How to Reinforce Your Health After taking 1/2/3 Shots, Based on the Wisdom of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM)

By now, a good number of people and especially international travellers would have taken at least one shot of the C-19 Vxx.

In case Google flags my article and prevents it from showing up on search engines, I shall mainly refer to the Vexx as pokes or stabs 😂 in this article. Indeed, the ridiculous policies in Singapore have been making me extremely vexed, but let’s save that for another day I guess.

How is your health in general, after getting each poke?

I have never documented in detail my own health after my 2nd (Aug 2021) and 3rd (end-Nov 2021) non-mRNA (SNV) pokes.

In Singapore, the ruling is a 3-dose SNV for one to be considered fully vxxed.

Here are a few of my own observed symptoms after the second & 3rd pokes:

• Stuffy chest and easy breathlessness. Especially initially after the pokes, from climbing just one flight of stairs, or even from trying to have a conversation while doing something else.
• Weaker stamina. Prominent from my yoga classes. I couldn’t last through my usual one-hour vinyasa flow classes properly. Classes I’ve taken for years!
• Extremely itchy eyes. Never in my life have I ever experienced such itchy and uncomfortable eyes. Gotten some eye wrinkles from the scratching 🥺
• One week after the first poke in July 2021, I noticed a strange but obvious muscle knot in my calf, which restricted the mobility of my foot. The pain in my ankle was brought to my attention while attempting Warrior poses in yoga.
• In early Oct 2021, I woke up with a serious case of vertigo. The world was spinning around so badly. When nausea started creeping up, I knew the vertigo wasn’t my imagination. I’ve never experienced such bad vertigo before. Quickly went to see my TCM professionals for medical as well as therapeutic help.
• On the 3rd week of Oct 2021, I suffered a ‘sprained back‘ from a sneeze. Being clinically trained in TCM therapy, I knew that usually, this kind of ‘sprained back’ would not be too difficult to treat. However, my recovery turned out pretty slow by my standards (almost a week), with TCM therapy and acupuncture. Different areas in my torso were in constant muscular spasms. When recovery becomes this slow, I knew my circulatory systems were not functioning too well 😫
• Menstrual issues including clots, occurring 2 months after the 2nd poke. Which is a real pity, because before getting the stabs, mine had been well re-adjusted with TCM to proper and smooth cycles.

More symptoms after the third poke:

• Bad insomnia for 2 consecutive nights, from the 2nd night after the poke. My insomnia improved right away after seeing my TCM physician for a new prescription. Sleep is generally better now, with rare insominnia episodes (I’m almost constantly on TCM customized prescriptions ever since the 3rd poke).
• Subtle but distinctive face numbness during the week of the poke. I’m pretty sensitive to my bodily sensations, so a few nights after the poke, while washing my face, I noticed that my face didn’t feel right. It was like there was a layer of something blocking sensations when I touched (pressed into or rubbed) my face. I did facial Guasha and my face sensitivity improved.
• Stiff scalp. Long-practised body awareness led me to be sensitive to bodily changes. The top of my head would feel stiff every now and then. I would use my Guasha tool to release tension.
• Difficulty taking deep breaths. This would occur every now and then too.
• Strained eyes. My eyes became more sensitive to light. I would need to dim down the lights in my room after evening.
• Fast heartbeat. Now easily and often over 100bpm 😨 The rapid heart rate occurs at random: standing up from squatting down, climbing stairs, feeling nervous, cleaning the floor etc. In May 2022, I was conducting Yin yoga workshops for more than 50 students and was so nervous speaking and doing demostrations, that my heart rate easily jumped past 150~170+, no joke. My poor petite heart is so taxed nowadays 😥
• Shortened menstrual cycle.
• Early & swift onset of presbyopia. I noticed the distinct deterioration of my eyesight in 2022, with a swift onset of presbyopia (commonly called “Old Flower Eyes / 老花眼“). The text messages on my mobile screen or the book I was holding were a blur, especially if I’m in a more dim environment. Accordign to stats, I’m a few years too early to get presbyopia. Sad!

