Travel Kit suggestions for travelers diarrhea

Huang Lian Su - more info here: http://www.bluepoppy.com/blog/blogs/blog1.php/2010/05/08/what-is-huang-lian-su 2) Huo Xiang Zheng Qi San (or the liquid concentrate versions of it) 3) Ji Zhong Shui- a Hong Kong "patent" remedy that is powerfully aromatic and good for symptomatic relief of nausea and vomiting (basically the general malaise of food poisoning). FYI, the Mandarin pronunciation for this product is Ji Zhong Shui, but the box will probably spell it differently. It comes in a red box with little boxes inside; each little box contains one small vial. of one vial diluted in water per serving. Lucas, if the person is near San Diego, you can buy this at DXD. You might also want to bring some common cold formulas, since it is easy to get respiratory infections when traveling abroad in densely populated areas. Eric Brand ----------------------------------------------------------Huang Lian Su plus Mu Xiang Shun Qi Wan works very well for traveler's diarrhea. - Bill Schoenbart ----------------------------------------------------------May 8th, 2010

What is Huang Lian Su?

Written by: Eric Brand Published on May 8th, 2010 @ 08:33:19 am , using 1266 words, 1314 views Posted in Eric Brand's Blog

By Eric Brand

Coping with the occasional bout of travelers diarrhea is an occupational hazard for many practitioners that travel around the world. For example, I often travel to China and I am invariably placed in cultural situations where I must ingest all manners of bizarre vegetables and animal parts. If youve ever been to China, you know that the creature factor is relatively high, and if you are truly integrated into the culture via conferences, business meetings, and other formal settings, you will invariably encounter dishes that make your intestines squirm even before you consume them. Different people respond to such situations differently, but cultural flexibility and good manners are critical to my relationships in China and I often have to put my own comfort zone on the backburner in order to adapt the circumstances around me. In Chinese culture, there is a certain degree of self-sacrifice that is sometimes required in order to build relationships, and giving ones host face will often take you places that you can never get to as long as you stay entrenched in your own self-centered reality and comfort zone. Unfortunately, this often involves a significant embrace of the creature factor and an occasional dive into less-than-savory situations from the point of hygiene and intoxication. Thus, all practitioners need to know about Huang Lian Su. Even if you stay at home and simply watch others go abroad, please think about Huang Lian Su when your friends ask your advice about traveling into the great unknown. Follow up:

I used to apprentice in a Chinese herb shop in days gone by, and I remember that the boss would always suggest that I bring a few key items in my traveling kit- Huo Xiang Zheng Qi San, Huang Lian Su, and a Hong Kong remedy called Ji Zhong Shui (a powerfully aromatic concentrated liquid made with herbal extracts and essential oils). Years later, I encountered the same array of substances during my only bout of serious digestive upset in all my years of traveling throughout China. I was traveling in rural regions of Yunnan province with my brother in 2001, and wed been conservatively avoiding sketchy food as well as possible at the time. I remember seeing nothing that looked even remotely sanitary in the village we were in, so I made my brother go all the way outside of town to a fancy hotel in the hills (oh, if only we had just eaten the noodle soup that those people seemed to be happily enjoying in the grungy restaurants in town!). We got some vegetarian food, tofu and stir-fried veggies, but it turned out to be the wrong choice because it made me more ill than Id ever been before from food. I spent a summer building latrines in an area of Ecuador that completely lacked toilets and clean water when I was 16, so Im no stranger to digestive disturbances. Nonetheless, that Yunnan episode was pretty hardcore, significant dehydration from diarrhea and vomiting, general malaise, the works. Anyway, I remember flying to Guangzhou from Kunming and heading straight for the TCM hospital, where they promptly gave me a swab to take a stool sample downstairs to the lab. A short while later the basic panel came back- minor elevations of bacteria but nothing so extreme as to require antibiotics. They gave me Huo Xiang Zheng Qi San and Huang Lian Su, and over the course of a day or so the condition gradually got better and faded into a distant memory that left me amazed at the wonders of Chinese herbs. Anyway, over the years Ive become far more accustomed to strange Chinese food, and I regularly need to eat fairly bizarre things that would have put me over the edge back in my days as a strictly organic, vegetarian Boulderite. For example, Ive been served fresh turtle blood and bile, lambs blood, bamboo rat, all manners of tendons, scorpions, eels, stomachs, and dozens of normal creatures that fly, swim, swarm, walk, crawl and god knows-what-else, all in the past week alone (often with every major category of nature in the same meal). Normally I can hang with such things, though Im not a big fan of the intense creature factor. Such meals are sometimes a bit much even for a relatively robust, culturally sensitive, and resilient guy like me. I really much prefer to see nature in the wild than on my plate, and if I was doing the ordering wed be eating simple veggies and maybe a bit of organic chicken that I never saw walking around in the backyard. Unfortunately, I never get to order simple fare in these various cultural circumstances because there is always a host ordering crazy stuff and I have no choice but to lose face or step up to the plate to honor my host. Add the ceremonial consumption of liquor and street food to the mix and I find myself going back to the Huang Lian Su for prevention and peace of mind, if nothing else. So what is Huang Lian Su? Basically, Huang Lian Su refers to different things in different places. Huang Lian Su literally means simple (isolated) Huang Lian (coptis). It is also a common pharmaceutical name for berberine, one of the key active ingredients in Huang Lian. The fact that the same Chinese word refers to two things can cause a bit of confusion. On the US market, we usually use the name Huang Lian Su to refer to a full-spectrum extract of Huang Lian. The Huang Lian Su that we buy in the small vials of yellow pills in a green, yellow, and red box are the most famous type, and other companies that sell prepared medicines also sell Huang Lian Su pills that consist of a straight concentrate of Huang Lian.

However, the product that is sold as Huang Lian Su in many overseas markets (such as Thailand and China) is actually pure berberine hydrochloride, usually at a dose of 50 mg per tablet. Sometimes the packaging is remarkably similar to the product that we see in the US, but the ingredient profile is expressed differently when the pure drug is used. When I asked my teacher about the difference between the full-spectrum extract and pure berberine, he said that the anti-bacterial effect should be the same between the two products, but the full-spectrum extract would be preferred for Huang Lians traditional heat-clearing functions. Anyway, taking Huang Lian Su (2-3 pills 2-3X/day) is very effective for preventing travelers diarrhea and it can be taken for weeks at a time when traveling in the third-world. It can also help to prevent the burning diarrhea that comes from eating copious amounts of chili. Any traveling kit should contain Huang Lian Su. The dosage can be increased for serious diarrhea, food poisoning, or even dysentery (though antibiotics are often also indicated in true dysentery). While it lacks the strong antibacterial effects of Huang Lian, taking Huo Xiang Zheng Qi San can also dramatically help with nausea, diarrhea, and symptoms of travelers diarrhea, mild food poisoning, and cases of stomach flu characterized by symptoms of abdominal turmoil and external contraction (heat effusion, aversion to cold, etc). In China, a liquid concentrate called Huo Xiang Zheng Qi Shui is particularly effective and easily available. For severe cases, adding the aromatic Hong Kong preparation Ji Zhong Shui provides rapid symptomatic relief, but it is only easy to find in Hong Kong or Western Chinatowns. Wishing you all safe travels!