Using Dried Ginger for Treating Cold Conditions and Promoting Digestion

Ginger is a common ingredient in our daily life that adds flavor to dishes. It has a warm and hot nature and can be used for cooking as well as for medicinal purposes. It is mainly used to treat spleen and stomach deficiency and cold conditions in humans. Here are a few recommendations for using dried ginger!

1. Treating spleen and stomach cold conditions

Dried ginger has a pungent and hot property and mainly enters the spleen and stomach meridians. It is good at dispersing cold pathogens in the middle burner and strengthening the functions of the spleen and stomach. Therefore, it is suitable for both external cold invasion and deficiency of yang qi in spleen and stomach cold conditions.

For treating spleen and stomach cold conditions, dried ginger can be used alone. For example, in the book "Wai Tai Mi Yao", it is recommended to take powdered dried ginger to treat sudden epigastric pain. It can also be combined with other herbs that warm the middle burner and dispel cold, such as galangal, evodia fruit, and Sichuan peppercorn.

If there is cold vomiting, dried ginger is often combined with pinellia ternata and evodia fruit to warm the middle burner and descend rebellious qi to stop vomiting. If there is spleen and stomach deficiency with cold pain in the epigastric region, decreased appetite, reduced food intake, vomiting, and diarrhea, it is often combined with qi-tonifying and spleen-strengthening herbs, such as the "Li Zhong Tang" from the book "Treatise on Cold Damage", which is used together with ginseng and white atractylodes.

2. Treating collapse of yang

Dried ginger has a pungent and hot property and can warm the heart and restore yang to open the meridians. It is used to treat conditions where yin cold is excessive, and the heart and kidney yang are weakened, or conditions of excessive vomiting and diarrhea with depleted yang qi, leading to collapse of yang and reversal. The pulse is weak and almost extinct. It is often used in combination with aconite to enhance the function of restoring yang and rescuing collapse while reducing the toxicity of aconite. For example, in the book "Treatise on Cold Damage", the "Si Ni Tang" is used with aconite and other herbs.

3. Treating cold phlegm cough and wheezing

Dried ginger has a pungent and hot property and enters the spleen, stomach, and lung meridians. It can warm and disperse cold pathogens in the lungs, promote the descending function of the lungs, and transform phlegm and fluids. It can also warm and regulate the spleen and stomach, eliminate dampness and turbidity, and cut off the source of phlegm production.

Therefore, it is often used to treat conditions of cold phlegm obstructing the lungs, manifested as cold back and cold sensation, excessive thin and clear phlegm, coughing, or wheezing. It is often combined with herbs that warm the lungs and transform phlegm, such as the "Xiao Qing Long Tang" from the book "Treatise on Cold Damage", which is used together with xixin, schisandra, and ephedra.