And finally, I returned positive in June 2022!

I have no qualms typing this: Am very sure I would have recovered MUCH FASTER if I had *NOT* been inoculated with ANY pokes.

Very grateful for the fevers because my body was putting up a good fight. Super grateful for having access to the right TCM people Also, very thankful no one will starve or die when I was down and needed the rest

Here’s my Coveet timeline:

Life resumed after that.

During the Coveet episode, I REFUSED ALL of the social-media-popular “remedies’, especially anything related to coconut, or iced or liang teh or LHQW, because it is important to protect my health by guarding my Yang energy. Anyway, my senses of taste and smell returned after being semi-lost for 1 or 2 weeks 100% of my Coveet recovery credits go towards 中医!

So why am I writing this post?

Each time I try to craft a TCM post, I often feel like I need to write so many things, to reinforce the theories behind why TCM people advocate for certain ideas. But it’s a challenge to translate ancient TCM concepts into the modern layman’s language, while not losing too much of the deep wisdom behind Traditional Chinese Medicine. Oh well let’s try!

1. With special thanks to my TCM teacher for sharing his incredible wealth of TCM knowledge.
2. I am not a TCM physician. However, I’m clinically trained in TCM wellness, and also co-work with actual, professional TCM Physicians.
3. You won’t see Science lingo being used professionally here, sorry.
4. If you’re not familiar with TCM’s philosophy, some of the text here might come across as very unconventional and non-Scientific. (TCM’s school of thought, indeed, was never meant to be explained with Science.)
5. All the ideas here are inspired by – if not, related to – holistic TCM wellness.
6. You’re encouraged to read with an open mind.

Disclaimer: By reading this post, you accept that the content is intended to be educational, not to be used as diagnosis or treatment. The information provided is not a substitute for a physician or any form of medical care. If you have specific health issues, consult a trusted, professional medical practitioner, before using any of the information here.

From TCM’s understanding, what has taking the Pokes got to do with the Heart?

Taking note of the many adverse reactions people experienced after getting poked, we noticed that the pokes attack the Heart System most.

A rough translation from this line in《黄帝内经》, a 2500-year-old, super important TCM book ever written, would be: Majority of the origins of pain, itch, growths, have to do with the Heart System.

How to know if your heart is already weak / weakened?

In TCM, these are some sample symptoms that could signify Weak/Weakened Heart Energy:

• Breathlessness, or Difficulty taking deep inhalations – from walking fast, or just climbing one flight of stairs, or just talking, or for no reason at all
• Heart palpitations / Heart-fluttering sensations
• Rapid resting heart rate (above 100 per min) / Slow resting heart rate (below 60 per min)
• Insomnia / Poor sleep. Difficulty falling asleep, or sleeping deep, or staying asleep
• Peeing problems – Little pee despite drinking a lot of water, or it feels like you can’t empty your bladder properly
• Short-term memory loss – Cannot recall what someone just said or something that happened very recently
• Pain in lifting stabbed arm to a minimum height. I’ve encountered a decent number of people who experienced an inability to lift their arm beyond their shoulder height, or rotate the arm back towards the shoulders. And this phenomenon tend to appear a few months post-poke.
• Decrease in sexual desire and/or sexual performance. Especially for men, who find difficulties getting or holding an erection, or noticed physical differences in their reproductory organs be it becoming shorter or longer 😳
• Sweaty palms/feet

Hands up if you noticed any of these symptoms after you took your pokes! Especially if you don’t recall feeling them so significantly before the shots.

Secondly, the pokes are cold (寒), foreign (邪) materials being shot directly into a warm, living human body.

