A patient of mine is having loose stool from her herbal formula. Would love thoughts on why that may be, and what I can change. 36 y.o. F, CC at the moment is URI with lingering cough for 8 weeks. Cough is productive, phlegm mostly white but some yellow and green, hurts to cough, feels like there’s phlegm stuck in her chest that she can’t get out, pain at flank.HX of recurrent URI’s most of her life, and almost always has some amount of phlegm in chest or sinuses.Other sx: fatigue, eczema as of last year, anxiety, BMs irregular with some constipation, some bloating, some diarrhea, high cholesterol (340), chronic low back pain, feet swell and feet hot chronically.She’s seen me twice. Pulse:L1 deep faint, L2 deep wiry, L3 deep thin wiry, Dong 1/2R1 deep tight w/ R/U, R2 deep wiry big, R>L, Dong 1/2. I took her overall weak pulse to be something of a ZWT, but leaned towards thinking the weak L wiry guan being her version of a CH pulse. Decided to harmonize first b/c of the green/yellow phlegm, flank pain, pain when coughing. I gave her XCHT – RS/DZ + GJ/WWZ + XXXT + XB. She reports loose stool when taking the herbs, such that she skips morning dose so she doesn’t have to have diarrhea at work. What’s happening? Should I have gone with ZWT + WWZ?
