Digestive Complaints and Chinese Medicine

According to the ancient Chinese doctors, good health is based on what enters your body, what leaves your body – and a good rest at night. In other words: your diet, your digestion and your sleep. Though in our days, this approach might have become a bit too simplistic.

More and more people suffer from digestive problems that are linked to our body and mind being on constant ‘high alert’. Emotional stress, exhaustion, but also an overly sensitized immune system may cause a large number of food intolerances and digestive issues almost at any level of the digestive system, starting from mouth ulcers to acid reflux, GERD, stomach pain, ulcers, down to Colitis/ Crohn, gluten intolerance, and ending with haemorrhoids, just to name a few. Needless to say, it includes also the food-related illnesses such as high cholesterol, diabetes and to a certain extent, high blood pressure.

Chinese medicine (CM) looks at the sum of symptoms and will then make a diagnosis as to which areas of the body are not in balance. Let’s take the example of stomach ache. The questions would be: does it get better or worse with food? Worse in the morning or evening? Is the pain dull or sharp? Does it get worse during the week and better on weekends/ holidays? Do you get relief from a hot water bottle? Do you feel better after a bowel movement?

All these questions will draw a picture if your ailment is based on Excess, Stagnation or a Deficiency, on Heat or Cold. Once the picture is clear, it will likely be confirmed by other symptoms of your body, which typically include stress levels, sleep, energy levels, and more.

Acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine will then work on moving Qi, tonifying deficiencies and releasing excess to re-balance your body and helping you to get back to a healthy system.

If you want to discuss your specific signs and symptoms and see what CM can do for you or want to make an appointment:

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