What Are the Best Chinese Herbs for Fibromyalgia?

If you have fibromyalgia and you can't get better, it might be because the work is being done in the wrong order. Think of your body like a house that has been infiltrated by water damage and mold. You have to repair the walls and the roof before you replace the carpets, or the next time it rains you start all over again. The herbs I reach for first are the ones that fix the roof.

What are the best Chinese herbs for fibromyalgia?

The best Chinese herbs for fibromyalgia are the ones matched to the layer of the problem you are working on, and for most people the first layer is the exterior. In Chinese medicine we call this protecting your exterior by releasing wind and fortifying your defensive qi. Defensive qi, wei qi, is the protective energy that circulates at the surface of the body, in the skin, the muscles and the space between them. When it is weak, wind gets in. When wind gets in and stays, you get pain that wanders.

To do this, I use formulas that address chronic infections and post-infectious inflammation. Two of them do most of the work at this stage: Wind Tea, built around Bupleurum from the Tibetan plateau, and Yu Ping Feng San, built around astragalus. These are useful for pain that wanders around the body or comes and goes. Later layers bring in other herbs, and in the video I also show three I use often: Chinese red sage (Dan Shen), Sichuan lovage root (Chuan Xiong) and purple nutsedge root (Xiang Fu). I explain each one below.

If you want help working out which layer you are on, I walk members through exactly this inside Gut Brain Synchrony, my community on Skool. Your first week is free.

Why can't I get better from fibromyalgia?

The most common reason I see is sequence. People replace the carpet first. They take something for sleep, something for mood, something for the sharp pain, and each of those may help for a while. But if the roof is still leaking, the next cold, the next stressful month or the next infection soaks everything again, and the pain comes back.

So I work in order. Roof and walls first: release wind and fortify the defensive qi. Then the plumbing: clear dampness and restore the gut. Then the wiring: calm the nervous system. Then the carpets: move the blood and repair the tissue. That is the structure of my Stage 1 fibromyalgia protocol on wind, dampness and chronic infections and the stages that follow it.

Managing fibromyalgia doesn't have to be complicated. It has to be done in the right order.

Can a virus trigger fibromyalgia?

Yes, and this is why the roof matters so much. The formulas I start with are aimed at chronic infections and the inflammation that lingers after an infection has passed. The modern research on long COVID has made this link much harder to ignore.

A 2025 study in Brain, Behavior, & Immunity – Health notes that over half of people with post-COVID condition go on to meet the clinical criteria for chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, or both, within a few months of infection. The same team found a protein from a dormant human retrovirus, HERV-W ENV, which viral infection can switch on, in people who had fibromyalgia before the pandemic, which the authors read as a sign of viral participation in these conditions^[1]. A 2026 scoping review that pulled together 228 records on new-onset fibromyalgia after mild, non-hospitalized COVID-19 found the evidence supports an overlap between long COVID, chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia^[2].

Chinese physicians described the same pattern long before anyone could name a virus. A pathogen enters from the outside, is never fully expelled, and settles into the muscles and channels where it causes pain that moves. In this tradition that lingering pathogen is wind, often carrying cold or damp with it.

Does fibromyalgia pain move around the body?

It often does, and in Chinese medicine that is the signature of wind. Wind moves. Pain that is in your shoulder on Monday, your hip on Wednesday and your forearm by the weekend, or pain that flares and fades without a clear reason, is wind pain. That is the pain the exterior formulas are for.

There is a modern echo of this. In a 2025 randomized crossover trial from the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, the authors note that about 85% of people with fibromyalgia have increased sensitivity to cold. Thirty-eight patients with high cold sensitivity received warm acupuncture for eight weeks. Their cold sensitivity score fell by 2.31 cm on a 10 cm scale during treatment, against 0.83 cm while they were only observed, and their sensitivity to pain and to wind improved as well^[3]. Researchers now measure sensitivity to wind in fibromyalgia. Chinese medicine has been treating it for centuries.

Wind Tea and Bupleurum from the Tibetan plateau

Wind Tea is the formula I hold up in the video. Its lead herb is Bupleurum, Chai Hu, and the highest-quality Bupleurum is wild-crafted on the Tibetan plateau. Bupleurum root is used to release the exterior and bring down fever, to treat colds with fever, and to soothe the liver; it is one of the most studied roots in Chinese medicine^[4].

Bupleurum is the heart of Xiao Chai Hu Tang, Minor Bupleurum Decoction, which is recorded in the Shang Han Lun, the classical text on cold-damage disorders, and has been used for more than 2,000 years. Formulas built on it have well-recognized anti-inflammatory and immune-regulating effects, linked to the saikosaponins from Bupleurum, glycyrrhizin from licorice and baicalin from Scutellaria^[5]. A 2025 review in Internal Medicine describes saikosaponin and baicalin as anti-inflammatory compounds that lower pro-inflammatory cytokines in people with lingering respiratory symptoms after COVID-19 infection^[6]. That is post-infectious inflammation, which is exactly the target. My Wind Tea pairs this with San Ren Tang, which moves damp fluids, and you can find it in the Fibromyalgia Stage 1 Protocol Package.

