Nature: bitter, slightly cold
Enters: Liver, Large Intestine
Actions: Cools the blood; stops bleeding; clears liver heat.
Indications:
• Damp-heat: bleeding hemorrhoids, hemafecia, dysentery
• Heat in the blood: many forms of bleeding, especially of the lower body/large intestine; also for coughing blood, epistaxis, uterine bleeding.
• Liver heat: headache, red eyes, hypertension, dizziness.
• Topical: tongue bleeding.
• Lowers blood pressure.
• Use charred to stop bleeding.
• Contains rutin and quercetin (anti-inflammatory, reduce capillary permeability, reduce tension in bronchial and intestinal smooth muscle, relieve intestinal spasms, anti-allergic effects, improve coronary circulation by dilating coronary blood vessels, may protect against development of atherosclerosis, more).
HF: A Sha Chong (kill worms or parasites) herb, important in Gu Zheng (Gu parasites) formulas
Zhaoxue Lu: As we know, most books mention Huai Hua enters Liver, LI intestine with the function to clear heat, cool blood and stop bleeding. It is commonly used for LI wind with hemorrhoid or blood in the stool. For psoriasis, we usually think it belongs to warm febrile disease and related to skin (Lung). So we use the function of Huai Hua which can cool blood and clear heat from Li to clear the skin. There is a clinical report to use Huai Hua 3g bid after meals every day to treat psoriasis. Huai Hua was ground into power after being dry fried into yellow color.
Dose: 6-15g
Huai Jiao: the fruit
• Weaker effect on bleeding than the flower bud, but more effective at draining heat.
• Often used for inflamed hemorrhoids.
• Directs Qi downward (therefore contraindicated in pregnancy).
Dose: 9-15g