Acupuncture and herbal medicine can support healthy digestion
Are you struggling with poor digestion? Do any of these symptoms happen to you frequently?
- Constipation
- Diarrhea
- Bloating
- Disproportionate feeling of fullness
- Excess gas
- Lower digestive rumbling sounds
- Indigestion
- Nausea
Acupuncture can help to improve the strength of your digestive system, enabling you to more easily and thoroughly digest your foods.
Let’s bring the joy back to eating food!
How Can Acupuncture Help?
Acupuncture has been proven to improve digestive function. Specific acupuncture points are used to improve peristalsis — the movement of food through the digestive system. Certain points also have anti-inflammatory effects on the digestive system.
What this means is that after working with an acupuncturist you are more likely to have regular bowel movements (1-3 times a day, not too hard and not too soft, and feeling complete afterwards).
You can start to feel more energized after eating food rather than feeling exhausted after eating a meal. You can experience less bloating, indigestion, and nausea.
How Can I Support My Own Digestive Healing?
Chinese medicine has some basic rules around diet and digestion. If you have heartburn/reflux, reduce “hot” foods which include spicy foods, caffeine, and alcohol. If you have chronically weak digestion (slow digestion, bloating, food sensitivities), eat mostly cooked foods and include warming digestive spices such as ginger, cinnamon, and cardamom.
Consider whether certain foods are triggering difficult digestion for you. Keep a food journal for several weeks to understand which foods help you feel energetic and light in the gut, and which foods make you feel heavy, tired, or irritated. Often by paying close attention to our diet and our body’s reactions to foods we can improve some of our digestive symptoms on our own.
How Can Chinese Herbal Medicine Help?
We love using Chinese herbs to help our patients improve their digestive health more rapidly. Chinese herbs can also provide more nourishment for the body to enable stronger digestion; reduce inflammation from the digestive tract; promote peristalsis; and act as a laxative as needed.
Your acupuncturist can provide you with a targeted formula to address your digestive concerns and help you to feel great during and after eating!
How Do I Get Started?
Call Inspire Family Acupuncture to discuss if acupuncture and/or herbal medicine is right for you. When you come to see us we will guide you through a series of questions to understand what’s happening with your digestion and how we can help you to heal.
Here’s to your health!
