Two Cases of Ocular Pain Successfully Treated with Orento / 日本東洋医学雑誌

There are cases of intractable eye pain, which can be difficult to treat. The late Shogo Yamamoto treated un­explained eye pain with various Chinese herbal prescriptions. Among them, there were clinical trials of heating agents including orengedokuto and hangeshashinto, but no trials of orento are mentioned. Further, no trials of cases of eye pain treated with orento were found in several other collections of clinical trials ;however, here we report on two cases of intractable eye pain of unknown origin that showed significant effects when admin­istered orento. In case 1, unexplained eye pain appeared after cataract surgery and after various treatments were found to be ineffective, acupuncture treatment in our hospital showed a positive effect. In case 2, unex­plained eye pain developed without any obvious cause, and the pain was increased by acupuncture treatment at our hospital. A common finding in both cases was objective cooling of the upper abdomen. The eye pain was considered to be upper heat and the abdominal pain to be middle cold, thus a diagnosis of upper heat and mid­dle cold was made and orento administration begun. We therefore consider that orento could be listed as a treatment for unexplained eye pain.

Applications of Orento Based on“Upper Heat and Middle Cold” / 日本東洋医学雑誌

Orento is generally used for upper gastrointestinal symptoms. We have used orento for various diseases based on “upper heat and middle cold”. As a result of the evaluation of 30 responders to orento, the most frequent sign of “upper heat” was “yellow tongue coating” (29/30 responders), while the most frequent sign of “middle cold” was “preference for warm foods and beverages” (27/30 responders). Compared with the non-­responder group, the responder group showed significantly higher frequencies of “gastrointestinal cold”, which is the sum of “preference for warm foods and beverages” and “aggravation of gastrointestinal symptoms by cold foods and beverages” (29/30 responders, p = 0.047), and “upper/lower gastrointestinal symptoms” (29/30 responders, p = 0.014). These results suggest that “yellow tongue coating” is the most important sign for “upper heat” while “gastrointestinal cold” is the most important sign for “middle cold”. As Kampo patterns for orento, gastrointestinal symptoms often occur, but there is a possibility of upper or lower gastrointestinal symptoms, skin disorders, and sleep disorders.