Bleeding When She Shouldn’t: The Treatment of Menstrual Disorders – Overactive Cycles

The diagnosis and treatment of menstrual disorders with Chinese medicine can be challenging. The modern approach of focusing on nourishing Kidney yin in the first half of the cycle and tonifying Kidney yang in the second half of the cycle, although neatly reflecting modern ideas of hormonal fluctuations, is too simplistic to be widely clinically successful. This article explains the classical approach to understanding and treating menstrual disorders, with a particular focus on overactive cycles (bleeding too much and/or at the wrong time).