Acupuncture for Allergies

Have you ever tried acupuncture for allergies before? How much you know about Chinese acupuncture? If you never do it before and the traditional allergy medications help very little on relieving your seasonal allergy symptoms, just give it a try now. Probably acupuncture allergy treatment might surprise you with an improvement you did not expected.

Theory of acupuncture for allergies

Allergic rhinitis in Chinese medicine refers the clinical manifestations of recurrent nasal congestion, nasal itching, runny nose, sneezing and other symptoms. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) believes that lung hosts nose, which in turn is the outer orifices of lung. Ancient sage said:

“Lung Qi connects to nose. If your lung is at its best, your nose can tell the difference between different smells.”

Moreover, “Su Wen -19 Bing Ji” ever said:

“All stagnation of Qi is caused by the imbalance of lung.”

From the above descriptions of the yellow emperor’s classic of internal medicine, we can infer that allergic rhinitis is closely related to lung. And the acupuncture for allergies should pick those relevant points with lung channel. However, clinically the prescriptions for allergy relief vary from doctor to doctor in different acupuncture clinic since they have their own experience and opinion.

Generally speaking, acupuncture for allergy relief is aiming to the whole person instead of just the symptoms. The same is true to teat allergies. First an acupuncturist has to look for the symptoms outside and figure out the underlying imbalance based on the observed data. Thus come up with the tailored description to the specific person. Even though the disease is the same, the descriptions will be quite different too in different persons due to their unique situation.

Acupuncture and allergies

Let’s take the experience from Professor Si Tuling for example.

Professor Si Tuling has a rich clinical experience on acupuncture allergies treatments. And his unique point prescription is very popular due to its excellent effectiveness, especially for getting instant allergy asthma relief, nasal allergy relief and natural sinus relief and so on. In the treatment of allergic diseases of typeⅠsuch as allergic rhinitis, he selects mainly Back-shu points.

Back-shu in acupuncture for allergies and asthma

Poking Fei Shu (BL 13) to dispel pathogen of cold.

This is related with the location and function of back-shu points. Back-shu points are the first side line of Urinary Bladder Channel of Foot Taiyang, which is the first one of three Yang channels. Channel of Foot Taiyang dispatch the Wei Qi to the skin fending off the attacks from Six Exogenous Pathogenic Factors. If they attack, the body’s first line of defense is Wei Qi. If Wei Qi is impaired, exogenous pathogens will occupy the position of Back-shu points, and then hinder the smooth running of Qi. In addition, the functions of Back-shu points are connected with the Zang-fu viscera. Back-shu points, where also the place exogenous pathogens lurk once broke into, store the Qi from Zang-fu viscera.

Therefore, the delayed healing and recurrence in patients with allergic rhinitis, especially during changes of climates and seasons, is just because the body’s pathogenic cold was not completely eliminated during the previous treatments. According to acupuncture theory, lung is a fragile organ and vulnerable to the attacks from Six Exogenous Pathogenic Factors.

Shenshu in acupuncture for allergies

Poking Shenshu (BL-23) to inspire Yang Qi.

Acupuncture theory also views that QI of five ZANG-organs are connected with each other. In other words, the longer the pathogenic pathogens lurking in our body, the deeper they will penetrate to our body. Therefore, chronic Allergic rhinitis sufferers will injure Spleen and Kidney as well. To cope with this kind of allergy, acupuncture for allergies need to eliminate the more deeply-rooted causes. Since we already know that chronic allergies are usually related with deficiency of Spleen-kidney, the prescription is to poke Shenshu (BL-23) and Pishu (BL20) to regulate the balance between Yin and Yang inside the body. Thus inspire the Yang Qi to strengthen the skin and protect the body from attacks.

In short, these above mentioned acupuncture treatment for allergies has got very good results clinically. But in terms of acupuncture allergy elimination, the key is to dispel the pathogens lingering in the Back-shu points clinically. In western medicine, it might be equal to boost the immune system. Of course, besides from acupuncture for allergies, the results of combining with herbal allergy relief will be more inspiring.