Blood Level – Heat Victorious agitates Blood

Jonathan Clogstoun-Willmott

April 17, 2023

Blood Level – Heat Victorious agitates Blood

Illness at this level – Heat Victorious Agitates Blood – is a serious, possibly mortal, condition.

Either the patient’s immune system is weak or, more likely, the illness – the invading pathogen – is strong and has trampled over the preceding levels of resistance (wei, QI and Ying levels) to arrive here where it attacks the Blood.

At this level, with the first two syndromes (Heat Victorious agitates Blood or Heat Victorious stirring Wind) the patient’s body is still strong enough to produce high fever.

That fever can of course kill, but Chinese medicine would regard such a fever as a more positive sign compared with the other three syndromes (Empty Wind agitates the Interior, Collapse of Yin and Collapse of Yang) which arise from weakness, making prognosis less positive.

Main symptoms of Heat Victorious agitates Blood

Epistaxis nose bleed - one symptom of Heat Victorious agitates Blood — Nosebleed – epistaxis

High fever
Mental agitation, possibly even manic
Macules are dark
Epistaxis – nose bleeds
Vomits blood
Blood in stools
Blood in urine
Tongue: dark red or purple, no coating
Pulse: Rapid and wiry

What this means – its pathology

In health, some Heat – well – Warmth is good. We are warmed by cheerfulness, bonhomie, friendly and positive behaviour. We like being around people like that.

But when Heat increases too much, it leads to signs of illness and imbalance, including manic or rash behaviour, skin eruptions, insomnia, irritability, inflammation and of course fever.

Here at this Blood level, with Heat Victorious agitating Blood, the Heat has penetrated into the Blood, drastically affecting the Mind. (Why would that be? Because, in Chinese medicine, your Blood is the basis for not just your health but also your personality, so if your Blood is agitated, you personality cannot rest quietly in it and is, as it were, almost ejected because it cannot remain in what seems like boiling fluid.

Heat also makes your Blood spill – into urine, vomit, stools, nose and under the skin: macules.

Heat speeds the pulse and dries fluids, so the tongue loses its coating. That means that your digestion, your Stomach in particular, loses the fluids it needs to digest food properly and other fluids necessary to protect the lining of the stomach organ. Unprotected from acid, blood spills and may be vomited.

As you probably appreciate, Blood appearing in your urine, stools, vomit, nose and under your skin shows a perilous state of health.

Aims of treatment for Heat Victorious Agitating Blood

The aim is to Clear Heat from the Blood and so to stop bleeding. Success in this would restore the patient to somewhat better health, though still precarious.

(By the way, we have a page on Blood Heat which you may like to read, but Heat Victorious Agitating Blood is a much deeper and more serious syndrome.)

Acupuncture for this would concentrate on acupuncture points that clear Heat from the Blood, possibly with points to stimulate Yin. Frequent treatment would be necessary.

Herbal formulae for this condition might need to be taken in small, frequent doses, possibly using acupuncture to control the vomit reflex.

What happens if you suppress symptoms of this level?

Were you able to suppress these symptoms without clearing the Heat from the Blood then probably your patient would fall into one of the other syndromes at this deep Blood level, for example Collapse of Yang.

Western medicine would almost certainly use antibiotics, which have a cooling effect. Of course, in Blood level diseases like Ebola, death comes quickly for a considerable number of patients. Western medicine searches urgently for ways to immunize the population first.