Audio file :

Transcript of the podcast by Dr Andrew Miles:

Tibetan_footsoak_pharmacology and_use

Hello and welcome to the Botanical Biohacking Podcast. Today, we are going to be speaking in depth on a Tibetan Foot soak, that is really one of the secrets to our success clinically and it’s also a Foot soak that’s currently being used all over the world in select clinics. Our clinic really rests on this recipe, today we are not only going to reveal it to you, we are also going to explain it’s inner workings from both the traditional and scientific advantage point, we treat many people for nerve pain, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, gynecological and endocrine disorders such as diabetes. Our secret weapon is usually a mixture of Tibetan and Chinese herbs from the Guangsha and Sichuan region, it’s an ethnically Tibetan region in one of the most Pristine environments on earth. It’s high altitude and unique geography give the botanicals from this region special advantages.

The Tibetan people have been bio engineering incredible botanical blends with Herbal strategies from India, China and throughout the Himalayas. These wild crafted herbs were once reserved for the emperors of China and the Llamas of Tibet. Today, because of our special connections in this region, we were able to get them to use for our patients. The same quality herbs for the imperial family is now soothing the aches and pains of people all over the planet. There are eight herbs in this Foot soak as well as the number of special minerals. The eight herbs symbolize the eight secret symbols of Tibetan Buddhist.

We all know that mental tension can cause pain in the shoulders, fear can lodge itself in the legs as who want to run in a flight response but we can’t. These relationships between the mental states and physical body are well understood in this region. An injury to the body can influence your mental state and your mental state can influence pain intention throughout the body. It burns calories when you sit there and by way of Nitric oxide, it begins to set in the stage for you to transform fat into heat and if you live in a cold region, this is incredibly important, this is very important for the Tibetan Buddhist practices which have been popularized by Wim Hof, there is Tummo meditation and the active turning fat into heat requires very good peripheral circulation. It increases the heart rate as though you are exercising and this is essential for those of us who are no longer able to run and jump like we used to. Being able to have the cardio vascular exercise and be able to break us sweat is just crucial for getting our body’s processes back in the right direction.

We find that these are exceptional for neuro pain and neuropathies of the feet as gout and arthritis. This mystery addresses pain caused by the immune system imbalance which tends to cause pain that wanders from limb to lamb, it aids pain and inflammation caused by gut dysbiosis that creates more of a heavy pain sensation and it’s associated with brain fog. It gears down nerve pain caused by deregulation of cortisol and nitric oxide marked by burning and electric sensations. And it influences prostate gland and regulation for sharp pain and is beneficial effects on menstrual cycles.

It’s not ideal for diseases which are made worse by increasing circulation, so in the mid stuff are really bad cold, this could make the cold worse as they increase circulation and allow the cold to spread throughout the body. Likewise, these are not ideal for metastatic cancer.

To understand how this work, we need to look herb by herb and as a system how they are working on the body. First thing to understand is that these herbs are affecting the body transdermally, they are going through the skin. In high school biology they told us that nothing absorb through the skin. It’s an old and incorrect idea that we trace common sense. If this is so, then why does poison oak make you itch, why do so many poisons travel through the skin and cause systemic effects on the body, the truth is that plants can affect us systemically via terpines, alkaloids and volatile oils, these Foot soaks works similar to herbal politices, however herbal patches and politeces are dependent on peripheral blood circulation, if not much blood is getting into the skin, then they don’t work for you well. It’s important to not only place your herbs against the skin, it’s vital to increase circulation at the same time.

So, by working with an herbal foot soak, you are increasing circulation while at the same time, introducing the botanical herbs through the skin to the blood stream and the effects they have on us are quite extra ordinary, one of the first herbs in this formula is called Di Yu Wei, and it stops hemorrhaging, so if you have intra bleeding from an injury or inflammation that’s causing extraversion of the blood vessels, this stops it. It promotes red blood cell production, it kills pain and it’s an anti-oxidant.

