TCM Treatments for Dysmenorrhea

or how Chinese medicine can truly help when it comes to menstruation cramps today I'm going to share the TCM views on dysmenorrhea the causes the TCM patterns symptoms including treatments with acupuncture points herbal formulas and food but stay till the end because I also have some really juicy treatment options you're gonna love to add to your practice to help your patient welcome back to my channel if it's your first time here hi I'm Clara and I create trans medicine and acupuncture content for students and practitioner making it easy to grasp and fun to learn oh let's do this dysmenorrhea is a debilitating condition commonly known as menstruation cramps and a lot of women are affected by it and I remember growing up because this happened to me I was told that I was unlucky to have bad cramps and some women don't have cramps and they're lucky I don't think luck has anything to do with it and because of the bad luck I was told you just have to live with it and then I got some Chinese medicine treatment and I'll tell you all about that story coming up but when it comes to dysmenorias there are two types primary and secondary primary dysmenorrhea is what happened to teenage girls when they first get their period so the first two years of the period and it is very common this is exactly what happened to me secondary dysmenorrhea is When It's associated with another condition like endometriosis fibroids or an infection or anything happening in disorder that's happening to the uterus that's creating masturation cramps the symptom of dysmenorrhea can range from very mild to very severe and it can range from low back pain lower abdominal cramping nausea vomiting if the pain is so bad the woman can vomit being nauseated it can really take a lot of energy often the woman can't even get out of bed because it's in so much pain this affects a woman's life and her ability to live a normal life because I remember when I was a teenager and this happened to me I could not do Sports I could not do school sometimes for two days every month this is ridiculous right this is not right so we need to be able to address this and not just brush it as oh well you're just out of luck when it comes to Western treatment for dysmenorrhea the doctor will recommend either over-the-counter medication or something stronger that can be prescribed but often they'll be recommending a birth control method like an IUD or the birth control pill to try to mitigate or lessen the pain when it comes to TCN view for dysmenorrhea we want to look at the root cause and see if we can address it or just manage it when it is due to external pathogen like cold and damp which can come from external pathogen but also from diet something we can totally address emotional stress emotional trauma can also be the root cause as well as overworked physically and emotionally and intercourse too often that is quite strong and what I mean strong I mean a lot of jarring that makes sense okay so that's the view of the Chinese medicine perspective when it comes to causes there can be of course if it's due to endometriosis or fibroids that's a different story because we have to look at the root cause of those disorders but the pain itself often when it's not associated with another disorder comes from having those causes we can look at does that make sense okay now we're going to look at the excess and efficiency patterns that are the most common scene in clinical practice when it comes to dysmenorrhea with those symptoms acupuncture points and formula then I will share with you more options and what else you can do to help your patients now let's talk about the different pattern for dysmenorrhea in Chinese medicine I'm going to start with the excess pattern and I'm going to compare them so we understand how we do the diagnosis so we can have the best treatment so the first four are going to be qian blood stagnation internal cold damp heat level G stagnation turning into fire so the last two are excess including heat and the first two don't have excess heat specifically when there's qian blood stagnation it can eventually sometimes lead to internal cold or excess internal cold because when there is no blood circulation eventually internal cold can set in with the first two because they're both stagnation with internal code there's always stasis because the cold congeal and stop blood circulation this is an excess cold or excess Yin syndrome so both of them are going to have stabbing pain strong pain in the lower abdominal area fixed pain in the uterus area and it is going to be the day before and the first couple of days of the masturation when there is an excess pattern it is always going to show the day or two before the menstruation and the beginning of the period not at the end so they both have that same thing in common however there's a few different things with the chin blood stagnation we're going to have larger clots well with the internal cold we're going to have smaller dark clots the blood is going to be dark when it comes to blood stages because blood stasis is purple and pain right but with internal cold it's going to be a little bit more bright red with internal cold also it's going to be scanty blood so not a lot of flow not a lot of blood with blood stasis it could be normal flow now also with blood stasis there's going to be PMS due to the chi stagnation specifically irritability mood swings and breast distension with internal cold we're going to have other symptoms like cold hand and feet or cold lower abdominal area so when it says cold body it means body part when it comes to tongue if it's more Chi stagnation it's going to be more pink if it's more blood stagnation it's going to be more purple and the boss is going to be wiry no matter what but if blood stasis is really showing then it'll be wiry choppy with internal cold the tone is going to be bluish which is the excess cold showing up however it could also be pale and the reason for a pale tongue is that because when there is internal cold often it's due to a blood deficiency as you can see those Canty blood as well so blood deficiency often the consequences which could be specifically for women internal excess cold so the pulse is going to be tight which is the excess cold and Sharpie which shows more a bit of a blood deficiency so that that's a little bit of the difference now let's look at the two excess that contain excess heat we have damp heat and we have Liberty stagnation which turns into fire now if you haven't seen my video on Liberty