Did you know that acupuncture can help with a number of digestive issues? Yes, it’s true!
Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) occurs when stomach acid frequently flows back into your esophagus – the tube connecting your mouth and stomach.
If you suffer with this, or you’ve ever suffered with it, you might have felt hopeless and frustrated at times that there are no known causes and the only known treatments are either medications or dietary adjustments.
Wouldn’t it be nice to know what causes it in the first place, so that you can start treating and healing the root cause?
Enter Chinese Medicine. Chinese Medicine has known for thousands of years that the blueprint of many physical problems is an imbalance of our Qi (energy). Reflux esophagitis in Chinese medicine focuses on transforming, harmonizing, and restoring the normal movement of the stomach Qi (pronounced “chee”) to prevent it from “rebelling” upwards. The treatment with acupuncture and/or Chinese herbs focuses on restoring normal functioning of the lower esophageal sphincter (LES), enhancing gastric motility, and improving gastric emptying.
Stomach Qi usually rebels because of:
- Eating in a hurry
- Eating when stressed or angry
- Burning the midnight oil
- Eating while walking or standing, repeatedly and over time
- Anxiety
- Drinking too much water with a meal or shortly after which diluted digestive enzymes makes digestion very difficult.
If we take a little look at the most common lifestyle factors which cause or exacerbate GERD, or the upward rebelling of Stomach Qi, we can see that simply doing the opposite of what causes it will be helpful. Also introducing calming practices like meditation, walking in nature, and of course coming for acupuncture treatments. Because whilst changing our habits will help to prevent GERD from returning, healing the problem and lessening the damage done by the issue is the forte of CM.
Quick At-Home Tip: Something very simple you can do at home to help yourself is after every meal, stroke down the midline from the bottom of your rib cage to the top of your belly button for about two minutes gently. This will help the Qi to move downwards instead of rebelling upwards.
Here’s some more good news: In a 2018 study Acupuncture was trialed over a period of 6 weeks with daily treatment for GERD, with a few days break in between each week of treatment and the TCM control group fared significantly better than the Western medicine control group. There were also far fewer side effects (virtually none) in comparison to the control group who were taking Proton Pump Inhibitors and other medications for GERD.
The conclusion of the study – compared with PPIs or Prokinetics therapy alone, TCM single therapy can better improve the clinical total effective rate and symptom relief and decrease the recurrence rate and adverse events in the treatment of GERD. Our results suggest that TCM is a promising alternative therapy for GERD patients.
Reviews From Satisfied Patients at Our Edina Clinic
“Complete Oriental Medical Care has been a wonderful experience. I have felt tremendous pain relief, and relief of my chronic GI and headache problems through acupuncture that many specialists have been unable to diagnose or treat effectively. His office is clean and relaxing and through his treatments I have also found anxiety and depression relief that my medications were not able to provide. If you are seeking an alternative or additional care for chronic illness I highly recommend Steven Sonmore. I came a skeptic and am now a firm believer in acupuncture and herbal medicine.” Gigi K
So, if you, or someone you know is suffering from GERD, there may be hope on the horizon! Give us a call today at 952-831-8080 so we can lend a helping hand. Or reach us at https://www.orientalmedcare.com/contact/ .