Now if it stops bleeding, is there any damage or danger of it causing too much clotting, not really because when you look at the formula as a whole, most of these other herbs are actually blood thinners in nature, such as Qiang Huo this is an interesting herb because Lan went to the place where Qiang Huo was discovered, this is where the highest quality of Qiang Huo is, in chime with the mayor. In talking with him and explaining the whole project that we are doing, we get special permission to use an herb which is otherwise specifically designated for the elite of Beijing. This is not for common people, so we are able to get imperial herbs which are today used for the elite in China into this formula and having high quality Qiang Huo is very important, this herb is traditionally used for arthritis pain, it’s anti-inflammatory, it inhibits fungus and fungi in the body can have direct effects on pain signaling and this helps to kill it incredibly.

This herb helps with irregular heart rate, so people have a heart rate that’s too slow or too fast or has an irregular rhythm, this herb does wonders to help regulate the timing of the heart. We use this extensively with our cardiology patients and just using this foot soak, it’s been able to help restore their normal heart rhythm and this herb works very well in conjunction with another Tibetan herb called Hong Jing Tian. This herb increases oxygen in the blood, improves immune function and helps people to get through fatigues, it’s incredibly good for chronic fatigue disorder or people who have been in a state of chronic inflammation and pain long term.

Another herb in this formula, it’s this lowers cholesterol, reduces clotting, it’s cardioprotective and is a powerful anti-oxidant, most of the blood clots that cause people to have heart attack or stroke are found in the legs, so by increasing circulation at the same time using herbs to reduce this clots, it can drastically help to improve longevity, there have even been studies that if you want to live 10 years longer, have both of your legs removed, this is just how important the vasculature of the legs are and how crucial they are in blood clot formation which eventually causes us a cerebral vascular incident.

By doing these foot soaks as a regular part of health maintenance, it’s theoretically possible to defend heart attacks and strokes and this is something that’s very common that used throughout the bed in China. Another wonderful herb in this formula is called Zang Chang Pu this has a mild tranquilizing effect to relax people, it’s antibacterial and it has regulatory effects on the digestive system, this is so crucial for diseases involving the gut brain access, some people can’t digest anything, forget about giving them herbs or supplements or even getting them the kind of diet that they need. However, by using Zang Chang Pu transdermally, it’s still able to affect their digestion in a very positive way without asking their stomach to digest anything new.

Another herb that works similarly to this is Ku Shen it inhibits bacterial bile films, this cannot be understated, bile films are associated with the most chronic diseases in the body. Bacteria overgrows begin to spread throughout the body, your body sets some inflammatory fire and these little buggers have gene expressions which cause up to 20% of themselves to become mucus snog, so they cover themselves in snog to avoid the burn of the inflammation as your body goes into fever mode, by covering themselves it allows them to go throughout the body and spread and once the inflammation of your body goes down, that begin eating other tissues, so bacterial bile films are associated with Parkinson’s, Dementia, basically pick a chronic disease, they will be associated with bile films and in particular obesity is associated with bile films, the systemic inflammation causes the body to store fat. Ku Shen in addition is anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and anti-viral, it’s anti parasitic as well.

I Ye is another wonderful herb, it has very strong volatile oils which transfer transdermally, it’s anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and it inhibits blood clots, this also increases the secretion of bile in the gall bladder which can help you burn fat. Gan Jiang is another wonderful herb in this formula. It’s liver protective, protects the gastric mucosa of the stomach lining, it’s anti-inflammatory, it’s painkiller, it’s antibacterial and it prevents clotting, these Tibetan foot soaks contain a special Tibetan salt called Karu cha, incredibly high in potassium, calcium, iron, aluminum, titanium, manganese, barium, strontium, magnesium, copper, silicon, Sulphur which gives it this kind of volcanic heart spring quality and acts as a donor for Hydrogen Sulphide which is associated with the klotho gene which signals longevity in mice, so once they block the klotho gene in Mice, the mice live a third as long as they otherwise would live. Since this mixture of minerals in herbs and the delicate blend between them that gives this foot soak it’s incredible ability to help so many people.

It’s important to understand how the foot soak works on blood circulation throughout the body. Initially you put the feet in the water and the water is way too half for you, it can be a little tricky to do, but the heat itself will signal the body to dilate those blood vessels, creating new pathways for communication by way of the blood vessels. It allows all of the tissue in the area to become oxygenated and well fed, if you think of the body as a snow globe, anything outside the cells will drain downward, it tends to drain down into the legs and feet, you can just think of it building upside and maintain rotting there which it does, it has oxidative damage to the body by way of the inflammatory reaction.