stagnation and its consequences check it out because it explains how and what happened when it can turn into fire blood stasis or other symptoms when it comes to dampede and Liberty stagnation turning into fire there's a bit of a difference so again this is excess pattern so the abdominal pain on both of them is going to be at the beginning of the period or just prior to now when it comes to damp heat dampness is heavy like it's feeling heavy and there's of course excess damp right which is going to show as excess abnormal vaginal sticky discharge it is smelly because there's excess heat as well and then the person is going to be thirsty there's going to be dark urine irritability a yellow coat with red tongue that is all the heat when it comes to the dampness it's going to be more of the sticky discharge the greasy coat and the slippery balls now the balls can also be rapid it depends on how much heat there is or the person has also burning pain like the pain is burning and it extends to the lower back of the sacrum area and the person in general feels hot so obviously for that person we can't use a heating pad we can't use moxa compared to the two patterns before internal cold and cheese stagnation where we can use a heating pad and moxa that's the difference here this is why diagnosis is so important now when there is Liberty stagnation often the person is a lot of stress and when it turns into fire first it'll turn into little young Rising which might calm down but eventually it turns into fire so how does it look like again it is going to show us heat but worse heat than the one before and the difference is that heat of fire specifically dries the fluids so there is going to be dry stool with constipation the person is going to feel hot all the time and they're going to be thirsty for cold drink like ice cold drink they are going to have anger better mood swings they're going to be short fused very irritable also when there is fire fire has tendency to rush blood so there's going to be a heavy period or it's going to be heavier flow it's going to be dark blood with small clots so that's the difference there and of course in the tongue it's going to show as really red with a yellow coat and probably obviously some dryness because again dry coat it will be a dry coat because the fire dries fluid the tongue is going to be red with reducides because that's the liver area of the tongue and the yellow coat the yellow coat will be very dry because the fluid are going to dry from the excess fire it may have also some cracks the pulse is going to be wiry and Rapid okay so let's look at treatment when it comes to formula each of those formulas are really good to address the area and basically usually it's great to take a week before the period a week to 10 days before the period or past ovulation until the first day of period this is the best thing to do it tauhong subutong is a modification of Silverton which is great when there is a lot of stagnation but it also nourish blood is really specifically for the lower abdominal blood stasis and its warming so again there is a blood deficiency and a blood stasis there shall Fuji your tongue does not nourish blood so it does not address the blood deficiency if it's there when it comes to damp heat the formula is Ching her tongue so again my pronunciation don't get me on this I'm French speaking English and pronouncing Mandarin what and the last one is danger Sharia sand which is a modification of shirosan for when there is excess heat one of the point that has to be there really is splenate because splenate is the Chic life point of the spleen which is in charge uh you know moving blood and relieving pain specifically uterus pain so that has to be there for the first one we are going to do splint 4 and pc6 and usually I do spin four on the right npc6 on the left so you don't have to use four needles using two the less amount of needles the better treatment in my experience level three to move obviously liver Chi spleen six to balance the hormone the reproductive system but also to move Qi and move blood stomach 29 because it's really located where the ovaries are and it is the only point that actually warms the uterus and in this instance it is going to cause a excess cold if it continues to be a blood stagnation so this is a really good point to put in there now spin 10 is great to also move blood and move cheese specifically for the uterus so that's a good combination when it comes to internal cold we want to add up moxa I could also do moxao or heat lamp on the first one as well often if the patient has some kind of cold symptoms somewhere else in the body I might also add it because it also moves blood in this instance we're going to do long seven on the right kidney six on the left again less amount of needles the better we're still going to do spleen eight but this time we want to warm the uterus area so stomach 28 we're going to do it which is around the ovaries and when four round six we really want to Max at this and I would do marks on Spin Six as well because this is the meeting point of the kidney the liver and the spleen which are all in charge of the female reproductive system as meridians when it comes to the mpeed we are going to clear the dampness with spleen 9 and when nine and we are going to clear the heat with large intestine 11 spleen 10 is also good to move blood liver three move Chi which helps in moving dampness because when those dampness things are sticky they don't move as well so that's why there's clots in that specific pattern bladder 32 is also a really good point when there is dampede in the lower gel specifically in the female reproductive system and long seven on the right kidney six on the left to balance the reproductive hormones good the last one we are going to Move tea and release the fire so to move Chi level three is great right obviously also send you out six because it's great for constipation when there is a lot of constipation due to excess li11 is going to clear the Heat or the fire level two is going to clear the fire from liver so that's a really good combination spleen 8 is going to release the pain splinten is going to move as well to get less clots and better flow when six and when four are great to add up in the area without marks out without anything but just to get some movement and level 14 is the front move point of the liver and because this is a really big liver pattern it's a great way to add liver 14 for better results if you're enjoying my Graphics so far they are part of my book TCM