With the desire to avoid drugs and chemicals and the risk of side effects, a natural solution for acid reflux is a much more attractive alternative for a lot of people suffering from heartburn and acid reflux.
More and more people seriously considering Chinese medicine to treat their health issue are wondering whether there is proof that acupuncture treatments work for acid reflux.
I should state first that not all people with acid reflux will respond well to acupuncture treatment since everyone reacts differently to it and that there are a lot of different causes of this condition.
The past few years, however, the interest in acupuncture and TCM had spiked in the medical community. A gastroenterologist from Taiwan performed a couple of experiments that aimed to prove the potency of traditional eastern medicine in treating acid reflux. This study was posted in the American Journal of Physiology-Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology, August 2005 issue.
The two tests showed that the TLESRs or the transient lower esophageal sphincter relaxations that directly affect acid reflux were restrained using electrical acupuncture point stimulation. Electrical acupuncture point stimulation is a more sophisticated version of traditional acupuncture that uses mild electrical impulses instead of needles. The barely-felt stimulation was on the Neiguan acupuncture point located on a person’s wrist.
The TLESRs were reduced significantly by 40% from this stimulation (from about 6/hour to just 3.5/hour). This result was also substantially higher compared to the group given placebo that entailed receiving acupuncture on the hip. The “sham” stimulation lessened TLESRs to just 0.02 times/ hour.
Acupuncture would obviously work or not work for you depending on the type of condition you have. It is recommended that you try acupuncture more than one time in order to ascertain whether it works for you. You can likewise opt for different traditional types of acupuncture for treating acid reflux in a natural way. They have proven to be effective and far less expensive than electrical acupuncture point stimulation. Furthermore, the traditional forms of acupuncture are now being covered by a lot of health insurance companies.
The truth about acupuncture is that it has been used to treat acid reflux in China for more than two thousand years. Traditional acupuncture has been utilized throughout the years to overcome vomiting, nausea, burning and pain and other symptoms of GERD (gastro-esophageal reflux disease), a chronic acid reflux condition. Results from the experiments done at the Royal Adelaide Hospital show that acupuncture works by changing the manner nerve cells communicate to one another, and affects the manner the central nervous system produces and releases some chemicals in the body. Another recent study has given indication that acupuncture can help lessen the function of the lower esophageal sphincter.
However, the study just mentioned entailed the use of electrical acupuncture point stimulation rather than the traditional needling technique to treat acid reflux naturally. Still, this does not mean that the traditional needling technique of acupuncture is less effective in treating acid reflux than electrical acupuncture point stimulation if the treatment is focused on a specific acupuncture point.
If you want a lesser invasive type of acupuncture than traditional acupuncture or electrical acupuncture point stimulation, you can opt for acupressure instead. Acupressure uses manual pressure using the thumbs and fingers on acupuncture points. This type of treatment you can perform by yourself at home. To treat acid reflux, you put pressure to the P6 or Neiguan point on the wrist. The P6 point is found between the two large tendons on the inside of the wrist. In order to locate this acupuncture point, you need to hold your hand out then bend it towards you.
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