Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
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Fu Yuan Huo Xue Tang is a traditional Chinese herbal formula. Its name is often given in English as Revive Health by Invigorating the Blood Decoction. It is one fixed, named formula, not a herb you buy on its own.
It is used after a fall, a blow or a crash. The old texts give it for pain in the chest and side that will not settle after an injury. Chinese medicine doctors still use it for bruising, sprains and sore, stiff areas.
Long use in a tradition is not proof that a remedy works. The human trial evidence for this formula is thin and weak. Please keep that in mind as you read the rest of this page.
Short answer: no one has shown how it works in the body.
In Chinese medicine, a blow is thought to leave blood "stuck" in one place. The formula is said to move that stuck blood, clear it, and ease pain and swelling. That is a traditional idea, not a tested one.
Lab and animal work gives a few hints. Safflower and peach kernel may slow blood clotting. Rhubarb root works on the bowel and can cause loose stools.
None of that has been shown to speed healing in people. Treat the mechanism as unproven.
Most often it is taken as a decoction (a strong tea made by boiling the raw herbs in water).
It also comes as granules that you stir into hot water, and as pills or capsules made from a dried extract.
Strength varies a lot between makers, so one brand can be much stronger than another. Buy from a supplier that tests each batch for heavy metals such as lead, and for hidden drugs.
The formula first appears in Yi Xue Fa Ming (Clarifying the Study of Medicine), written by Li Dong-yuan around 1231, in the Jin dynasty.
It was written for pain in the chest and side after a fall or a blow. It has stayed in use in Chinese trauma and bone-setting practice ever since, which gives it a long record in one tradition.
See a doctor straight away if you bruise easily, bleed from the gums or nose, vomit blood, or pass black or bloody stools.
Get urgent help for chest pain, trouble breathing, a very fast or uneven heartbeat, or sudden weakness in your muscles.
Get an injury checked in person first if there was a heavy blow to the head, chest or belly, if a limb looks bent or cannot bear weight, or if pain gets worse instead of better. Also see a doctor if diarrhoea lasts more than two days, or if your ankles swell.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
Reviewed by the HealisticMD editorial team How we grade evidence →
The published evidence for Fu Yuan Huo Xue Tang is weak or absent. That usually means no controlled trial has tested it, not that a trial found it ineffective — the two are different, and we grade only what has been published.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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