What They Came In For: Frequent Colds
Sarah M. came in because she caught colds constantly. Every six weeks or so, sometimes more often, she'd come down with something. She'd tried vitamin C, zinc, elderberry, and more sleep, but the pattern continued. She wanted to know why her immune system seemed so much weaker than everyone else's.
This is one of the most common concerns people bring to our clinic. It's also one of the most misunderstood, because the problem usually isn't the immune system itself.
Modern immunology frames immunity in terms of defense: how well does your body identify and destroy pathogens? From this perspective, frequent illness suggests a failure of surveillance or response, and the solutions follow logically. Stimulate the immune system, give it more resources, train it to fight harder.
Chinese medicine asks a different question: does your body have the resources to maintain its boundaries in the first place?
In classical terms, we talk about wèi qì 卫气, often translated as "defensive qi." Wèi qì isn't a standing army waiting to fight invaders. It functions more like the integrity of a container. When wèi qì is robust, the boundary between inside and outside holds, and wind and cold and damp don't penetrate easily. When wèi qì is weak, the boundary becomes porous.
Wèi qì is produced by the body's deeper metabolic processes, rooted in what we call the spleen and lung systems. These aren't the anatomical organs but functional networks responsible for extracting energy from food and distributing it through the body. When those systems are depleted, wèi qì suffers and colds come easily.
This was the pattern we saw with Sarah. She ran cold, especially in her hands and feet. Her digestion was sluggish, with bloating after meals and low appetite in the morning. She carried a tiredness that sleep didn't fix. Her pulse was thin and soft, and her tongue was pale and slightly puffy with a thin white coat. All of this pointed to qì deficiency, particularly in the spleen and lung networks.
Treatment focused on building her up. We used acupuncture to support the spleen and lung systems, choosing points that strengthen qì production and consolidate the body's surface. We prescribed an herbal formula based on Yù Píng Fēng Sǎn 玉屏风散, Jade Windscreen Powder, from the Dānxī Xīnfǎ 丹溪心法 (c. 1347), which addresses this pattern of weak protective qì and susceptibility to wind invasion.
We also talked about how she was living. She skipped breakfast and ran on coffee until noon. She exercised hard several times a week despite being exhausted, because she felt she should. In classical terms, she was spending more than she was earning.
Chinese medicine takes the arithmetic of energy seriously. You have a certain amount of qì available each day, and you spend it on movement, digestion, thought, emotional processing, immune function, and repair. If you consistently spend more than you take in, your reserves erode. Sarah didn't need to overhaul her life, but she did need to stop draining herself unnecessarily. Eating breakfast, scaling back intense exercise, and resting when tired would make a real difference.
Over the following months, the colds became less frequent. When she did catch something, it resolved faster. Her energy improved and her digestion settled.
This is what constitutional treatment looks like. We weren't boosting her immune system in the way that phrase usually implies. We were helping her body rebuild the underlying vitality that makes healthy immune function possible. Sarah still comes in occasionally for a tune-up when life gets demanding, but she's out of that cycle of constant illness. Her body holds its ground now.