Acupuncture/moxibustion or herbs?
I’m still adjusting to the new school flow, I’m taking 23 credits and trying to work outside the blog along with raising my family - so the adjustments are difficult sometimes.
Anyway - I do have a quick question that I will follow up soon with an analysis of a Neijing chapter. In modern practice, many Chinese doctors use both acupuncture/moxibustion and herbs. Some use one or the other - when there is a single treatment type it is usually acupuncture, at least in this country.
In a particular Neijing chapter (more information to come soon) Huangdi and Qibo discuss the degenerating condition of people. Writing from the Han dynasty (over 2000 years ago) they lament that people in their time are already full of desire, living out of harmony with nature and easily getting sick. Because of this - they claim - one has to use herbal medicine which is a more heavy treatment to cure disease. Prior to that one could use Qi healing or simply acupuncture.
How must the situation be today?!? If we were out of balance 2000 years ago, certainly we must be much more so now - and what does that mean about the possibility of treating disease solely by acupuncture?
Adding to this - there is always a lot of discussion around whether acupuncture or herbs are good for this and that. For instance, can acupuncture tonify? Don’t scoff - there are many people who would suggest that acupuncture is almost always slightly reducing. Some people claim that herbal medicine is really no good for psychological illness - that only acupuncture can reach the spirit/mind of human beings.
What do you think? My sense is that we should use both tools, but that herbal medicine is probably very desirable for the majority of human diseases today because of its ability to transfer both heaven and earth energy. If you are in practice - what has been your experience of using one, the other or both?
Thanks for your patience as I rearrange my schedule.
Eric
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Tags: Acupuncture, chinese-herb, chinese-herbs, herbs, scope-of-practice, theory-to-practice
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14 Responses to “Acupuncture/moxibustion or herbs?”
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I mostly just use acupuncture. I am moving into herbs now, because no one in my area is using them and this sets me apart. However, I have gone to many seminars with Dr. Tran Viet Dzung. Dr. Tran uses just acupuncture to treat. His results are excellent.
Tran does use a lot of smokey moxa to tonify but he doesn’t really use herbs. He does believe that if someone is very deficient that you tonify the Chong so they have some qi to work with and he will often do that first. He tends to use moxa for this but there are some techniques with needles if you are in a place where you can’t use moxa.
I’ve worked with a woman who helps organize his seminars and I’ve seen her do amazing things primarily with needles for patients who are seriously deficient.
Tran is the man. His insistence on relying strictly on acupuncture has really helped him (re)elevate the art. I think there are situations when using needles that LOOK like a tonification but actually are a re-organization of energy, if that makes any sense. Like getting Ying Qi and Dong Qi to play nice together.
I disagree that Tran is always just re-organizing energy. Some of those patients don’t have enough energy to re-organize and they do well.
Having spent time in his seminars, I spent a long time just doing acupuncture. It’s what I went to school for and I was in a clinic where I couldn’t use moxa. My deficient patients did really well and I attracted a lot of them. I do think that if your intention is good you CAN treat people with just needles.
I think you may have misunderstood me. I said that SOMETIMES there’s a reorganization of energy that could be confused with tonification. The classics seem to posit that you can tonify through only needles, therefore I’m pretty sure that it is so.
Opp sorry–still re adjusting to this time change and am half asleep without knowing it. ACK.
hi there, i’m not familiar with reorganization of energy or tonification, but wouldn’t a treatment depend on what the illness is. From a general view, won’t acupunture be more effective for a certain illness while herbs for other illnesses?
In my (VERY limited) experience and understanding, either method can be used for any illness successfully. (There are after all Japanese schools of thought that rely completely on moxibustion)I think the determining factor has more to do with your treatment options regarding the patients level of cooperation, like can you treat him often enough/over long enough period to make acupuncture the primary modality? Herbs do have the benefit of being ever present.
It seems to me that balance is a root component of acupuncture. Wouldn’t that also suggest a balance of herbal and acupunture techniques to treat an illness?
Another quick question: Can acupuncture be used to successfully treat obesity? Being overweight is arguably a psychological and physiological disease… Any thoughts?
Great conversation going - I’ll try to reply where I have something to say. :)
Cory W - Some would say that acupuncture is best for musculo-skeletal illnesses, which to me is in direct contradiction to the passage of the Neijing I was talking about. My sense is that all illness require a combination of techniques because all illnesses in modern people are complex.
Michael - I agree that there is the issue of frequency. It’s often difficult to get patients in for as many acupuncture treatments as they need - particularly for musculo-skeletal illnesses. Herbs, on the other hand, suffer from a similar problem. While they are “ever present” there is the issue of patient compliance. At least with needles you know what was done for sure. :)
Avakar - It is certainly interesting to extend the idea of balance out from the root of the philosophy, though I don’t know that this is necessarily a great stand-alone argument for using both. Regarding obesity, I think insofar that obesity is usually resultant from a complex set of factors, a combination of herbs and acupuncture would be best. But more important than that would be good lifestyle counseling - as in other medical modalities.
Eric
Akavar: Using two different methods isn’t balance, but rather variety or plurality. Balance implies the use of opposing forces to reach a middle state. Acupuncture and herbs are certainly not opposites. Balance in Chinese Medicine means when there is too much you take away and when there isn’t enough you add, not a salad bar approach. I hope I’m not coming across as harsh here, it’s just a potentially dangerous mistake. Acupuncture can treat obesity quite well. It’s always a matter of determining the reason why obesity is present and then doing something about it. However if the patient continually goes behind you and undoes your treatment…
I think Michael’s last comment, which I hadn’t read until coming on here to post is very good about the fact that acupuncture and herbs aren’t really opposites and so they don’t “balance” each other.
Where the balance comes in has more to do with the patient and how much to treat. It is possible to treat too much. The homeopathic doctors know that–which is why they often tell their patients to do NOTHING else.
I think a good practitioner has a few different modalities that they do well–perhaps different needling techniques or maybe needles and herbs or massage. They balance the use of those things for different patients without feeling that every patient has to get EVERYTHING.
How much the patient needs to come in must be discussed with the patient and honest evaluation of what they can expect given their time/money commitments.
I don’t think there’s any hard and fast rule about what works better for certain things. I’ve used Jin Shin Do (acupressure) for some needle phobics patients for internal medicine and been astounded by the results (one tx and heartburn was 80% improved on one patient). This should be something that works musculo-skeletal conditions but it obviously works on more than that.
I think patients always respond uniquely to each treatment and may respond very differently to a different practitioner, so it requires a certain willingness to trust one’s gut with each patient.
Now for another question: people in this time are so often out of balance and by virtue of being part of this time and society, so are we as practitioners, can we ever get into true balance? Or would that be too scary to the people we treated if we were able to do that for them?
“Tran does use a lot of smokey moxa to tonify but he doesn’t really use herbs.”
Nice discussion….Isn’t moxa an herb?
Technically moxa is an herb. However I read from the discussion that one needed to use an herbal formula, which suggested an internal use. Moxa is not used internally–at least not anywhere I’ve been taught.
Acupunture is a form of alternative medicine where fine needles are used as the tool of treatment.It can be used as a method of anelgesic, anesthetic or as a plcebo. Herbs are lso used in accupunture. As may other forms of medicine, acupunture has a chinese origin.