Pfz pokes have to be stored under -70˚C in the deep freezer, a temperature colder than Antarctica’s winter 🥶, while it’s -20˚C for Mod poke. Even if they eventually got thawed to room temperature, these foreign materials still are 寒邪/寒毒 in Traditional Chinese Medicine’s eyes, directly entering the body system.

To keep your body safe, our self-survival instincts kick in to attempt to ‘melt and purge the coldness’ of the foreign material to reduce its threat to the body system, thereby burning up more of the internal essential energy that keeps us alive and well.

Also, the heart has to work even harder to regulate (warm up) the blood temperature to its normal 37˚C, and to send the blood to every part of the body.

How to Protect Your Health After Being J abbed, Using TCM’s Philosophy

1. Don’t Sleep Late

In TCM, the heart energy gets negatively impacted the most when a person sleeps late.

Sleeping at 10pm is late.
12am is very late.
Sleeping after 12am, and if frequently done so – is akin to slow suicide.

Have you ever worked really late or stayed up so late for various reasons, and felt a certain hollowness from your core area? I would feel it when I worked till 2am/4am during my days in the design industry. Sometimes, it felt like I had to use a lot of energy to speak one sentence. Now that I understand better about the human system, looking back, the body was burning internal fuel furiously to keep me functioning as a proper, social human. This type of exertion is actually very damaging to the body.

When you sleep early and well, your Heart Energy receives the chance to get nourished (养心).

In general, for people living in Asia, ideally, the correct time to sleep would be at 8:30pm, which is impossible a habit to implement in modern cities when often, at 8pm, people have not even ended work. You can only try your best.

The benefits that can be obtained from sleeping well (deep sleep and early) will decrease the later we go to bed. Until a point where we sleep simply to stay alive, because that sleep doesn’t reap any benefits anymore. Bear this in mind each time you delay every hour going to sleep.

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2. Do Not, Do Not, Do Not exercise too hard.

The authorities gave guidelines to avoid strenuous activity or exercise 2 weeks (original advice was 1 week) after getting poked. We would suggest, even after the 2 weeks, you should not exercise too much as there is a risk of over-exerting your heart.

Exercise in moderation, and slowly build your stamina back

Go slow on regaining your pre-jab exercise routine. There is no fixed duration – every human body is different. Listen to your body’s reactions each time you start exercising. Stop the exercise when it feels like your heart is pumping too hard. You don’t need to build a strong stamina overnight.

Combining both Pointers 1 & 2, please also Do Not Exercise at Night.

| Read: These Common Lifestyle Habits Are Actually Killing Your Health |

3. Stay away from food & drinks that will cut down your Yang energy (life force).

Humans are living materials and we depend on something called Qi (life force) to keep us going. Qi can be widely classified as Yang energy.

When someone passes away, a Chinese term to describe is “断气”, meaning the Qi has stopped and life has ended.

TCM sums it up succinctly: Stay away from 生冷冰寒凉.

Which means to avoid anything that is raw (生), cold (冷). iced (冰), very cold (寒), or cooling (凉). A few examples of things to avoid (but many people take frequently nowadays) include coconut water, salad, sashimi, milk, green tea, pearl bubble milk tea, liang teh, ice-cream, dietary supplements, most fruits.

Skip the oranges and orange juice.

From Traditional Chinese Medicine’s school of thought, Oranges are believed to harm the Heart System. Also, oranges are considered to be very cooling in TCM context.

Avoid bananas too.

Bananas harm the Lung System, which you need to protect at all costs if you wish to stay resilient against that vi rus, regardless if a person has taken the pokes.

| Read: How to Easily Boost Your Immunity at Home, with TCM Techniques! |

4. Get some Early Morning Sun on Your Back

In ancient Chinese language, it’s called 采阳 ~ “harvesting the sunlight (also Yang energy)”. The best time to harvest this natural resource would be early morning sunlight – before 9am.

A person’s back includes two major Meridien Channels, including one called 太阳膀胱经 – the most important Meridien Channel for detoxing. If you see someone with a very thick back, chances are the person is already very unhealthy and suffering much bodily congestion.

