Traditional Chinese Medicine: Menstruation Diagnositcs

Video Transcript

"If you're a woman and your going in to see your traditional Chinese medicine practitioner to get some acupuncture or herb treatment, its actually much easier for us sometimes to treat women because their menses can give us so much information about what's going on. And traditional Chinese medicine is phenomenal for treating a variety of menstrual problems. Everything from fertility issues to pain, fibroids, even endometriosis. So you can tell your patient either from a Western standpoint if you're coming in with a diagnosis, but they're going to ask you questions like how long it is for your menses, how long your period is, how much pain you're in and what kind of things make it better. Some people find that pressure feels better when they're actually menstruating. Other people don't want their belly touched. So one is from deficiency, the other one is from excess. Excess never wants to be pressed on. Then there's other questions that may seem like odd details. Often times women get clots with their menses. So things like if they're smaller than a quarter, we often times refer to chi stagnation. If they're larger than a quarter, we often times refer to blood stagnation. So make sure before you go to see your acupuncturist you have those kinds of ideas and ideally even be tracking you menses before you go in. Its often times helpful to not go in actually for your first treatment while you're menstruating, but somewhere around mid-cycle is often times the best time so that they can get the best reading as far as your tongue and pulse goes. So if you're having any kind of gynecological problems, go and see your acupuncture and herbalist."