Gut Health
Digestive trouble is common and it has a long list of possible causes, from the ordinary to the serious. That is the first thing worth saying, because it decides the order of what follows.
Start with your GP. Persistent changes in your bowel habits, blood, unexplained weight loss, difficulty swallowing, vomiting, pain that wakes you, or a family history of bowel disease all need medical assessment first, and some of them need it quickly. Conditions like Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis are diagnosed and managed medically. Nothing on this page is a substitute for that, and we will say so if you come to us before you have been.
Where acupuncture may have a place. Once anything that needs investigating has been investigated, some people find acupuncture helps with how they feel day to day — discomfort, bloating, the tension that builds around eating. The evidence is mixed and it is stronger for some complaints than others. The US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health keeps a plain summary of where the research stands, and it is worth reading before you decide: what the research says about acupuncture.
How Chinese medicine describes it. Chinese medicine has its own framework for digestion, built around the spleen and stomach and the idea of Qi. It is a way of organising what a practitioner observes and decides, developed over a very long time. It is not a statement about anatomy or about what is causing your symptoms, and we do not present it as one.
What a first appointment is like. We ask about your history, what you eat, how you sleep and what makes it better or worse, and we ask what you have already been told by other practitioners. If what you describe does not sound like something acupuncture is suited to, we will tell you that at the first appointment rather than at the sixth.
Tell your other practitioners. If you take prescribed medicines or supplements, bring the list. Do not stop or change anything you have been prescribed because of what you read here or what we say.
We practise in Lane Cove. If the Northern Beaches is easier for you, Rainbow Acupuncture also works out of Freshwater.
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