treatments made easy it is a fantastic guide to have in practice it covers over 160 syndromes treatments with acupuncture points formulas food ear acupuncture and treatment option the feedback on it has been amazing click the link below and get your copy today I also have the pdf version if you need to as well now let's look at the deficiency pattern of dysmenorrhea we only have three those are the common basic one it doesn't mean that there can't be any other but those are the common one that I see in clinical practice always make your own diagnosis for your patient this is just a guide as a reminder so Chi and blood deficiency compared to spleen young deficiency with liver blood deficiency which I see is very common in clinical practice and liver and kidney in deficiency so those three are the most common one when it comes to dysmenorrhea let's look at the symptoms so one of the thing is the pain itself compared to the patterns before which were excess and very strong pain this pain is more a dull ache it's milder it's still Annoying It's still constant it's still really affecting the person but it won't be as strong so it's easier to manage I guess compared to you know stabbing pain which makes it very difficult to go about our days so so let's start with the first one Qi and blood deficiency the pain is very dull like I said and it's a hypogastric pain towards the end of the period so that's another thing that is different when there is deficiency usually the pain shows more at the end of the period so maybe day three four and five if that's the case for the period let's say it's six days so it's not the beginning or prior it's at the end of the period so that's going to happen on all three of them with Team blood deficiency we're going to have a dragging feeling in the lower abdominal area because it could lead to screenshot sinking this is usually a spinchi deficiency with some liver blood deficiency so it doesn't show the organ per se but that's often the case that's why it's going to be loose tool because that's a spleen sheet efficiency fatigue pale face but there's blood deficiency affecting the liver and that's the dizziness makes sense okay the pain pill is better with massage right the gentle massage feels good compared to the excess pattern massage makes it worse we don't want to be touching the lower abdominal region we want heat but we don't want to be touched this feels so much better with massage in this case right now and the tongue of course is failed pulses weak and choppy because there's G and blood deficiency the next one is what would happen if the this one chain blood deficiency is not addressed that's the next stage which is the same thing except those worse symptoms or it gets worse so the pain is relieved by massage but now we also need warmth because now it's not splint sheet efficiency only it's been young deficiency so we still have loose tools and fatigue but now we have a cold body the person is cold all the time the much more fatigue they don't have energy physically or mentally and because there is blood deficiency there is dizziness blurred vision right and the tongue is swollen because when the just explain young deficiency the tongue has tendency to swell because there's retention of excess fluid because there's not enough young to move the fluid the pulse is usually deep and thin it could be also slow if the spin young is very prominent make sense okay with the liver and kidney deficiency we're still going to have the dull pain but at the same time is going to be relieved by massage so same thing however we don't want heat on this one because the in deficiency is going to create some heat symptoms like five Center heat five cent to heat is Palms souls and chest area that feels warm there's going to be sore lower back and that's very common with kidney deficiency and there's going to be blurred vision maybe irritability that's the liver coming up there's going to be scanty red blood and the reason for that it's because when there's Yin deficiency there's fluid deficiency so we're not going to have a lot of flow it's going to be pretty scanty the tongue is going to be red with scanty coat that is a typically in deficiency tongue and the pot is going to be seen rapid same thing very typical so let's look at the formulas those three formulas are very useful the first one I love you Tong for Chi and blood deficiency the second one is very warming very warming which is good because there is a splinyon deficiency and the last one tiau gantong is very specific to the uterus and nourishing liver and Canadian deficiency now let's look at the acupuncture point when it comes to the first one and the second one we can do moxa for both of them maybe not on every point but definitely on men four that's always going to be a good bet because Qi and blood deficiency will lead to the next patterns being young and liver blood deficiency so now we're also going to do stomach 36 because it tonify Chi and blood so this is a really good point to have in the first two patterns they're very common as you can see and very similar right when it comes to Chin blood deficiency of course spleen sex on both of them is going to be a good point to add as well again this is a perfect point to balance the female reproductive system and then you can play with back shoe point right bladder 20 bladder 17 remember bladder 20 is the back shoe point of spleen because this is a spleen sheet efficiency and there is a liver blood deficiency so the blood deficiency can have bladder 17 you can add a bladder 18 because that's the back shoe point of liver when it comes to spin young and liver blood deficiency I like to really do long seven on the right kidney sticks on the left to really balance the hormone strengthen the kidney Essence strengthen the hormonal system liver eight is a really really good point when there is liver blood deficiency so I would add it up you can add up in the previous one as well like I said you don't have to do all the points this is just Basics and I just want to explain how I come up with those points yes okay the last one is a little bit different because we're going to address the kidney and the liver so back to point of liver blood of 18 of kidney bladder 23 and then we can continue with spleen six but now we can also add a bladder 54 which is also located in the back and it's really good to relieve the back pain or the lower back pain with bladder 32 which is good for the sacrum area or the uterus when there is lower back pain kidney 3 is also really good too nourish