Healing Digestive Disorders with Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine
By Boyd Bailey, L.Ac., Dipl.Ac (NCCAOM)

Digestive disorders are all too common today, with factors such as genetics, stress, pathogens, poor food choices, and lack of exercise largely to blame. Conventional Western medicine (WM) offers hope and relief to many through pharmaceutical, surgical, and nutritional interventions. Unfortunately, however, sometimes conventional allopathic care is not enough ... or too much. Adverse side-effects of medications and surgical complications are all too frequent.

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has much to offer those with gastrointestinal (GI) disorders. TCM is an excellent complementary or adjunctive therapy to conventional WM, addressing an individual’s health concerns from a 5000-year-old perspective, while also offering deep support and relieving side effects of pharmaceuticals and speeding post-surgical healing.

TCM can successfully diagnose and treat many WM-diagnosed GI conditions, including Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD), Gastritis, Ulcer, Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn’s Disease, Cholecystitis, and Hepatitis C. TCM also addresses symptoms such as diarrhea, constipation, nausea/vomiting, gas/bloating, abdominal pain, and heartburn/reflux which may not be diagnosed or managed by conventional WM treatment.

TCM is truly different from what our culture recognizes as medicine. TCM has mostly Daoist philosophical underpinnings, and is concerned with harmonizing our Essence (“Jing”), Energy (“Qi”), and Spirit (“Shen”), supporting the “12 Organs” and their meridians and reservoirs of “Qi” (bioenergy/ life force), and removing pathogenic influences described as “Dampness,” “Wind,” “Fire,” or “Cold.” Most important to the diagnosis and treatment of chronic GI complaints are Spleen, Stomach, Liver, Kidney, and Large Intestine organs and meridians. For example, very common diagnoses within the TCM framework include “Spleen Qi Deficiency,” “Liver invading Spleen/Stomach,” and “Large Intestine Damp-Heat.”

The primary modalities used in TCM to treat GI problems are acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, and Chinese dietary therapy. Acupuncture uses precisely placed, hair-thin needles to adjust the body’s “Qi,” which travels throughout us in river-like channels (meridians), connecting the surface with organs and deeper energies. Licensed acupuncturists often gently manipulate the needle to produce the “De Qi” (Arrival of Energy) sensation, felt as a mild pressure, tingle or numbness at the point; many classical Chinese medical texts insist that for treatment to be most effective, the “De Qi” sensation should be achieved. Electro-acupuncture provides a comfortable, low current, moderate voltage electrical signal to the needles, and is often used instead of manual manipulation. Whatever the method, properly applied it is minimally uncomfortable – even pleasant – and often deeply relaxing. Licensed Acupuncturists (L.Ac.) often employ many non-needle techniques such as “Tuina” (Chinese massage/ bodywork), moxibustion (heat therapy), cupping (suction), and “Guasha” (friction) to therapeutically manipulate the “Qi” in the meridians. Herbal medicine provides needed nutrients and phytochemicals designed to “tonify deficiencies” and “sedate excesses,” in an attempt to harmonize the “Qi” of the organs and meridians, expel pathogens, and support our “Jing,” “Qi,” and “Shen”. The result is a balancing of above and below, our surface and interior, our heat and our coolness, the dryness and moistness – our “Yang” and “Yin” aspects – such that all physiological functioning improves. Chinese herbal medicine is typically quite safe, and adverse effects or serious interactions with prescription drugs are rare. Chinese dietary therapy is often very important when treating our organs of digestion and elimination. TCM has a complex understanding of “food energetics,” having to do with certain flavors, temperatures, and cooking methods that have a therapeutic impact; many patients experience relief when weaving Chinese dietary theory into conventional nutritional counseling.

Self care at home can be crucially important to those managing a chronic digestive disorder, and strategies that TCM employs are nutritional counseling, home moxibustion (heat therapy), self acupressure, press-tack needle retention (to give further stimulus to acu-points), exercise and lifestyle recommendations, and “Qigong” (breathing, movement, and visualization based “Qi” exercises).

TCM, and especially acupuncture, is difficult to study using our scientific gold standard of randomized, controlled clinical trials. However, Western science has confirmed that acupuncture regulates GI motor activity and secretion through opioid and cholecystokinin production, and via both sympathetic and parasympathetic neural pathways (Li / Dill; 1992). In 1997 the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) endorsed acupuncture for adult postoperative and chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting. In fact, there is an abundance of clinical trial evidence showing acupuncture at “Neiguan” (P-6; acu-point on inner wrist) to be very effective against nausea and vomiting from any cause.

Traditional Chinese medicine, through its many interventions, can often achieve remarkable results in treating and managing acute or chronic digestive complaints and diagnosed GI conditions, often with no adverse side-effects, and an accompanying heightened sense of well-being and harmony.

Boyd Bailey, L.Ac., Dipl.Ac. (NCCAOM) is a NC state-licensed and nationally board-certified practitioner of acupuncture and Chinese medicine. A traditional practitioner, he integrates the “5 Branches” of acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, Chinese dietary therapy, “Tuina” (manual therapy), and “Qigong” (energy work) to treat a wide variety of medical conditions. Boyd has two practices in the Triad: in Winston-Salem at Piedmont Acupuncture (336-777-0037) and in Greensboro at Integrative Therapies (336-294-0910).