Published in The Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine. pg. 673, Vol. 35, No. 11, 1994.

A 30 year old woman had a history of periumbilical colic pain for three years that had become worse in the last six months.  On October 30, 1991 she came in for an examination.  Her past diagnoses from a variety of doctors had been, “cholecystitis,” “duodenum bulbar ulcer” and “hysteromymoma,” but none of the treatments from these diagnoses helped her condition.  Her main symptom was paroxysms of abdominal pain with the pain centering around the navel that became worse when she was cold or had a cold drink.  When her condition was the most severe the colic pain was difficult to bear, she had noisy borborygmus, and sweated easily; when her condition was mild there was a dull, uncomfortable pain that felt better with warmth and pressure.  Her mouth was dry with a bitter taste.  She had not vomited and did not have a fever.  She experienced dizziness and periodic insomnia.  Her stool was very dry and she had dark urine.  Her tongue body was red with a thin yellow coat.  Her pulse was stringlike and a little rapid. Upon palpation, her abdomen was soft, but not tender and had no other abnormalities.

 Blood, urine and stool tests showed no abnormalities. She was given the following organ function tests: liver, gallbladder, spleen and pancreas. She also had an ultrasound of her uterus and an upper G.I. barium test, all of which did not find anything unusual.  She was given a uroporphyrinogen [excessive porphyrin excretion in the urine] test, and it was positive. Her Western medical diagnosis was acute intermittent-type liver hematoporphyria [liver enzyme deficiency resulting in reduced heme synthesis].  Her Chinese diagnosis was cold and heat complex abdominal pain.  She was given a modification of fu zi xie xin tang: zhi fu pian 10g, pao jiang 10g, chao bai shao 15g, zhi gan cao 10g, huang lian 5g, mu xiang 10g, chao xuan hu 10g, and da huang 10g. 

The patient took 1 packet of herbs a day.  After three days the abdominal pain showed an obvious improvement.  After 8 days the abdominal pain disappeared. The uroporphyrinogen test was re-administered and came up negative.  From the beginning to the end of treatment the patient took 15 packets of herbs and all the symptoms disappeared. A follow-up visit in July of 1993 did not show any recurrence of symptoms.