At a glance
Twenty years of depression resolved and off medication, with hot flashes and mild sleep apnea clearing alongside.
Presentation
A 56-year-old patient came to the clinic with depression that had begun twenty years earlier, after the birth of her second child, leaving her with low energy and fatigue most of the time. She also had mild sleep apnea, and for the past year and a half she had been waking every one to two hours through the night with hot flashes. The layers of fatigue, broken sleep, and low mood had become deeply entrenched.
Diagnosis
Three patterns were interwoven: Yin deficiency with deficient heat (the driver behind the hot flashes), Yang deficiency, and Lung Qi deficiency. In TCM these deficiencies can together produce the exhaustion, disturbed sleep, and low mood she described — so the treatment worked on all three, with the hot flashes, sleep apnea, and depression each mapped to a specific approach.
Treatment
Treatment combined acupuncture with herbal formulas targeted to each layer:
- Tonifying Lung Qi with Dr. Haixia Ni’s Five Element Theory — an approach originating from the classic TCM text Huang Di Nei Jing (the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic), using [metal points, earth points, wood points]. Metal represents the lungs, earth represents the stomach and spleen, and wood represents the liver and gallbladder.
- Metal points: LU-1 (Zhongfu) and LU-7 (Lieque) — LU-1 is the front-mu point of the Lung meridian, which can regulate the lung organ and the Lung meridian, and LU-7 is the luo point of the Lung meridian, which can regulate and tonify the lungs
- Earth points: SP-6 (Sanyinjiao) and ST-36 (Zusanli) — SP-6 can tonify Yin and improve sleep, and ST-36 can tonify Qi and improve digestion
- Wood point: LR-3 (Taichong) — can soothe Liver Qi and improve the body’s Qi flow
- [LI-4 (Hegu), SP-6 (Sanyinjiao), ST-36 (Zusanli)] — a combination to tonify Yang
- [KD-6, LU-7] — a combination to tonify Yin, because KD-6 (Zhaohai) connects with the Yin Qiao meridian and LU-7 (Lieque) connects with the Ren meridian. KD-2 (Rangu) was also needled to clear Yin deficiency heat.
It takes much longer to resolve Yin deficiency than Yang deficiency or pain (which is caused by Qi stagnation).
Herbal formulas were prescribed to treat the depression, the sleep apnea, and the hot flashes in turn. For home care, she added regular exercise and time in sunlight.
Result
The hot flashes resolved after the herbal formula tonified Kidney Yin and cleared the deficient heat. The depression lifted — she no longer needed her medication — and the sleep apnea resolved as the Yang was tonified through herbs and acupuncture. Twenty years on, she came out the other side with her energy, her sleep, and her mood restored.
This reflects an individual patient experience, not clinical trial data.
Results vary from person to person depending on the condition, its severity, and how an individual responds to treatment. TCM and acupuncture are not a substitute for care from your physician or another regulated health professional. If you’re dealing with a serious or urgent symptom, please see a doctor first.