicine herb. It's a berry that basically helps flush the kidneys, flush the liver, and helps the spleen. Schisandra. It's a very good glutathione producer. It helps flush stones. It helps dissolve them. It's basically a super good liver, kidney, and spleen cleaner. Can't recommend it enough, but it's very strong. So start slow.

Start with one a day. Then work your way up to maybe two or three depending on your weight. These are all based on the weight of 150. So if you have children, they would need to look into using tinctures like by Hawaiian Farm, P-H-A-R-M, Hawaiian Farm, P-H-A-R-M. They have organic tinctures and then you can do it by the drop.

And ask your primary care doctor if you have any questions or your holistic practitioner about Sashandra and all of these herbs, especially when it talks about with children. Okay. The next is Uva Ursi. I love Uva Ursi. It's naturally a kidney cleanser, a lymph cleanser, a liver cleanser as well. It helps restore strength to the bladder and kidney especially. But when it comes to the spleen,

The more you support the kidneys and the bladder, the more the spleen is protected. Now, we're going to talk about this more when we get to the kidney section of this podcast. But I love UVA, U-V-A-U-R-S-I, UVA Ursi Supreme. Now, remember, take the one that you resonate with and find the one you resonate with and look into it.

Look into it. What I'm saying is see which one resonates with you and try one at a time. Don't try every one of them. Try one at a time and see if they start to help. Remember, reducing the lumps or feeling less inflamed and feeling that flow, not feeling congested is one of the best signs. Even improved bowel movements. So take note of this. One of the best, I'm going to mention this on every single podcast about hair loss, is Golden Thread. Golden Thread Supreme is basically Chinese Coptis. Coptis chinensis. And what this does is it cleans out bacteria,

viruses, mold, yeast, fungus. It also helps improve the function of the liver and gallbladder according to research and clinical practice in Chinese medicine. They use this in Chinese hospitals all the time for the gallbladder and liver and the stagnation, but it's also been shown to increase the function of the spleen and the lymphocytes. It's such a great cleanser, such a great microbe killer if you need it. So if you're looking at Shisandra,

Uva Ursi, Golden Thread of the Chinese Coptis, and Mangista. Now these are just a few. We'll have these in the show notes, but I want you guys to look into them because I'm not saying you take all of these, but I like to support the spleen with maybe some thymus or some desiccated spleen. And then I go through and I'll take some Mangista and maybe a little Schisandra to begin with. But be consistent. If you feel a fever...

If you feel like an internal fever, like you feel like you have more bowel movements or you feel a little sweaty at times, you don't want it to be where your bowel movements are happening all the time. You have supreme diarrhea and you have extensive fevers and sweats. You don't want to get to that point. But if you have a little detox, that's okay. But usually after a few days of a light detox, you should notice that you have more energy and better bowel movements and more sustained functionality, like better with your brain fog. Your head feels clearer.

If you start to feel those detox pathways, you know that what you're taking is hitting the nail on the head. But what I do is I reduce the amount, like even if it's every other day or every two days and keep such a light dose that the body goes, OK, I can take that and gently cleanse. And then you work your way up like you'll tell yourself, I think I can do one every day now. That's how it works. So, guys, check these herbs out. I want you to look into for the spleen red light therapy.

Infrared sauna, short and long form or waveform infrared sauna, ozone therapy, which helps put ozone in the body. And I've seen it do really well with cleansing the lymph nodes and the spleen out. So ozone and infrared.

And I've also seen that it's very popular that cold plunges have been shown to increase the movement of lymphocytes and increase the immune cells in the body. So when you see like you could use infrared sauna, maybe cold plunges if you can handle it, and some ozone, you'll start to see that you can actually start to get the spleen and the lymph node moving with these. Check out Sunlighten, Sunlighten's Infrared Sauna.

