Chinese Medicine: Starting with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 634: Chapter 634: Toothache

Qiao Sen’s comment was quickly spotted by "Vanilla Honey Peaches."

She replied instantly: "Thanks for the feedback! See? I told you good products can stand the test of time!"

And she pinned his comment to the top.

However, the attack from the paid trolls came right on cue.

"Heh, another shill."

"The blogger’s really sparing no expense to clear her name, huh? She even hired a shill to put on an act?"

"This post is so fake. ’Years of dandruff gone after one wash’? Why not just claim it can reverse aging?"

"Don’t believe it, everyone. She’s a total scammer."

Qiao Sen read the malicious comments, his body trembling with rage.

He tried to argue back, even swearing that he was telling the truth, but they wouldn’t listen. Instead, their insults grew even fouler.

He couldn’t resist cursing back, but he was hopelessly outnumbered and instantly buried under a flood of verbal abuse.

Qiao Sen was furious and helpless. This feeling of being right but unable to make anyone listen was utterly suffocating.

...

Ding’s Pharmaceutical Factory.

The General Manager’s Office.

Ding Kaifang stared at the latest market sales report, his expression as black as the bottom of a pot.

It was a complete disaster.

In the past, whenever Ding’s Pharmaceutical released a new product, it would sell out within days on word-of-mouth alone, even without any advertising.

But this time, a full week after its launch...

...the sales were pitifully low, worse even than some generic, no-name brands. Meanwhile, its online reputation had completely collapsed. A search for "Ding’s Shampoo" brought up nothing but negative press.

"President Ding, we’ve been running ad campaigns. We’ve spent a lot of money."

Marketing Manager Wang Lei said, his face grim, "But there are too many trolls. It’s a full-on smear campaign across the entire internet. As soon as we put out any positive promotion, it gets drowned out. We can’t even make a ripple. It’s like trying to put out a forest fire with a glass of water."

"What are the police saying?"

Ding Kaifang asked.

’We caught the mole and filed a police report. There has to be some kind of outcome, right?’

Wang Lei sighed. "The police are investigating. But Old Wang is sticking to his story that he just stole things to sell for cash and doesn’t know who bought them. And the guy who paid him, Zhang Wei, used a fake ID and a burner phone. The trail’s gone cold. As for the online trolls... that’s cybercrime. It’s hard to collect evidence, and cross-jurisdictional enforcement is even harder. The police said they need time, but most likely... it’ll just fizzle out with no resolution."

Furious, Ding Kaifang slammed the report down on his desk.

He was holding a game-changing product, a guaranteed winner, yet he was being dragged through the mud by a bunch of cheating thugs.

How could he possibly swallow this indignity?

...

Li’s Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic.

The controversy surrounding the shampoo promotion didn’t affect him.

He was busy every day.

In addition to seeing patients at the City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, he also had to see patients at his own clinic.

It was the weekend.

The assistance program hadn’t ended, so Hu Qiming was there again.

He had handed off the task of taking blood pressure to a nurse and now stood beside Li Xu, a small notebook in hand, not relaxing for a second.

The door opened and a young patient walked in.

The young man looked to be in his mid-twenties. Dressed in a plaid shirt, he had the classic look of a programmer.

His hairline, however, was a cause for concern. His forehead was high and shiny, and the hair on his crown was sparse; at such a young age, he was already developing a bald spot.

Li Xu glanced at him. "Here about the hair loss?"

The young man, Liu Shaohua, gave a wry smile and rubbed the top of his head. "I’m in IT. I work overtime, stay up all night coding... hair loss is an occupational hazard. It’s normal. That’s not what I’m here for today."

"Then what seems to be the trouble?"

Liu Shaohua clutched his jaw, his expression pained. "A toothache. It’s killing me."

"A toothache... hmm. When did it start?"

Li Xu asked as he jotted down notes in the patient’s file.

"It’s been hurting for almost half a month straight. I could tolerate it at first, but it’s gotten worse and worse. Now it even hurts to chew, and the slightest touch feels like a needle jab. It’s so bad at night I can’t sleep, and half my face has swollen up."