Initially you put your feet in there, blood circulation opens up in the feet and this has a mild tranquilizing effect. This initial vasodilation will also lower blood pressure, so if you want a nice foot soak that’s going to have a tranquilizing effect and help you get sleep, then you start with the foot soak and just allow the feet themselves to get warm, but you are going to stop before the heat travels throughout the whole body.

After this the next stage is that the heat will begin to rise up the legs, the first time you do foot soaks, they may only rise halfway up the shin, it has the vasculature improves gradually be able to feel the heat pass the knees and up through the hips to the lower back. This is where you get a lot of healing taking place within the knees and the lumbar area, this is where you get a lot of pain relief. As it continues upward to the chest and heart, people will begin to feel an increase in heart rate, doing a prolonged foot soak in a way that increases the heart rate is not ideal if people have high blood pressure. For high blood pressure, you want to do a shorter foot soak. However, if people are in a state of weakness, their blood pressure is not a problem and they want to really increase the energy of the body really activate that mitochondria and get that cardio vascular fat and allowing the heat to go up and cause the heart to beat faster can be a very good thing.

The final stage of the foot soak is that the heat will travel up through the head and cause the person to break the sweat. Now after your break a sweat, that’s a great time to dry off, dry your head, dry your feet, bundle up and then go about your day. So these are the four stages that you tend to see. Initially it draws qi down, said to do traditionally as it opens up the blood circulation of the feet, this stage relates to winter, just as a tree will have most of it’s nutrients in the root area during winter, it draws the sap down into the core, into the roots, this represents winter. Spring is the rising effect, if you think of shoots going up in spring, the act of the heat coming up through the legs is spring, the summer stage is when the heart begins to really pump and this is similar to the way working outside in the summer heat would cause increased heart contractility. Finally the autumn stage is when they are sweating, this is the end of the cycle as rising has given way to descending again. Generally during the autumn stage, as the people break as sweat, they will feel, feeling as though their lungs are open. This increased ability to breathe is often accompanied with different types of pain killing as well. So the pain that tends to wander from place to place will tend to go at this stage.

Then afterwards, with pain in the body killed, with the heart contractility increased with blood circulation increased, and with the feeling that there is bronchial dilation, the lungs are open, it becomes much easier to get around and walk, start some yoga or tachi whatever, because ultimately the only thing that is going to truthfully fix chronic pain is movement. The foot soaks are great help, acupuncture is a great help, physical therapy is a great help and ultimately movement is how you are going to get there. The foot soaks create a window of opportunity to help heal and restore the body and help people to go through longer periods of movement without pain and fatigue.

So with this foot bath I detox? Well, it will indirectly have detoxification effects, however, it doesn’t do this by way of magic, because we have the sedimentation that goes down through the feet, increase in the blood circulation to the feet is kind of like taking the snow globe and shaking it up. So as all of these impurities make it back into the bloodstream, your body becomes aware of damage which is occurred and of oxidation that exists there, which may have been cut off from the rest of the body. This signals macrophages which are white blood cells to go throughout your body and this area eating away the dead tissue. And this is the stage where sometimes people report an increasing pain, how is that you are getting increasing pain, well because this damage has been sequestered, just think about some big messy room and you are having company over you, just shut the door. Often times with the body, you get some inflammatory response and the body just shuts it down, you know what, I can’t deal with this right now, I am going to deal with it later. But later never comes and it gets forgotten about. So as you open up that area and start to clean up that dead tissue, some of that dead tissue gets reintroduced to the body and the body as a host says, whoa, where did that come from? There must be some new injury and that can increase the pain signal for a couple of days. Now it’s not always that pain increases, but it can be based on the person’s individual history.

Another, I wouldn’t really say side effect, it’s just an effect, is that because of the macrophages eating away that dead tissue, it can cause an inflammatory response which causes itching, I see this quite often particularly with people over 70 years of age. As they begin the foot soak for one or two days, they may get intense itching around the feet, and this is the same kind of itching that you get as a wound is healing, so if you get caught a few days later as it’s healing it starts to itch. The macrophages aren’t only eating away the dead tissue, they are also rebuilding that tissue, it’s just beautiful the way these, you know, the so called Killer cells that are supposed to be just eating away, they are also the builders, they also help to restore tissue and part of this is an itching sensation. So if there is a slight increase in pain, that’s normal, if there is a slight increase in itching, also normal and it’s also great in terms of prognosis because when there is a reaction like this then you can be sure that these areas of damage which have been sequestered traditionally called blood stressor, think of it like venous insufficiency, these areas that are sequestered and damaged are now being reintroduced in the body, we are getting infrastructure into that area and that’s going to allow the entire region to be thriving once again.

