Another unpleasant attack of kidney stones in January, fortunately the doctor at SOS did a miracle and the horrible pain disappeared in 20 minutes. Grateful for that.
The Chinese mafia in my house brought in the TCM connections. Oh yes, “I have weak kidneys”. Now in Chinese TCM that is quite a sensitive subject as “kidneys” here refer not just to our Western “kidneys” but to a whole concept of well-being and of … sex. Doing some search produced totally different opinions on what “seniors” are supposed to do in bed. According to the Chinese, based on some “specialist” who lived like some 2,000 years ago, once you reach a certain age, men should limit their bed activities.
Dr. Sun Si Miao, a physician and Taoist of the Tang Dynasty who lived from 580 to 682 (101 years), gives the following guidelines for a healthy amount of sexual activity. TCM recommendations given over 2500 years ago:
- Teens: Contrary to what the media pressures us to believe in today’s society, in Ancient China it was thought that teenagers didn’t have enough strong, mature energy to engage in sexual activity yet.
- 20′s: It is healthy to have sexual intercourse once every 4 days. Engaging in sex more frequently at this age runs the risk of prematurely depleting Kidney essence.
- 30′s: Once every 8 days
- 40′s: Once every 16 days
- 50′s: Once every 20 days
- 60′s: Once a month, if the individual is fairly healthy. If the individual had a history of health disorders or generalized weakness, then only occasional sexual activities was recommended.
- 70′s: Whether healthy or not, sex would use up too much energy therefore sex is not recommended at all.
Needless to say, Western views are kind of very very different… Funny how Chinese still swear by all that stuff while people have changed over the ages, better nutrition, health and more open minds.
More about it: “Sex and the Kidney”, the TCM view:
http://taliamarcheggiani.com/2012/01/17/sex-and-the-kidney/
And some of the Western views: “Sexual activity is a natural and important part of a healthy lifestyle, no matter what your age.” See:
http://healthycanadians.gc.ca/health-sante/sexual-sexuelle/senior-aine-eng.php
Anyway, I am always ready to explore TCM, so I accepted to follow some weeks of drinking a pretty awful concoction, prescribed by a “very experienced TCM specialist”. We have a special brewing pot that simmers for hours. Each time it produces like 10 small bottles, enough for about 3 days (kept in the fridge).
Whatever the effect, the stones disappeared (at least for now) and the rest, well, I don’t mention.