Liu Shaohua sighed. "I went to a dental clinic and had an X-ray done. The dentist said there was nothing wrong with the tooth itself—no cavity, no pulpitis. He said it was probably a gum issue and told me to take some anti-inflammatories. But they didn’t work at all."

Li Xu put on a mask and gloves, then stood up. "Alright, open your mouth and let me take a look."

Liu Shaohua opened his mouth.

Li Xu switched on his headlamp and leaned in for a closer look.

He could see that the patient’s upper and lower gums were red, swollen, and inflamed. The lower gums were particularly bad, swollen high and even showing signs of ulceration.

"Did you do anything unusual or go anywhere out of the ordinary before the toothache started?" Li Xu asked.

The pain made Liu Shaohua’s words a little muffled. "No, I’ve been swamped. We landed a big project, so I’ve been working overtime every day. I haven’t had time for anything else. My tooth was hurting for days before I even had time to think about seeing a doctor. I just bought some medicine from the pharmacy downstairs, but it didn’t help."

"What about what you ate? Did you eat anything in particular before the pain started?"

"What I ate... a lot of things."

Liu Shaohua recalled, "To drum up business, my boss was taking us out to entertain clients every day. We were basically eating out for every meal. Lots of rich, heavy food, tons of different dishes. I can’t possibly remember everything I ate."

Listening from the side, Hu Qiming thoughtfully wrote two words in his notebook: "Inflammatory foods?"

Li Xu asked another question. "Since you were at banquets, I assume you were drinking?"

Liu Shaohua answered honestly, "Of course. How are you supposed to build rapport with people if you don’t drink? Besides, I was under a lot of pressure. A little alcohol helped take the edge off."

Li Xu nodded and sat back down. "Alright. What medications have you tried so far?"

"Vitamin C, metronidazole, a combination of artificial bezoar and metronidazole... When those didn’t work, I tried Chinese medicine. I was drinking chrysanthemum tea and Honeysuckle extract like water, but it couldn’t get rid of the ’fire.’ Then I took Huang Lian Shangqing Tablets, which gave me diarrhea so bad my legs felt like jelly, but my tooth still ached. A couple of days ago, an old TCM doctor told me I had exuberant fire from a kidney deficiency and prescribed Six Flavor Rehmannia Pills to nourish my kidneys. Those didn’t work either."

After hearing this, Hu Qiming added another line in his notebook after "Inflammatory foods?": "Excessive consumption of rich, sweet, and greasy foods, along with strong spirits and heavy flavors, has led to blazing stomach ’fire.’ The stomach’s orifice is the mouth; the Foot-Yangming Stomach Meridian enters the upper teeth, and the Hand-Yangming Large Intestine Meridian enters the lower teeth. Hence, the swollen, painful gums."

This was a textbook diagnostic approach.

However, Li Xu’s next words left him stunned.

Li Xu looked at Liu Shaohua and said, "Your problem isn’t just simple internal ’fire.’ It’s caused by—a failure of your stomach qi to descend."

"’Failure of stomach qi to descend?’"

Hu Qiming froze, his pen hovering over the paper.

’A failure of stomach qi to descend can cause swollen and painful gums?’

’Isn’t that a bit of a leap in logic?’

Li Xu continued, "Normally, when we have swollen and painful gums, our first thought is internal ’fire.’ In Chinese medicine, this ’fire’ is divided into excess fire and deficiency fire. Deficiency fire is usually thought to be caused by a kidney yin deficiency."

"With a kidney yin deficiency, it’s said that ’shallow water cannot raise a dragon.’ There isn’t enough ’water’ to suppress the ’fire,’ causing the ministerial fire within the kidneys to lose its check and race upward, which can also cause swollen, painful gums. If that were the case, using a yin-nourishing, fire-purging medicine like the Zhibai Dihuang formula would be correct. But since that didn’t work for you, it proves that’s not the cause."

Liu Shaohua breathed a sigh of relief and patted his chest. "That scared me to death. As long as my kidneys aren’t deficient, I’m good. I’m still young, after all."

Hu Qiming glanced down at his notebook and silently crossed out the two words "kidney deficiency."

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