The lower back also has some important acupoints (命门, 肾俞) related to the Kidney System, which is like the main battery inside our body. So, sunning your back is like recharging your body’s battery.

With enough Yang energy harvested, the body is able to function better via good detoxing and strengthening of the immune system.

To stay strong after getting your shots, do give sunning your back in the mornings a shot 🤗 You will definitely feel the difference afterwards.

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5. Try moxibustion

Moxibustion goes a long way as a very effective heat + herbal therapy in the history of China. Moxa as a herb has plenty of benefits.

In fact, right after leaving the clinic after getting my pokes, I stuck a self-heating moxa patch on my arm. When I got home, I lit up a moxibustion stick and did therapy on my stabbed arm as well as body’s vital acupoints.

Moxibustion therapy, other than boosting the body’s heat energy (qi), also has the ability to purge cold energy and dampness out from the body, and helps to clear blockages within the circulatory systems.

Note these basic rules about doing moxibustion!

• Do it preferably in the daytime.
• Drink only hot water before and after moxibustion.
• Don’t shower for at least 4 hours after moxibustion. Avoid chilled drinks and 生冷冰寒凉 as mentioned above.
• Minimize physical contact with water for the day. Don’t do silly things like take a long shower, or a long soak in the bathtub, or go swimming.
• Cover applied skin surfaces (the acupoints) well after a moxibustion session.

6. Consider taking TCM herbs.

Currently known as the most expensive herb in the world now, saffron (藏红花 / 番红花) as a TCM herb is good for clearing blood clots, among its many other health benefits. Blood clots are possible causes of strokes, heart attacks. (Blood clots and jabs, familiar?)

The taste of saffron is a little weird, but still not too bad. Real saffron, is actually very expensive, sold by the gram, while expensive saffron does not mean it is good saffron huh. Watch out for synthetic saffron!

Cinnamon as a TCM herb is good for the Heart System. I sprinkle a tiny little bit of cinnamon powder into my morning coffee. Again, only high-quality cinnamon. Don’t even consider making do with those cinnamon in powder shaker bottles at Starbucks.

But, always take everything in moderation. Please check with a trustable TCM physician, especially if you have specific medical conditions.

7. Do Guasha (TCM Scraping) on Your Arm

TCM Scraping (Guasha 刮痧) is another of my fave among the TCM therapies available. I was doing Guasha for a friend, about 1 month after his 2nd SV poke. To our surprise, an obvious lump about 1cm diameter, darkened in color, started appearing on his arm. We discussed and it wasn’t his BCG vaccine from childhood days, so we could only guess it to be distinguishable congestion from the poke(s).

You can either get Guasha done on the upper arm area where you got stabbed, or do it for your inner arm, from the top and downwards to the wrists, as they are Heart and Lung-related Meridien Channels (心经, 心包经, 肺经).

Tip: Guasha should not be painful via brutal force used. It should be a gentle but firm kind of pressure.

(You can still do GuaSha even if it’s been months after your pokes.)

Hope you find this post helpful! If you do, please Share it to your family and friends 😃 Stay strong and healthy!

Thank you to my most kind-hearted TCM teacher, for always sharing his deep knowledge of TCM wellness selflessly and generously, and for inspiring me to write this article for the benefit of others. Most of the ideas here are by him, while elaboration of details by me.

More TCM & wellness articles on the blog!

• 11 Easily Achievable TCM Methods to Boost Your Immune System at Home
• Eliminate these Common Lifestyle Habits Before They Kill Your Health
• How to Not Fall Sick Again in Winter or Cold Weather, using these TCM Health Tips
• Learning TCM Completely Changed the Way I Travel. For the Better.
• Simple but Effective Yoga Poses at the Airport Before A Flight
• 12 self-care tips to nourish the mind

Or click here to see the list!