I recently treated a few young women with very cold feet. All of them suffered with painful periods. Some were struggling to conceive. At first glance these might seem like unrelated complaints — but in Traditional Chinese Medicine, they tell a single, coherent story. Cold feet- painful periods, infertility One Root, Many Branches In TCM, the Kidneys are the root of all vitality. They store our deepest essence — called Jing — and govern reproduction. Crucially, they also hous