Women's Health and Chinese Medicine

Women’s Health starts with the onset of the period (be it long, short, painful, or absent) moving on to fertility issues, pregnancy and birth and leading into menopause. I often get asked what kind of these women’s health problems can be treated with Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture and if I am a ‘specialist’ for instance for fertility issues, period problems, menopause, endometriosis and so on.

Chinese medicine (CM) actually goes a step further when diagnosing and treating specific symptoms and illnesses. To give a simple example, period pain is not equal period pain. Pain that is stabbing, knife-like is interpreted as ‘Blood Stasis’ and this Stasis is treated with Blood Stasis herbs and specific acupuncture points. On the other hand, dragging and uncomfortable period pain is more likely to be of a ‘Qi (Energy) stagnation’ nature and will get addressed completely differently. Another variant may be period pain that gets worse towards day four/five and is less pain, but general tiredness and exhaustion, maybe some headache as well. This leans more towards a CM ‘Qi and Blood deficiency’ and will benefit form different herbs and acupuncture points again.

The same principle is valid for any women’s health pathology; The presentation of the problem is important: is the main feature of the menopause exhaustion, or sweating or heat waves or even a mix of all of the above; is the cycle too long or too short .. ; each CM presentation will need a slightly different treatment protocol.

Another example, Fertility, is also addressed according to the individual presentation: does the temperature not rise enough at ovulation; does it rise and then sink too early or does it not cool down enough at the start of the period. These temperature cycles are a perfect example of the Yin and Yang interactions which are at the base of most of our bodily functions and our mind. Of course, fertility potentially includes much more, such as fibroids (Stagnation or Phlegm) but also stress (Qi Stagnation) and male infertility – which also has many possible causes according to CM.

In other words, CM treats the stagnation that causes pain, the lack of sufficient Yin that causes Heat and sweating, and so on. This is the reason why CM is so focused on the individual, because your specific presentation is the key to your health.

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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