They have great information. They have such great saunas. And there's other great companies out there too. But I love Sunlighten and I love Ozone. I love people use it to get inhaled ozone. Some people do it intravenously, but you just got to find a great clinic by you to get Ozone, O3. And I'm telling you, some individuals clean all their lymph nodes out when they have a great practitioner that administers this. So look into Ozone therapy. Really check it out, guys. Find a place near you.

And I do like hyperbaric. Hyperbaric chamber, if you can find usually a cleaning that is hyperbaric and ozone, usually they're a very good combo. When you start to compress oxygen into the tissues, it will start cleaning up the lymph system. People think, I don't know if I really got help by the hyperbaric. You do. It just takes consistency and time. It's not a quick fix. You want to infuse the oxygen into the tissue.

Those are extra therapies and one of the basic best you can do at home is bounding. Get a rebounder, start bouncing up and down for four to five minutes a day. Do it very lightly at first. You and your children can even do it and it will start moving the lymph nodes. Plus using some of these supplements, you'll start to see more strength to the scalp. Bounding is such a good thing. Jumping jacks plus some of these therapies or some of them plus some of the supplements. And one of the last things I want to tell you is reduce your refined sugars.

I can't tell you how old spleen issues are connected with high amounts of refined sugars. Refined sugars, high fructose corn syrup, high glycemic index foods that are high in sugar that cause your blood sugar to go high literally feed infections and microbes and they can damage the function of the spleen. They say that having the amount of sugar in one ice cream sundae can reduce the functionality of the spleen and its ability to produce bacteria

The cells, the immune cells by almost 84 to 85 percent. Literally, if you ate a sundae, you are telling their body that with the spleen, I need to go create more enzymes with my pancreas to go eat up the sugars. I have to go and help dissolve them and help metabolize them. So then your body goes, well, I got to do that. Plus, then I got to go and try to do what? Fight off infections.

So if you eat lots of sugar, you are decreasing the functionality of your spleen and the spleen cells and the lymphocytes and the immune cells because they're trying to do two jobs at once. So please, if you do anything to help with even your hair loss, it is to help with reducing your sugar intake. Some say less than 12 grams a day, but you want to keep your blood sugar within the 80 to 95 range.

And if you follow some of these kind of techniques that I just mentioned, some of these herbs, you're going to see that if you combine all of them, you're going to start strengthening the hair and hopefully see some hair growth. This in turn is going to be related to the laser scalp treatments we're going to talk about in the next few podcasts. I hope this was informative. Guys, if you like this kind of information, please send me a comment. I really want to know and send me some questions. We want to go into more live sessions.

question answer type podcast where we just will take your questions and we'll go through it and we'll just answer what you have sent to us. Remember to hit the bell so you're reminded every single time that a new episode is out. Okay, that you're reminded. And if you like this stuff, this information, just like and subscribe. And if you know anybody else that needs some information about health in a gentle, clear manner, please send them our way or send this link to them and see if they really like it. And always just give it a thumbs up if you like it. Hopefully,

Hope you guys have a blessed day. Until the next time, we'll get to the other parts of the body, the other organs that help with hair loss. And I'm so thankful that we got to spend time together today. All right. From everybody here at the Ancient Health Podcast, I'm Dr. Mali. Have a great day.

Before we wrap up, please remember that the information shared in this podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine, nursing, or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice. No doctor-patient relationship is formed through this podcast, and the use of information here or materials linked from this podcast is at your own risk. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Always consult with your health care provider before making any changes to your health regimen and do not disregard or delay seeking medical advice for any condition you may have. Thank you for joining us today on the Ancient Health Podcast. We hope you've gained valuable insights into the harmony between Eastern and Western medicine. If you've enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe, share, and leave us a review.

Remember, true health is about balance, mind, body, and spirit. So stay tuned for more episodes where we continue to explore how ancient wisdom and modern science can work together to help you thrive. Here's to your health, balance, and well-being. I'm Dr. Chris Motley, and I look forward to our next episode together.