Acupuncture for Acid Reflux & Heartburn

How Chinese medicine understands acid reflux

In Chinese medicine, the Stomach’s Qi is meant to move down, carrying food onward. Reflux, belching and nausea are all seen as “rebellious” Stomach Qi: Qi that rises the wrong way. The question is what is pushing it up.

The common patterns are:

• Liver Qi invading the Stomach. Heartburn and belching that flare with stress, frustration or irregular meals, often with a tight feeling under the ribs. This is the pattern most often linked with reflux.
• Stomach heat. Strong burning, a sour taste, thirst for cold drinks, bad breath, and symptoms that are worse after spicy food, alcohol or coffee.
• Damp-Heat. Burning with a heavy, full feeling and a bitter taste, often worse after greasy or rich meals.
• Spleen and Stomach deficiency. Milder, grumbling reflux with tiredness, poor appetite, loose stools, and a stomach that feels better with warm food. This pattern is often seen as the weaker digestion underneath a long-standing problem.

The pattern decides the treatment. Cooling a hot stomach is quite different from settling a stressed one or strengthening a weak one.

What treatment involves

Your first visit includes a lot of questions: when the heartburn comes, what you eat and when, how you sleep, your stress, and any medicines. I also look at your tongue and take your pulse.

Acupuncture commonly uses points on the upper belly, forearms, lower legs and back, chosen for your pattern. The aim is to help the stomach’s energy settle downward, ease burning, and calm the stress that often feeds it.

Chinese herbal medicine is often the other half of treatment for digestive problems. You take a formula written for your pattern between visits, dispensed at the clinic, and it is adjusted as your symptoms change. Tell your doctor or pharmacist about any herbs you take alongside acid-reducing medicine.

Treatment at the clinic in Keswick runs alongside the care you get from your family doctor. Research on acupuncture for acid reflux is still developing. Plan on 5–10 treatments to judge progress.

Between visits

• Eat smaller meals, and finish eating two to three hours before you lie down.
• Raise the head of your bed by 10 to 15 cm with blocks, rather than piling up pillows.
• Notice your triggers. Common ones are alcohol, coffee, chocolate, mint, fatty or spicy food, and fizzy drinks. A short food diary helps.
• Loosen tight waistbands and belts, which press on the stomach.
• If you smoke, get support to quit. Smoking weakens the valve at the top of the stomach.

When to see your doctor first

Reflux that lasts more than a few weeks should be assessed by your doctor. See your doctor promptly if you have:

• Trouble swallowing, or food that feels stuck.
• Pain when swallowing.
• Vomiting blood or material that looks like coffee grounds, or black, tarry stools.
• Weight loss you cannot explain.
• Symptoms that start after age 50, or reflux that keeps coming back despite treatment.
• Signs of anaemia, such as unusual tiredness or shortness of breath.

Chest pain can be the heart, not the stomach. If you have chest pain or pressure with shortness of breath, sweating, nausea, or pain spreading to the arm, jaw or back, call 911.