When your feet are cold even in summer, and you need the bathroom often

What follows combines several patients' visits into one composite story. It is not about any one person, and anything that could identify someone has been removed.

How do patients usually come to us?

Patients tell us their feet are so cold even in summer that they sleep in socks, and they go to the bathroom many times a day.

Even right after going, they soon need to go again, and the feeling that something is left doesn't go away, so it's hard to focus on work. They also mention bloating and a heavy feeling in the lower back.

Is it because the body lacks heat?

Many people come in thinking so. But when we examine them, it's often not that there's no heat — the heat is gathered at the top and can't make its way down.

We compare it to a heated floor mat where the boiler is on but there's not enough water in the mat. It's not that there's no power to heat; it's that there isn't enough to carry the heat around.

Enjoying cold food and drinks, and finding scarves uncomfortable because the throat feels stuffy, are also signs we read as heat lingering inside.

What do we look at?

We look at your tongue and pulse and gently press on your belly. We check separately whether the lower belly has strength, and whether the pit of the stomach and the sides are tight.

Many people have a lower belly that is weak and cold, while only the upper part is firm. You can feel it under your hand: heat crowded at the top, the bottom gone cold.

We also ask about what you eat and how much tension you carry during the day. When you stay tense for a long time, the area around the diaphragm stiffens, making circulation even harder.

How do we treat it?

We prescribe to warm the lower body and help circulation reach the hands and feet. At the same time, we loosen the upper part that's blocked by stress.

Doing only one side doesn't work. Warming only the bottom makes the stuffiness at the top worse; loosening only the top leaves the feet just as cold.

How did things go?

First, the time between bathroom trips gets longer. Less coldness in the toes comes more slowly.

Many people also mention their stomach feeling more settled and their lower back lighter.

What are the limits of this approach?

Frequent urination has other causes too, such as the bladder, the prostate, or blood sugar. What we look at is one of those paths.

If there's blood in your urine, if it hurts, if you have a fever, or if you're drinking a lot of water and losing weight, see a urologist or internal medicine doctor first.

To people with the same symptoms

1. Often it's not that there's no heat, but that it can't make its way down.
2. It's closer to lacking what carries the heat than lacking the power to heat.
3. You can feel it: a weak lower belly and a firm upper belly.
4. We warm the bottom and loosen the top at the same time.
5. If there's blood in your urine, pain, or fever, see a urologist first.

We prescribe based on test results. The right order is to confirm what's lacking, then fill it in.

If your tests come back normal but you still aren't recovering, come see us once. The right order is to confirm what's lacking, then fill it in.

There are many possible causes, so the same treatment can lead to different courses for each person.