Yu Ping Feng San with astragalus

Yu Ping Feng San means Jade Windscreen Powder, and the name tells you what it does. It builds a screen against wind. It dates to the Yuan dynasty and the physician Wei Yilin, and it is known for enhancing immune function^[7]. Its main herb is astragalus, Huang Qi, the classic tonic for defensive qi.

What I like about astragalus for fibromyalgia is that it regulates rather than simply stimulates. A 2026 review of astragalus polysaccharides describes the effect as context-dependent: under immunosuppressive conditions they may help restore impaired immune defenses, while during immune over-activation they may calm excessive inflammatory responses and support immune balance, working partly through the gut microbiome and the mucosal barrier^[8]. A tired, over-reactive immune system needs both.

The formula is used clinically in exactly the pattern Chinese medicine associates with a weak exterior. In a 2025 study of 91 adults with allergic rhinitis of the lung qi deficiency and cold type, those given acupuncture plus Yu Ping Feng San had an 84.4% response rate after four weeks, compared with 65.2% on a steroid nasal spray, along with better quality-of-life scores and lower IgE, and the benefit was still there at follow-up^[9].

Chinese red sage, Sichuan lovage and purple nutsedge

These are the three herbs I show in the video, and each has a clear job.

Is sauna good for fibromyalgia?

Yes. You should try to take a gentle sauna and break a sweat a few times a week. In Chinese medicine, sweating is the oldest way of releasing the exterior: you open the pores and let the wind out. Herbs and heat work together.

The research here is encouraging. In a Japanese study of Waon therapy, 13 women with fibromyalgia sat in a far-infrared dry sauna at 60°C for 15 minutes, then rested under a blanket for 30 minutes. Every patient's pain dropped after the very first session, by about half overall, and pain and symptom scores stayed significantly lower through the observation period^[13]. Finnish prospective cohorts link frequent sauna bathing with lower cardiovascular and all-cause mortality and with favorable inflammatory and endothelial markers^[14]. And sweat itself is protective: eccrine sweat glands secrete pro-dermcidin, which is cleaved into antimicrobial peptides on the skin and also helps regulate innate immunity^[15]. Your sweat is part of your defensive qi.

The word gentle matters. Fibromyalgia does not reward punishment. A warm session that leaves you relaxed and lightly sweating is the goal, not an endurance test.

Does cold weather make fibromyalgia worse?

For this kind of pain, yes. If you have wandering pain, you should avoid going outside on cold or windy days unless you have really bundled up well, especially protecting your neck, low back and joints. Wind and cold enter where the body is exposed, and the back of the neck in particular holds acupuncture points named for wind, such as Feng Chi, Wind Pool, and Feng Fu, Wind Palace.

The measurements agree. A 2021 systematic review in The Journal of Pain looked at 17 studies that tested cold pain thresholds in fibromyalgia. All 17 found patients felt cold as painful at warmer temperatures than controls did, between 10.9°C and 26.3°C against 5.9°C to 13.5°C, and the difference was statistically significant in 14 of the 17. The authors conclude there is consistent evidence of an abnormal sensitization of the temperature-sensing system in fibromyalgia, and note that some patients describe disabling temperature sensitivity in winter^[16]. A 2025 review of temperature and chronic pain adds that people with fibromyalgia often report pain flares with temperature changes^[17].

How to protect your exterior when you have fibromyalgia

This is the practical version of the video. It is the roof work, and it comes before anything else.

Fibromyalgia questions people ask

Does fibromyalgia ever get better?

Yes. The word I use is remission, and remission can be lasting. The people who struggle longest are usually the ones whose treatment never addressed the exterior, so every new infection or cold spell undid their progress. Fix the roof and the rest of the work starts to hold.

What should I do when fibromyalgia gets worse?

Ask what changed. A recent cold or virus, a run of cold or windy weather, or a stretch without sweating all point back to the exterior. That is the time to return to the wind-releasing formula, warm up, cover the neck and back, and use gentle heat. For a full walk-through of where to begin, see Fibromyalgia: Start Here.

Is infrared sauna good for fibromyalgia?

Yes. The Waon therapy study above used a far-infrared dry sauna at a gentle 60°C, followed by rest under a blanket, and pain fell by about half after the first session. Short, warm and restful is the right model.

Repair the roof first. Everything else you do will last longer for it.

— Brehan Crawford, L.Ac.

References

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2. Plaut S. A systematic scoping review and conceptual analysis of new-onset fibromyalgia manifestations after non-hospitalized COVID-19. J Transl Med. 2026;24(1). doi:10.1186/s12967-026-08145-7
3. Li Y, Wang YD, Li ZH, et al. Warm acupuncture for fibromyalgia with increased cold sensitivity: a cross-over randomised controlled trial. Clin Exp Rheumatol. 2025;43(6):1062-1068. doi:10.55563/clinexprheumatol/r9v8e7
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