If a person has some dampness due to spleen deficiency, do you treat the spleen deficiency and the dampness together? or do you treat the SD and then the dampness will resolve through that Tx? Also, it seems like spleen deficiency and yin deficiency often occur together...please explain deficiency and excess dampness co-existing. thank you!

Andrew said: Good question! The debate here is what to treat, root or branch. The answer depends upon practitioner preference. What do you see as being predominant- the deficiency or the damp? Some practitioners peel away pathology like peeling an onion… treat the damp first then tonify the root. Others might say forget the damp and just tonify the spleen, eventually the damp will resolve. I would say most TCM style practitioners would treat both simultaneously (my preference). So, you might consider a formula with some spleen qi or yang tonifying herbs and some dampness moving/drying herbs. Spleen deficiency and yin deficiency are not similar. I wonder if you are thinking of spleen deficiency and yin “excess”? However, TCM does not talk about yin excess. It is a bit of semantics, I know. Yin is a nourishing and healthy body substance. When it accumulates to a pathological level it is no longer considered yin. Instead, it turns into damp or phlegm which then obstructs. The goal is to understand what happened first. Two possibilities: 1. Slow, chronic organ or ming men decline then leads to substances not transforming properly and ends with damp/phlegm accumulation. 2. External dampness invades and if the damp lingers long enough, organ function begins to decline. If you are not sure, the short-cut is to treat both simultaneously and you will probably have a good treatment plan!

Thank you Andrew! Your answer was very helpful and I now realize I got confused when I said Yin def and spleen def go together. I guess I was thinking spleen def and dampness go together which you answered beautifully. Is there ever the case that spleen deficiency leads to a dry condition or will it always lead to dampness? thanks again, Sonia

To add to that- the Spleen manifests in the lips, if I am correct? What do dry lips mean in terms of the Spleen? Can you have a damp Spleen but dry lips? Thank you, Jessa

Andrew said: Generally, spleen deficiency leads to dampness. Dryness is typically caused by excessive internal or external heat/fire, blood/yin deficiency, fever, fluid deficiency, or an invasion of external dry EPF. Jessa, that is correct. You could have a damp spleen with dry lips because the damp “clogs the pipes” and prevents nourishing fluids/blood from reaching the lips. However, it is more likely that the spleen deficiency causes blood deficiency and that dries out the lips.