Steps to Healing: Part 2
As a follow-up to my last blog post on relieving symptoms, in this article we will explore treating the root cause or the imbalance that is impacting your health. Last week we discussed treating symptoms and the importance of that as an initial first step. Treating symptoms is the equivalent of cutting the wire to turning off a warning light in your car. While it may immediately relieve the annoyance of the flashing light, long term we haven’t addressed the problem. The problem will continue to persist and eventually the car may stop running. If treating symptoms is equivalent to turning off the oil indicator light. Treating the root cause or imbalance would be adding more oil and resolving any oil leaks so the light turns off on its own.
From a Chinese Medicine point of view pain, exhaustion, anxiety, depression, poor digestion and insomnia are all caused by an imbalance. In the case of the above car scenario, the imbalance is a lack of oil but ultimately it may be an oil leak. In Five Element Acupuncture, our task is to determine the imbalance and use Acupuncture to restore harmony in the system.
A Little Bit About Chinese Medicine…
To understand disharmony, we will need review a bit of Chinese Medicine. In Chinese Medicine we consider the body to have 12 Officials, each associated with a primary meridian or channel and the organ the channel passes through. Officials are named for their associated organs. Though named for the organ it passes through, the functions of an Official are much greater than the organ functions identified in Western Anatomy and Physiology class. Each Official is responsible for specific tasks and impacts us on all levels: body, mind and emotions. An imbalance on any of these levels, can lead to a disharmony: Tendonitis impeding the meridian would be evidence of a physical imbalance; Ruminating thoughts related to something that happened yesterday preventing one from focusing on what’s happening now can clue us in on disharmony in the mind; frustration present throughout many of the days activities can lead us to suspect emotional disharmony.
How Do We Get Out of Balance?
Imbalances result when we don’t heal from some type of trauma - physical, mental or emotional, causing energy to get stuck or stagnate. We often go along for a good many years without even noticing the effects of the disharmony because the rest of our systems compensate. Additional strains create further imbalances and we start to experience symptoms such as pain, exhaustion or anxiety.
Imbalances are also breaches of integrity that inhibit the smooth flow of energy in the body and impede functions. Imbalances occur when an Official is operating in excess or deficiency, examples can include a digestive system that functioning in excess clearing the bowels multiple times a day leading to loose stools, cramps and IBS. Since body systems are designed to work in harmony - influencing and controlling each other; any excess or deficiency will ultimately lead to systemic disharmony.
Getting Back to Balance and Harmony
As a Five Element Acupuncturist, I work to determine the root of the imbalance through a detailed review of personal health and social history along with an examination of vital signs and pain sites. Once the cause is determined a treatment plan that may include Acupuncture, Moxibustion, Nutrition and Lifestyle Medicine will be developed to get you back on track. During this phase of treatment patients come weekly for about a period of six weeks or more depending on history and severity of symptoms. Once harmony is re-established we gradually taper out to treatments and monitor the body’s ability to maintain the new pattern of harmony.
In working with the body this way we are treating the root cause of the imbalance and promoting long-term healing.
Is your current health and wellness plan chasing symptoms or addressing the cause? Has this post made you think differently about your healing? If so, talk with your health and wellness practitioner to determine what steps you can take to focus on the cause.
This article was originally published on July 22, 2015 and has been updated in 2022 just for you.!