How Acupuncture Can Help by Justin Short, L.Ac., Dipl. OM

In my first blog I went over a few of the mechanisms by which acupuncture can help promote health; if you have not read it, you can do so here.  Having explained how acupuncture works, I wanted to continue on and delve into what it can help with.  Over the course of three blogs, I am going to talk about some of the specific issues and symptoms acupuncture can help with as they relate to the five main Chinese Organs.  The five main Organs are the Heart, Lungs, Spleen, Liver and Kidneys.  

Now an important distinction before we continue, when I talk about Organs and organ networks in Chinese medicine, I am not referring to the piece of meat in your body that goes by the same name.  Instead, I am referring to a group of related functions and jobs that may or may not overlap with the functions of the physical organ.  As an example, lungs (lower case “l”) turn air into energy (respiration).  In Chinese medicine the Lungs (capital “L”) are also in charge of turning air into energy, but are also in charge of the skin and fluids and are affected by grief and sadness.  So if I diagnose a patient with a Lung qi deficiency, that does not mean you need to see a pulmonary specialist.  It just means that certain functions or jobs are not being performed as they should be.  By inserting needles into specific points, or prescribing herbal remedies, Chinese medicine helps restore your body’s natural health.

Knowing what we do about respiration, it’s easy to understand how acupuncture could be used to treat such problems as asthma, pneumonia or shortness of breath.  In Chinese medicine, the Lungs do much more and can be affected in a variety of ways.  During the fall and winter, when colds and illness are rampant, the Lungs are often the easiest target (fun fact: in Chinese medicine, the Lungs are referred to as “the tender organ” because they are most easily affected by external conditions).  When first catching a cold, coughing is one of the first symptoms, a symptom often associated with the lungs.  In Chinese medicine though, other symptoms related to the Lungs include sneezing, sore throat and abnormal sweating (because the Lungs control the skin and pores).  Acupuncture can often be used to help speed the recovery from many types of colds and flus and can even help strengthen the body to reduce their occurrence and severity.

This was just a brief overview of what part the Lungs play in Chinese medicine, and while the full picture is a lot more complex, I hope this gives you some idea of a few ways acupuncture can help promote health.  In the following articles I will discuss the Spleen and Liver, and the Heart and Kidneys.