kidney so that I would add it up as well so now I know often I get this question by students is like well some of your points are in the front some are in the back how do I do this this is your preference your intention with your treatment is what counts I have tendency to do just one side either I do front treatment or back treatment I don't like to do both sides in one session so it's up to you if you like to do both sides in white session then you can do this I prefer not to so my sessions are usually 30 to 40 minutes with the needle so the patient can really get in a parasympathetic state so what do I do I usually use one side let's say I do a front treatment there's a lot of the point that I can't do that are in the back and I'm gonna alternate and adapt to this and if I'm putting the patient face down then I can do still spleen six kidney three kidney six long seven all those points I still can do right so there's not a lot of differences except that if I'm facing up I can't do back shoe point for example I often ask my patients would you rather face up or face down and the patient will tell you what they prefer which helps in the treatment so it's always listening to your patients and have the right intention in your truth and I know sometimes making a kitchen diagnosis is not always easy so if you're not truly sure go with the basics launch intestine four best point to move blood and relieve pain level three best point to move Chi and relax the body when there's pain there's tension right that's normal spleen eight the best point for menstruation cramp that women can also acupressure at home and you can show them because spleen Aid is the Sheep clef point of the spleen making it the best point when it comes to menstruation cramps kidney five is also a Chic left point and it's fantastic for masturbation cram specifically when you combine it with splenet and then spleen six because screen six is the crossing point of the liver the kidney and the spleen making it a great point to relax the whole uterus area and the reproductive system of the female so those four points recapping is li4 liver three open the gates splenate kidney five to relieve the pain and spin six because it's an overall point to try to help women's reproductive system now let's talk about treatment option including food recommendations when it comes to dysmenorrhea no matter what the pattern is your acupuncture is fantastic and you can put ear seeds which the patient can stimulate at home which is useful when they can't come and see you as often so when it comes to ear we want to do liver spin kidney just like when I talked about spleen 6 being the crossover of liver spleen and kidney this is the same for the ear all those three will represent the female reproductive system and then we want to put sympathetic to really calm the body from the pain area and then we want to add up also the endocrine point to balance the female reproductive hormones in this instance now another one that I like to add is on the sacrum we want to do seven star often it's called seven star or a plum blossom I love that little hammer and then you tap on the sacrum you're going to tap all along the sacrum with the little Hammer which is called the plum blossom or the seven star and you're gonna do this at least a week before the period every single day now it's not always easy to see the patients every single day so at least a week up to a week before the period to do it at least a couple of times will really help this is also very useful for endometriosis to break down that scar tissue so I use it for that as well which we know endometriosis of course creates dysmenorrhea or menstruation cracks other treatment options are exercise specifically gentle exercise we need to relieve the body relax the body so relieving stress and physical exercise so breathing meditation technique yoga Qigong Tai Chi going for walk in nature outside enjoy the trees being Forest bathing very good to calm the mind but move the body this is very key to help when it come to dysmenorrhea now let's talk about food and teas the first one is ginger tea turmeric tea cinnamon tea those three and you can combine them obviously those are great for dysmenorrhea and one of the great drink I like is golden milk and golden milk is from ayurvedic medicine it's from India originally and I I love this drink it's really soothing and it's great for dysmenorrhea and menstruation cramps so start taking it probably a week before the period on a daily basis plus it has so many other health benefits and then diet diet is a huge component of our health because it's the center of our health specifically skin and stomach in Chinese medicine so we need to have a really good digestive system but also feed the body nourishing and nutrients that is going to help relieve the pain so avoiding everything that's going to create information in the body like alcohol coffee processed food sugar yeah all those things have to be eliminated Dairy is usually not a great one neither gluten for some people as well not everybody depending on the area of the world you live in and many Factor but in general we want to try to reduce the inflammation and we want to have a lot of omega-3 fatty acid like salmon like fatty fish nuts see seeds are great for that avocado we want to have a lot of really good fat that decrease inflammation and in TCM perspective any spice is going to increase circulation in the body which is fantastic as well one more treatment option is heat applied like a heating pad or a moxa but that can only be done if the person is blood deficient has blood stasis or is Young deficient but not if they have excess heat right if they have excess cold great but if they have excess heat we do not want to apply more heat heat brings about circulation but it's not always good for everyone so we want to make sure we address the individual every single time oh and watch this video if you want more on how to treat pain acute specifically with acupuncture you're gonna love it have a fantastic day I hope this was useful there's so much more on my website Resource page acuproacademy.com check it out and no matter what keep in it using TCM

