Chinese medicine is a rich tapestry of knowledge and techniques, ancient wisdom honed and passed down through the ages. But the ‘superpower’ of our medicine lies in its ability to explore the unknown. To navigate uncertainty and delve into both the unknown depths of the human body and the ever changing environment.
Just as stars guide sailors on their voyage, the ancient wisdom of our medicine helps us to chart the unknown and steer our patients toward wellness and balance. Nowhere is this more evident than in the past few years of the Covid crisis.
In this conversation with Sally Rappeport, we mull over the clinical experience of living through the pandemic, including the stigma and psychological effects of a fear mindset and addressing lingering symptoms like coughs. We also talk about some of the different herbal formulas and strategies practitioners developed in response to the Covid crisis.
Listen into this discussion on the lesson we’ve learned (and continue to learn) from our co-evolution with SARS-C0V-2.
I’m teaching a Gui zhi tang course right now so I’m thinking through that lens. Because this formula warms from the center with Zhi Gan Cao, Sheng Jiang, Da Zao and Gui Zhi and Da Zao and Bai Shao nourish the blood, and Bai shao and Gan cao together relieve spasms – it can be a fabulous base formula for dysmenorrhea. This is true especially when the patient is thin and has deficient qi and blood with stringy tight muscles and often presents with anxiety. It can be modified with herbs like Dang Gui and Chuan Xiong to more effectively deal with the menstrual pain.
Sally Rappeport
Sally has been practicing Acupuncture and prescribing East Asian Medicinals since 1998 in Brooklyn NY. After about 10 years, she was avoiding specializing, and she realized her passion was herbal medicine. She delved into the classics studying on her own and with Yaron Seidman, Ed Neal, Feng Shi-Lun, Sharon Weizenbaum, and most recently Nadine Zach. In 2005-6, she did an internship with Jean Giblette at High Falls Gardens, and subsequently added Chinese herbs to her Brooklyn backyard garden.
She now serves on the Board of the High Falls Foundation. After studying with Sharon, she added an in-house granule pharmacy to her office in order to be able to easily and inexpensively (relatively) distribute individualized herb formulas to her patients.
In 2016, she started the Shen Nong Society with a great deal of assistance from Caroline Radice, and eventually many others in order to create a forum where practitioners focused primarily on herbal medicine could meet and learn together and address issues in our field.
Since the pandemic, she has treated many COVID and LONG COVID patients using mostly classical formulas. At the end of 2022 she closed her Brooklyn practice and moved her practice to upstate NY full time.
Visit Sally on her website to learn more about her work and teaching opportunties.
Sally is one of the motive forces behind the Shen Nong Society, don’t miss this year’s conference!
