Raw Chuan Wu Root Classic Formulas … Natural Herb Library

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Dispels wind, scatters cold, and relieves severe pain ... raw Chuan Wu is the intensely hot toxic mother-root lane used for stubborn cold-damp painful obstruction and deeply fixed cold pain.
Warms the channels and unblocks severe cold stagnation ... it is chosen when numbness, contracture, neuralgic pain, or cold lodged in the joints and limbs is too strong for milder warming herbs.
Addresses severe cold-type bi and traumatic pain ... traditional use extends to hard chronic pain states that clearly improve with warmth and where toxic strong medicinals are judged necessary.

Wu Tou Tang ... classic severe cold-damp painful-obstruction formula built around raw aconite-root force.
Xiao Huo Luo Dan lineage ... chronic cold-phlegm and blood-stasis obstruction with severe fixed pain and numbness.
Regional arthralgia and trauma formulas ... used only when pain is severe, cold, fixed, and difficult to open.

Traditional materia medica consistently describes Chuan Wu as hot, acrid, bitter, and toxic, with a special role in severe cold pain and obstruction.
Processing exists precisely because the raw form is too dangerous for ordinary casual use.