or how Chinese medicine can truly help when it comes to menstruation cramps today I&#39;m going to share the TCM views on dysmenorrhea the causes the TCM patterns symptoms including treatments with acupuncture points herbal formulas and food but stay till the end because I also have some really juicy treatment options you&#39;re gonna love to add to your practice to help your patient welcome back to my channel if it&#39;s your first time here hi I&#39;m Clara and I create trans medicine and acupuncture content for students and practitioner making it easy to grasp and fun to learn oh let&#39;s do this dysmenorrhea is a debilitating condition commonly known as menstruation cramps and a lot of women are affected by it and I remember growing up because this happened to me I was told that I was unlucky to have bad cramps and some women don&#39;t have cramps and they&#39;re lucky I don&#39;t think luck has anything to do with it and because of the bad luck I was told you just have to live with it and then I got some Chinese medicine treatment and I&#39;ll tell you all about that story coming up but when it comes to dysmenorias there are two types primary and secondary primary dysmenorrhea is what happened to teenage girls when they first get their period so the first two years of the period and it is very common this is exactly what happened to me secondary dysmenorrhea is When It&#39;s associated with another condition like endometriosis fibroids or an infection or anything happening in disorder that&#39;s happening to the uterus that&#39;s creating masturation cramps the symptom of dysmenorrhea can range from very mild to very severe and it can range from low back pain lower abdominal cramping nausea vomiting if the pain is so bad the woman can vomit being nauseated it can really take a lot of energy often the woman can&#39;t even get out of bed because it&#39;s in so much pain this affects a woman&#39;s life and her ability to live a normal life because I remember when I was a teenager and this happened to me I could not do Sports I could not do school sometimes for two days every month this is ridiculous right this is not right so we need to be able to address this and not just brush it as oh well you&#39;re just out of luck when it comes to Western treatment for dysmenorrhea the doctor will recommend either over-the-counter medication or something stronger that can be prescribed but often they&#39;ll be recommending a birth control method like an IUD or the birth control pill to try to mitigate or lessen the pain when it comes to TCN view for dysmenorrhea we want to look at the root cause and see if we can address it or just manage it when it is due to external pathogen like cold and damp which can come from external pathogen but also from diet something we can totally address emotional stress emotional trauma can also be the root cause as well as overworked physically and emotionally and intercourse too often that is quite strong and what I mean strong I mean a lot of jarring that makes sense okay so that&#39;s the view of the Chinese medicine perspective when it comes to causes there can be of course if it&#39;s due to endometriosis or fibroids that&#39;s a different story because we have to look at the root cause of those disorders but the pain itself often when it&#39;s not associated with another disorder comes from having those causes we can look at does that make sense okay now we&#39;re going to look at the excess and efficiency patterns that are the most common scene in clinical practice when it comes to dysmenorrhea with those symptoms acupuncture points and formula then I will share with you more options and what else you can do to help your patients now let&#39;s talk about the different pattern for dysmenorrhea in Chinese medicine I&#39;m going to start with the excess pattern and I&#39;m going to compare them so we understand how we do the diagnosis so we can have the best treatment so the first four are going to be qian blood stagnation internal cold damp heat level G stagnation turning into fire so the last two are excess including heat and the first two don&#39;t have excess heat specifically when there&#39;s qian blood stagnation it can eventually sometimes lead to internal cold or excess internal cold because when there is no blood circulation eventually internal cold can set in with the first two because they&#39;re both stagnation with internal code there&#39;s always stasis because the cold congeal and stop blood circulation this is an excess cold or excess Yin syndrome so both of them are going to have stabbing pain strong pain in the lower abdominal area fixed pain in the uterus area and it is going to be the day before and the first couple of days of the masturation when there is an excess pattern it is always going to show the day or two before the menstruation and the beginning of the period not at the end so they both have that same thing in common however there&#39;s a few different things with the chin blood stagnation we&#39;re going to have larger clots well with the internal cold we&#39;re going to have smaller dark clots the blood is going to be dark when it comes to blood stages because blood stasis is purple and pain right but with internal cold it&#39;s going to be a little bit more bright red with internal cold also it&#39;s going to be scanty blood so not a lot of flow not a lot of blood with blood stasis it could be normal flow now also with blood stasis there&#39;s going to be PMS due to the chi stagnation specifically irritability mood swings and breast distension with internal cold we&#39;re going to have other symptoms like cold hand and feet or cold lower abdominal area so when it says cold body it means body part when it comes to tongue if it&#39;s more Chi stagnation it&#39;s going to be more pink if it&#39;s more blood stagnation it&#39;s going to be more purple and the boss is going to be wiry no matter what but if blood stasis is really showing then it&#39;ll be wiry choppy with internal cold the tone is going to be bluish which is the excess cold showing up however it could also be pale and the reason for a pale tongue is that because when there is internal cold often it&#39;s due to a blood deficiency as you can see those Canty blood as well so blood deficiency often the consequences which could be specifically for women internal excess cold so the pulse is going to be tight which is the excess cold and Sharpie which shows more a bit of a blood deficiency so that that&#39;s a little bit of the difference now let&#39;s look at the two excess that contain excess heat we have damp heat and we have Liberty stagnation which turns into fire now if you haven&#39;t seen my video on Liberty stagnation and its consequences check it out because it explains how and what happened when it can turn into fire blood stasis or other symptoms when it comes to dampede and Liberty stagnation turning into fire there&#39;s a