Many people who use these foot soaks report having a week or even two weeks of pretty vivid dreams, they have asked me to explain what this is all about. From the modern scientific point of view, the best I can do is suggest that blood carries hormonal signals and it’s possible that some of these dead tissue that’s been sequestered is now reintroduced into the bloodstream and possibly there is still some information just like as sent to me trigger, a memory, may be some thing kicking around in the blood stream from that time is re triggering something, it’s very vague, hypothetical, probably ridiculous and the simple answer is I am not really sure from the modern standpoint. From the traditional standpoint, it’s said to be going through the body and clearing out negative karma as you may have trauma lodged in the body somewhere, it’s helping you to sort this out, it’s helping you at a very physical level to release the effects of emotion on the body, this can be very profound for some people, this can be very life changing for some people and it’s not something I typically will prep people for, you know, people coming with back pain, I don’t say, oh hey, this is going to may be bring up some stuff from your childhood, I don’t know if it will or if it won’t, what I tend to see is that the pain goes away pretty quickly and often times, without people having to relive trauma, the dreams may get a little weird, generally not nightmares, but just a little bit vivid and odd and then the hold on the body has gone. Now personally, I am not a big fan of the kind of therapies that involve people to relive trauma again and again, I don’t necessarily think it’s necessary or healthy, but getting your blood to take care of what may be hormonal information that’s kicking around and they are from the past, rewiring the brain in different ways what I have seen from taking approaches that lean more in this direction is that people can have dramatic positive changes in their life without having to relive ugly chapters of it. This is part of it that I prefer and many people do as well. So if bad dreams come up, if weird dreams come up, if memories which have been hidden away, that suddenly reappear, come up, may be that there is a link between blood circulation, hormones, nervous system, immune system and memory in terms of a scientific point of view, all of this is very new. The best I can do with this stage is traditional.

I think it’s also worth mentioning that this entire project is being done by incredibly wonderful people who are working cooperatively and as a whole, we are working with local Tibetan doctors who are working with herb gatherers who are wild crafting this, we have a long history of working with people in this region and now we are working with Tibetan doctors with respect for the cultural and spiritual traditions of the regions.  We are working hand in hand with local government in a way that helps to preserve these herb growing regions, in using these for pain you are actually helping the ecology of some very precious areas of the world. In addition to this, we are working with local Tibetan charities, so partial proceeds from this go back into the community, they go to help Tibetan kids who have been crippled, recently helped by way of some local people there, helps kids to get shoes in the library, we are not showing up as hey, we are the Americans to save you, that’s ridiculous and ultimately that’s propaganda, we are working tactfully with local groups of Tibetans to get the work done in a way that isn’t going to make the news but it is something that’s making a true positive change in the area and the people who are incharge of these charities are friends of ours, so we know there is nothing screwy going on about it. If you are using this, it’s important to know that you are actually protecting the ecology of the region, you are helping to preserve the culture and traditions in that region, so much of modern day use and consumption comes with the expense of people in other areas, expense of the ecology of that region, the wild crafting that’s done is done responsibly, so let’s say that people coming across a bunch of Di Yu Wei, they may only take 20% of it and leave the rest to make sure that it’s growing and thriving for the next year and the year after that in helping yourself through the physical and emotional pains that you have had through life, you are also supporting the ecology in culture of the region. I would like to personally thank you for making this decision because not only is this medical therapy the most effective that I found and really the most bang for the buck, because you are not ultimately dependent on a practitioner, this is something you can do yourself at home. The more you know, the more you are able to do yourself, the more you are able to achieve self sufficient health without dependence on somebody else and this is really a beautiful state to be in and then to know that what you are doing is making a positive impact in the world. I believe also has an effect on the treatment and the way that you view the treatment, taking certain drugs which are creating systemic problems in society which are created in such a way as to damage the earth and are sold in a way that is very predatory is ultimately not something that’s going to be sustainable for any of us in the long run. So I want to really thank you for making this choice and opting for more natural