A woman who had been taking Wu Ji Bai Feng Wan for bleeding for ten months

A woman in her thirties experienced continuous uterine bleeding (“rushing and remitting”) for over three months. Her general practitioner ran every possible test without finding any cause. Fortunately, someone recommended she take one of our gynecological “sacred medicines,” Wu Ji Bai Feng Wan, which worked very well and stopped the bleeding. However, she discovered that the medicine could not be discontinued: whenever she stopped, various “side effects” reappeared—irregular menstruation, headaches, dizziness, and other discomforts—so she continued taking it for more than ten months. Because she did not want to depend on a single medication long-term, she sought out a TCM specialist to help resolve the underlying issue.

She did not express many chief complaints. But when I palpated her pulse, her primary problem became clear: yin-blood deficiency with congealed blood stagnation, insufficient kidney qi, and internal dampness. Evidently, this was a rather complex pattern.

After one or two doses of my prescription, effects began to emerge: her original discomfort was greatly reduced, headaches and dizziness decreased significantly, and she experienced additional “benefits”: her sleep improved markedly (previously, once awakened by her children at night, she had great difficulty falling back asleep), her previously dry hair became much more lustrous, and her spirits were greatly lifted. She then returned to her home country and paused treatment.

This case aims to explore why Wu Ji Bai Feng Wan was effective but did not fully resolve the problem.

First, Wu Ji Bai Feng Wan has a clear blood-nourishing effect but is obviously insufficient for dispelling blood stasis. Although it stopped the bleeding, as long as the root cause remained, the problem would manifest in other symptoms—in this patient’s case, menstrual irregularity and the resulting discomforts.

Second, Wu Ji Bai Feng Wan has tonifying properties for qi and blood but is markedly inadequate for fortifying kidney qi. This patient’s cun (inch) pulse was empty and deficient; Wu Ji Bai Feng Wan alone could not correct this and a specialized formula was necessary.

Overall, Wu Ji Bai Feng Wan is a relatively mild formula and, when it matches the pattern, can be taken long-term. But because it is mild and not highly targeted to specific pathological states, its effect on a complex pattern is very limited.

This also carries an important lesson for patients: if you must rely on a single medicine long-term to relieve or suppress symptoms, that medicine is inevitably not fully on-pattern. Remember, any truly pattern-specific treatment does not require permanent dependence on a single herb or formula.

Before she left, the patient sent me a message asking if I could share my diagnosis and treatment rationale with her, so she could relay it to her local doctor in India; she also wanted to re-examine the underlying issue. I explained that yin deficiency, blood stasis, and kidney-qi insufficiency are uniquely TCM concepts that transcend the scope of Western medicine.

This, I suppose, explains why no matter how many tests she underwent with Western practitioners, no cause was ever found.

Case No.086