bit of a difference so again this is excess pattern so the abdominal pain on both of them is going to be at the beginning of the period or just prior to now when it comes to damp heat dampness is heavy like it&#39;s feeling heavy and there&#39;s of course excess damp right which is going to show as excess abnormal vaginal sticky discharge it is smelly because there&#39;s excess heat as well and then the person is going to be thirsty there&#39;s going to be dark urine irritability a yellow coat with red tongue that is all the heat when it comes to the dampness it&#39;s going to be more of the sticky discharge the greasy coat and the slippery balls now the balls can also be rapid it depends on how much heat there is or the person has also burning pain like the pain is burning and it extends to the lower back of the sacrum area and the person in general feels hot so obviously for that person we can&#39;t use a heating pad we can&#39;t use moxa compared to the two patterns before internal cold and cheese stagnation where we can use a heating pad and moxa that&#39;s the difference here this is why diagnosis is so important now when there is Liberty stagnation often the person is a lot of stress and when it turns into fire first it&#39;ll turn into little young Rising which might calm down but eventually it turns into fire so how does it look like again it is going to show us heat but worse heat than the one before and the difference is that heat of fire specifically dries the fluids so there is going to be dry stool with constipation the person is going to feel hot all the time and they&#39;re going to be thirsty for cold drink like ice cold drink they are going to have anger better mood swings they&#39;re going to be short fused very irritable also when there is fire fire has tendency to rush blood so there&#39;s going to be a heavy period or it&#39;s going to be heavier flow it&#39;s going to be dark blood with small clots so that&#39;s the difference there and of course in the tongue it&#39;s going to show as really red with a yellow coat and probably obviously some dryness because again dry coat it will be a dry coat because the fire dries fluid the tongue is going to be red with reducides because that&#39;s the liver area of the tongue and the yellow coat the yellow coat will be very dry because the fluid are going to dry from the excess fire it may have also some cracks the pulse is going to be wiry and Rapid okay so let&#39;s look at treatment when it comes to formula each of those formulas are really good to address the area and basically usually it&#39;s great to take a week before the period a week to 10 days before the period or past ovulation until the first day of period this is the best thing to do it tauhong subutong is a modification of Silverton which is great when there is a lot of stagnation but it also nourish blood is really specifically for the lower abdominal blood stasis and its warming so again there is a blood deficiency and a blood stasis there shall Fuji your tongue does not nourish blood so it does not address the blood deficiency if it&#39;s there when it comes to damp heat the formula is Ching her tongue so again my pronunciation don&#39;t get me on this I&#39;m French speaking English and pronouncing Mandarin what and the last one is danger Sharia sand which is a modification of shirosan for when there is excess heat one of the point that has to be there really is splenate because splenate is the Chic life point of the spleen which is in charge uh you know moving blood and relieving pain specifically uterus pain so that has to be there for the first one we are going to do splint 4 and pc6 and usually I do spin four on the right npc6 on the left so you don&#39;t have to use four needles using two the less amount of needles the better treatment in my experience level three to move obviously liver Chi spleen six to balance the hormone the reproductive system but also to move Qi and move blood stomach 29 because it&#39;s really located where the ovaries are and it is the only point that actually warms the uterus and in this instance it is going to cause a excess cold if it continues to be a blood stagnation so this is a really good point to put in there now spin 10 is great to also move blood and move cheese specifically for the uterus so that&#39;s a good combination when it comes to internal cold we want to add up moxa I could also do moxao or heat lamp on the first one as well often if the patient has some kind of cold symptoms somewhere else in the body I might also add it because it also moves blood in this instance we&#39;re going to do long seven on the right kidney six on the left again less amount of needles the better we&#39;re still going to do spleen eight but this time we want to warm the uterus area so stomach 28 we&#39;re going to do it which is around the ovaries and when four round six we really want to Max at this and I would do marks on Spin Six as well because this is the meeting point of the kidney the liver and the spleen which are all in charge of the female reproductive system as meridians when it comes to the mpeed we are going to clear the dampness with spleen 9 and when nine and we are going to clear the heat with large intestine 11 spleen 10 is also good to move blood liver three move Chi which helps in moving dampness because when those dampness things are sticky they don&#39;t move as well so that&#39;s why there&#39;s clots in that specific pattern bladder 32 is also a really good point when there is dampede in the lower gel specifically in the female reproductive system and long seven on the right kidney six on the left to balance the reproductive hormones good the last one we are going to Move tea and release the fire so to move Chi level three is great right obviously also send you out six because it&#39;s great for constipation when there is a lot of constipation due to excess li11 is going to clear the Heat or the fire level two is going to clear the fire from liver so that&#39;s a really good combination spleen 8 is going to release the pain splinten is going to move as well to get less clots and better flow when six and when four are great to add up in the area without marks out without anything but just to get some movement and level 14 is the front move point of the liver and because this is a really big liver pattern it&#39;s a great way to add liver 14 for better results if you&#39;re enjoying my Graphics so far they are part of my book TCM treatments made easy it is a fantastic guide to have in practice it covers over 160 