Many parents are familiar with their children saying “I have a tummy ache” before big social events, exams at school, performances, or other situations that overly worry or tax them. Typically, there is not a lot that a parent can do aside from supportive discussions.
However, Chinese medicine can get at the root of this issue – calming the nervous system and supporting overall digestive health and strength – to enable children to meet these challenges with greater ease.
Often when children struggle with recurring tummy aches, two things are true:
1. They’re being asked to do something that is more than their nervous system can handle, and;
2. They have digestive systems that are struggling to keep up with the demands of daily life.
Thankfully, acupuncture and herbal medicine work wonders in supporting digestive health and releasing nervous system tension.
How do I know if this might be right for my child?
When we work with children, we expect that parents have run any abdominal pain concerns by their pediatrician for a proper workup.
Children of all ages can come in for an acupressure appointment, which uses gentle pressure on acupuncture points, and other massage-like therapies in order to make improvements. For some children, acupuncture (inserting acupuncture needles into the skin) can be used if the children are interested and it seems warranted. Typically for children we either use no needles or offer to use just a few acupuncture needles if appropriate.
How can acupressure or acupuncture help my child?
At Inspire Family Acupuncture we always begin with a thorough health history to understand your child’s general constitution, habits, and any major health situations to date.
We will then use Chinese medical diagnosis to determine what’s causing abdominal pain. Typically, through pulse and tongue diagnosis we will find abdominal weakness or low function, and we often also find an elevated nervous system state.
When this is the case, we will proceed to use a variety of methods such as acupressure, massage, moxibustion, and cupping, to reduce nervous system stress, nourish the body, increase peristalsis in the gut, and reduce inflammation.
How can I maximize results?
Often, we recommend herbal medicine for digestive health as well as nervous system calming, and we suggest parents press a few acupressure points daily to continue the treatment at home. When these two pieces are added to the overall treatment plan improvements happen more steadily and rapidly.
If you’re curious to see if acupressure and other Chinese medicine modalities would be right for your child struggling with tummy aches, contact Inspire Family Acupuncture for more information!
