• Stop bleeding: the stop bleeding herbs should be carefully selected and in proper dosage. Although the herbs can stop bleeding, they only play an auxiliary role. They should never be used on their own, and must always be combined with herbs that treat the underlying disharmonies of bleeding. The stop-bleeding herbs are selected according to their natures, such as cooling blood, warming blood, activating blood or astringent. Each herb can have more than one of these effects.

• Treating primary condition: since each of the bleeding symptom has an underlying disharmony, such as overheated blood, qi deficiency or yin deficiency, clearing the primary conditions help stop bleeding effectively.  Generally, the remedies are aimed to clear heat, cool blood, replenish qi, reinforce the astringent ability of qi, nourish yin, subdue virtual fire, activate blood or remove stasis.

• Consolidating and resuming harmony: bleeding symptoms are consumptive, which exhausts blood, qi and other fundamental substances of the body, therefore after the bleeding arrested and the primary condition eliminated, individuals should have certain degree of consolidation treatment. Physicians will consider the deficient aspects of the body and select appropriate supplement herbs for tonification accordingly. For example, massive or a prolonged blood loss usually leads to a blood deficiency state, it is applicable to add extra blood-nourishing herbs such as angelica root and rehmannia root. This can enhance the efficacy of the prescription and ensure a smooth healing process.

Apart from the above category of stop-bleeding herbs, herbs from other categories are also selected for bleeding remedies. In addition, some of the stop-bleeding herbs have a tendency to work on specific body regions, reach certain organs or meridians, and thus are usually selected for specific bleeding symptoms.

couch grass rhizome

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