syndromes treatments with acupuncture points formulas food ear acupuncture and treatment option the feedback on it has been amazing click the link below and get your copy today I also have the pdf version if you need to as well now let&#39;s look at the deficiency pattern of dysmenorrhea we only have three those are the common basic one it doesn&#39;t mean that there can&#39;t be any other but those are the common one that I see in clinical practice always make your own diagnosis for your patient this is just a guide as a reminder so Chi and blood deficiency compared to spleen young deficiency with liver blood deficiency which I see is very common in clinical practice and liver and kidney in deficiency so those three are the most common one when it comes to dysmenorrhea let&#39;s look at the symptoms so one of the thing is the pain itself compared to the patterns before which were excess and very strong pain this pain is more a dull ache it&#39;s milder it&#39;s still Annoying It&#39;s still constant it&#39;s still really affecting the person but it won&#39;t be as strong so it&#39;s easier to manage I guess compared to you know stabbing pain which makes it very difficult to go about our days so so let&#39;s start with the first one Qi and blood deficiency the pain is very dull like I said and it&#39;s a hypogastric pain towards the end of the period so that&#39;s another thing that is different when there is deficiency usually the pain shows more at the end of the period so maybe day three four and five if that&#39;s the case for the period let&#39;s say it&#39;s six days so it&#39;s not the beginning or prior it&#39;s at the end of the period so that&#39;s going to happen on all three of them with Team blood deficiency we&#39;re going to have a dragging feeling in the lower abdominal area because it could lead to screenshot sinking this is usually a spinchi deficiency with some liver blood deficiency so it doesn&#39;t show the organ per se but that&#39;s often the case that&#39;s why it&#39;s going to be loose tool because that&#39;s a spleen sheet efficiency fatigue pale face but there&#39;s blood deficiency affecting the liver and that&#39;s the dizziness makes sense okay the pain pill is better with massage right the gentle massage feels good compared to the excess pattern massage makes it worse we don&#39;t want to be touching the lower abdominal region we want heat but we don&#39;t want to be touched this feels so much better with massage in this case right now and the tongue of course is failed pulses weak and choppy because there&#39;s G and blood deficiency the next one is what would happen if the this one chain blood deficiency is not addressed that&#39;s the next stage which is the same thing except those worse symptoms or it gets worse so the pain is relieved by massage but now we also need warmth because now it&#39;s not splint sheet efficiency only it&#39;s been young deficiency so we still have loose tools and fatigue but now we have a cold body the person is cold all the time the much more fatigue they don&#39;t have energy physically or mentally and because there is blood deficiency there is dizziness blurred vision right and the tongue is swollen because when the just explain young deficiency the tongue has tendency to swell because there&#39;s retention of excess fluid because there&#39;s not enough young to move the fluid the pulse is usually deep and thin it could be also slow if the spin young is very prominent make sense okay with the liver and kidney deficiency we&#39;re still going to have the dull pain but at the same time is going to be relieved by massage so same thing however we don&#39;t want heat on this one because the in deficiency is going to create some heat symptoms like five Center heat five cent to heat is Palms souls and chest area that feels warm there&#39;s going to be sore lower back and that&#39;s very common with kidney deficiency and there&#39;s going to be blurred vision maybe irritability that&#39;s the liver coming up there&#39;s going to be scanty red blood and the reason for that it&#39;s because when there&#39;s Yin deficiency there&#39;s fluid deficiency so we&#39;re not going to have a lot of flow it&#39;s going to be pretty scanty the tongue is going to be red with scanty coat that is a typically in deficiency tongue and the pot is going to be seen rapid same thing very typical so let&#39;s look at the formulas those three formulas are very useful the first one I love you Tong for Chi and blood deficiency the second one is very warming very warming which is good because there is a splinyon deficiency and the last one tiau gantong is very specific to the uterus and nourishing liver and Canadian deficiency now let&#39;s look at the acupuncture point when it comes to the first one and the second one we can do moxa for both of them maybe not on every point but definitely on men four that&#39;s always going to be a good bet because Qi and blood deficiency will lead to the next patterns being young and liver blood deficiency so now we&#39;re also going to do stomach 36 because it tonify Chi and blood so this is a really good point to have in the first two patterns they&#39;re very common as you can see and very similar right when it comes to Chin blood deficiency of course spleen sex on both of them is going to be a good point to add as well again this is a perfect point to balance the female reproductive system and then you can play with back shoe point right bladder 20 bladder 17 remember bladder 20 is the back shoe point of spleen because this is a spleen sheet efficiency and there is a liver blood deficiency so the blood deficiency can have bladder 17 you can add a bladder 18 because that&#39;s the back shoe point of liver when it comes to spin young and liver blood deficiency I like to really do long seven on the right kidney sticks on the left to really balance the hormone strengthen the kidney Essence strengthen the hormonal system liver eight is a really really good point when there is liver blood deficiency so I would add it up you can add up in the previous one as well like I said you don&#39;t have to do all the points this is just Basics and I just want to explain how I come up with those points yes okay the last one is a little bit different because we&#39;re going to address the kidney and the liver so back to point of liver blood of 18 of kidney bladder 23 and then we can continue with spleen six but now we can also add a bladder 54 which is also located in the back and it&#39;s really good to relieve the back pain or the lower