Often patients don’t attend to the onset of a cold or the flu immediately. You may ignore the signs or they just don’t ‘register’. So it is only after a day or two and the cold is setting in and developing that the idea to ‘take something’ comes up. At that point, start taking one of our two foundation formulas, YIN QIAO SAN or GAN MAO LING.
Since I have been using Chinese herbs for a REALLY long time, YIN QIAO SAN has been our family go-to formula for colds and flus for a really long time. After I was introduced to GAN MAO LING, it took some time to switch my allegiance, or rather, to include it. In my previous blog, I talked about both of these formulas as ‘foundation formulas’ with GAN MAO being the stronger of the two. In practice, YIN QIAO and GAN MAO get taken out of our medicine cabinet interchangeably – and, as soon as possible.
What is a ‘foundation formula’? A formula that, while it DEFINITELY stands alone as a remedy, can easily be enhanced by adding one or another formula to further relieve a particular and strong symptom presentation. We have a lot of symptom specific and symptom focused herbal remedies to take along with either one of our two core formulas.
Let me explain… Whenever you get a cold or the flu, you don’t get every possible symptom. Sometimes you get a headache. 
Or your neck and shoulders are tight, aching and stiff. Or, your stomach is queasy. Your sinuses may be congested or swollen. Your nose may feel stuffed or it is running white or yellow or green. You might develop a cough. That cough may be full of phlegm. It may be dry or hacking or wheezing or barking. There are so many symptoms that can accompany your cold or flu. And, there are formulas that address these variations and can be added as a ‘booster’ to the foundation formulas.
Before moving on to those ‘booster’ formulas, we’ll go a bit farther into our foundation formulas and have some fun learning about curing what ails in Chinese herbal medicinal lingo! Up next time….