Digestive problems during ovulation

Last week I wrote about the connection between digestive problems and menstruation. What about digestive problems that appear during ovulation?

It's less common, but it definitely happens, and from the perspective of Chinese medicine, it's a different diagnosis and a different treatment.

The Chinese believed that we are part of our environment and what happens outside also happens inside the body.

They looked at cold, heat, humidity, wind, and dryness and assumed that just as they exist in nature and affect nature, they also exist within our bodies and affect us.

For example, if we take fever: they defined people who walk very fast, talk at a fast pace, sweat a lot, and are very thirsty as people who have "fever" in their bodies.

They don't really have a fever when their body temperature is measured, but they are defined by Chinese medicine as people with a fever, and to balance their symptoms (for example, excessive sweating), they receive "cooling" treatment through nutrition, herbs, and acupuncture (which, in my experience, works amazingly).

Same thing with humidity and this is where I come to the connection to ovulation.

According to Chinese medicine, when we have worsening digestive symptoms during ovulation, this will usually indicate a diagnosis of internal "dampness" (it has nothing to do with the climate, but it does have something to do with symptoms that feel like moisture has settled inside our body).

The symptoms will usually be: heaviness in the body and stomach, thinking may be somewhat hazy or there will be loops of recurring thoughts, a sticky taste in the mouth, mucus in the stools, urgency to defecate, a feeling of incomplete emptying, soft stools, a tendency to sinusitis, a thickly coated tongue, and vaginal discharge.

What can be done to treat internal humidity?

You can incorporate foods into your diet that "remove dampness" according to Chinese medicine:

Give up fried foods, reduce dairy products, eat more cooked/steamed food, eat green vegetables such as lettuce, arugula, cilantro, parsley, and celery.

Basmati rice, buckwheat, and millet are also recommended.

Spices like ginger, nutmeg, or cardamom would also be suitable.

You can do physical activity (especially walking) and meditate to calm the many thoughts that, according to Chinese medicine, can cause internal dampness or be caused by internal dampness.

Of course, acupuncture can also help. There are combinations of acupuncture points that relate to the removal of moisture from the body.