back pain with bladder 32 which is good for the sacrum area or the uterus when there is lower back pain kidney 3 is also really good too nourish kidney so that I would add it up as well so now I know often I get this question by students is like well some of your points are in the front some are in the back how do I do this this is your preference your intention with your treatment is what counts I have tendency to do just one side either I do front treatment or back treatment I don&#39;t like to do both sides in one session so it&#39;s up to you if you like to do both sides in white session then you can do this I prefer not to so my sessions are usually 30 to 40 minutes with the needle so the patient can really get in a parasympathetic state so what do I do I usually use one side let&#39;s say I do a front treatment there&#39;s a lot of the point that I can&#39;t do that are in the back and I&#39;m gonna alternate and adapt to this and if I&#39;m putting the patient face down then I can do still spleen six kidney three kidney six long seven all those points I still can do right so there&#39;s not a lot of differences except that if I&#39;m facing up I can&#39;t do back shoe point for example I often ask my patients would you rather face up or face down and the patient will tell you what they prefer which helps in the treatment so it&#39;s always listening to your patients and have the right intention in your truth and I know sometimes making a kitchen diagnosis is not always easy so if you&#39;re not truly sure go with the basics launch intestine four best point to move blood and relieve pain level three best point to move Chi and relax the body when there&#39;s pain there&#39;s tension right that&#39;s normal spleen eight the best point for menstruation cramp that women can also acupressure at home and you can show them because spleen Aid is the Sheep clef point of the spleen making it the best point when it comes to menstruation cramps kidney five is also a Chic left point and it&#39;s fantastic for masturbation cram specifically when you combine it with splenet and then spleen six because screen six is the crossing point of the liver the kidney and the spleen making it a great point to relax the whole uterus area and the reproductive system of the female so those four points recapping is li4 liver three open the gates splenate kidney five to relieve the pain and spin six because it&#39;s an overall point to try to help women&#39;s reproductive system now let&#39;s talk about treatment option including food recommendations when it comes to dysmenorrhea no matter what the pattern is your acupuncture is fantastic and you can put ear seeds which the patient can stimulate at home which is useful when they can&#39;t come and see you as often so when it comes to ear we want to do liver spin kidney just like when I talked about spleen 6 being the crossover of liver spleen and kidney this is the same for the ear all those three will represent the female reproductive system and then we want to put sympathetic to really calm the body from the pain area and then we want to add up also the endocrine point to balance the female reproductive hormones in this instance now another one that I like to add is on the sacrum we want to do seven star often it&#39;s called seven star or a plum blossom I love that little hammer and then you tap on the sacrum you&#39;re going to tap all along the sacrum with the little Hammer which is called the plum blossom or the seven star and you&#39;re gonna do this at least a week before the period every single day now it&#39;s not always easy to see the patients every single day so at least a week up to a week before the period to do it at least a couple of times will really help this is also very useful for endometriosis to break down that scar tissue so I use it for that as well which we know endometriosis of course creates dysmenorrhea or menstruation cracks other treatment options are exercise specifically gentle exercise we need to relieve the body relax the body so relieving stress and physical exercise so breathing meditation technique yoga Qigong Tai Chi going for walk in nature outside enjoy the trees being Forest bathing very good to calm the mind but move the body this is very key to help when it come to dysmenorrhea now let&#39;s talk about food and teas the first one is ginger tea turmeric tea cinnamon tea those three and you can combine them obviously those are great for dysmenorrhea and one of the great drink I like is golden milk and golden milk is from ayurvedic medicine it&#39;s from India originally and I I love this drink it&#39;s really soothing and it&#39;s great for dysmenorrhea and menstruation cramps so start taking it probably a week before the period on a daily basis plus it has so many other health benefits and then diet diet is a huge component of our health because it&#39;s the center of our health specifically skin and stomach in Chinese medicine so we need to have a really good digestive system but also feed the body nourishing and nutrients that is going to help relieve the pain so avoiding everything that&#39;s going to create information in the body like alcohol coffee processed food sugar yeah all those things have to be eliminated Dairy is usually not a great one neither gluten for some people as well not everybody depending on the area of the world you live in and many Factor but in general we want to try to reduce the inflammation and we want to have a lot of omega-3 fatty acid like salmon like fatty fish nuts see seeds are great for that avocado we want to have a lot of really good fat that decrease inflammation and in TCM perspective any spice is going to increase circulation in the body which is fantastic as well one more treatment option is heat applied like a heating pad or a moxa but that can only be done if the person is blood deficient has blood stasis or is Young deficient but not if they have excess heat right if they have excess cold great but if they have excess heat we do not want to apply more heat heat brings about circulation but it&#39;s not always good for everyone so we want to make sure we address the individual every single time oh and watch this video if you want more on how to treat pain acute specifically with acupuncture you&#39;re gonna love it have a fantastic day I hope this was useful there&#39;s so much more on my website Resource page acuproacademy.com check it out and no matter what keep in it using TCM

Transcript for:TCM Treatments for Dysmenorrhea

Transcript for:
TCM Treatments for Dysmenorrhea