Digestive Issues Galore

Welcome back to Health Watch, San Diego Health News you can use.

I recently made some revisions to my marketing campaigns for my website and decided to include some material specific to Digestive issues since we have had such a great success treating chronic digestive issues at the clinic.   After only 5 days, there have been over 20,000 inquiries just in San Diego County, and they estimate traffic to be over a million over a year.  Wow, that is a lot of upset tummies and a whole lot of meds.  I have decided to answer the most recent questions via blog to cut down on correspondence time.

What types of conditions do I see regularly in the clinic which respond to acupuncture and oriental medicine?
Almost every kind of digestive problem responds, and the wonderful thing about Integrative Medicine is that we actually work toward the cure as opposed to managing or suppressing symptoms.  Western meds will frequently use pharmaceutical medication to suppress a symptom which to us, is one part of an entire pattern of disharmony.  Proton pump inhibitors cause permanent damage to the lining of the stomach and their use should be avoided where possible.

Do you treat acid reflux?

• Yes, and I have never yet seen a case that is due to excess stomach acid.  In Chinese Medicine, there are literally dozens of reasons why a patient has reflux symptoms, such as food allergies, weak stomach acid, or my personal favorite (and most often misdiagnosed) which is chronic biliary disease, aka gallbladder problems.  Sometimes a patient will have a vertebrae out of alignment, which we can tell during the back treatment.  For this, I will refer out to a chiropractor to have the vertebra adjusted, and then we finish up with a few treatments after to help them hold the adjustment.  Sometimes patients are actually eating foods which trigger their symptoms or they need herbal medicine to help strengthen their digestion.

What about Constipation/Diarrhea/ Abdominal pain? 

• Again, there are many causes of either, and sometimes the treatment is very straightforward.  I have several cases of sub-clinical celiac patients (often diagnosed as IBS or Crohn's) - this is a slowly growing diagnosis in gastroenterology and can be diagnosed with a simple blood test, although the dietary cheanges will confirm it in about 4 days.  Dietary changes, along with acupuncture and herbs, and many patients are great in about 6 weeks.  Medications such as statin drugs or BP medication can also cause these symptoms and cannot be ruled out.  OB-GYN issues are common in women, post partum or even beyond and many times we need to clear up those issues.  Simple nutritional issues are common too such as Magnesium deficiency, which is much more common in women.

Stay tuned as we explore this further.