While modern medicine is effective in treating a wide range of severe, life-threatening conditions, it has severe side effects that can cause more harm than good in the long run. Some medicines are addictive, while others cause physical side effects that can affect your health. The other alternative that modern healthcare practitioners recommend is surgery, which is painful and risky. Slowly, people have been reverting to traditional Chinese medicine, including acupuncture, which is natural, safe, and highly effective for conditions like hemorrhoids. A competent acupuncturist can help you understand how they treat hemorrhoids, the benefits, and possible risk factors for informed decision-making.
How Acupuncture for Hemorrhoids Works
The human body is made so that it can naturally heal itself. You have natural healing abilities that, if triggered, can manage a wide range of symptoms like pain, discomfort, and inflammation. If you experience a symptom and your body cannot naturally heal, something is usually in the way of its natural healing abilities. Modern medicine does not trigger this natural ability. If anything, it inhibits it, causing you to depend on unsafe medicine and its severe side effects.
For example, if you break a bone, even a big bone like the femur, your body can naturally knit it back together in weeks. Thus, there is usually a problem if your body cannot naturally take care of a migraine, back pain, or a digestive disorder. Traditional medicine men believe that something is hindering the body’s natural abilities, which is why it is not responding as it should when you are sick or injured. Acupuncturists are examples of natural healers who use proven strategies and techniques to trigger the human body’s natural healing abilities.
Acupuncturists use tiny needles strategically placed at various points in the body to relieve pain, treat inflammation, and improve your digestion and general health. They can heal various medical conditions, including hemorrhoids and digestive conditions that cause or worsen them. Acupuncture is highly recommended because it is safe and is administered by highly trained and experienced professionals. It triggers the body’s natural healing abilities, which keep your body healing itself for prolonged periods after treatment.
Treatment techniques by acupuncture include inserting tiny needles in strategic locations within the body. The needles are sterilized to prevent introducing new bacteria into the body, which can worsen your general health. Acupuncturists choose strategic treatment points, depending on the condition you present. They leave the needles in those locations for about 30 minutes in every treatment session, to trigger the body’s natural healing abilities. Sometimes, an acupuncturist carefully and skillfully manipulates the needles to achieve the desired results.
In addition to the process being safe, acupuncture is generally painless. Except for the minor pain you feel at the needle insertion point, which gets better within a few minutes of the treatment, you do not experience any discomfort. Instead, you feel better after each treatment session, as your body heals from pain, inflammation, and any other symptoms the hemorrhoids could have caused.
How Acupuncture Helps with Hemorrhoids
Hemorrhoids occur when the blood vessels around your anus and those in the lower rectum swell, causing piles. They can develop internally, in the rectum, or externally, around the anus or under the skin around it. People experience different symptoms with hemorrhoids, including pain, bleeding, swollen lumps, and itching. Hemorrhoids generally develop when you strain during bowel movements. This can happen if you sit for prolonged periods in a toilet, have constipation, or consume a low-fiber diet. The good thing is that minor cases of hemorrhoids can be managed at home, with home remedies like dietary changes. However, severe cases of hemorrhoids require immediate treatment to manage pain and prevent inflammation or severe conditions like infections.
Modern medical practitioners have been issuing drugs and performing surgeries to treat moderate to severe cases of hemorrhoids. The problem with modern medicine is that it is not highly effective in treating the condition for good. Modern medicine is also expensive and can be addictive. Some drugs, like some painkillers, result in dependence after prolonged use, whereby a patient is unable to function without them. This explains why many people are resorting to traditional Chinese medicine like acupuncture for hemorrhoids.
Acupuncture can help with hemorrhoids as it naturally stimulates nerves to release hormones like endorphins for pain relief. It can also promote blood circulation around the treatment site to reduce inflammation and promote healing. Acupuncturists can also use special techniques to regulate and improve digestion for easy bowel movements. The methods your acupuncturist will recommend depend on the underlying cause of your hemorrhoids.
Here are ways acupuncture can help treat hemorrhoids:
Acupuncture for Pain and Inflammation Reduction
Pain and inflammation are the main symptoms you will experience with hemorrhoids. An acupuncturist can reduce them by stimulating your body’s natural healing abilities. Using tiny needles on strategic acupoints around the hemorrhoids, the acupuncturist can release cortisol and endorphins, hormones that enhance blood flow around the treatment area. This decreases inflammation markers and modulates the nervous system to relieve your pain. Cortisol and endorphins are the body’s natural pain relievers and anti-inflammatories. An enhanced blood flow around the hemorrhoids will also promote the flow of oxygen and essential nutrients that will promote your healing.
Acupuncture for Digestion Regulation
Digestion is essential in the prevention and management of hemorrhoids. Indigestion causes constipation, straining, or digestive problems, which are the leading causes of hemorrhoids. Thus, enhanced digestion is critical in preventing and managing the condition. While you can improve digestion with a high-fiber diet and plenty of fluids, acupuncture can also help regulate digestion to relieve hemorrhoids.
By placing tiny needles in strategic locations around the affected area, an acupuncturist can stimulate acupoints that improve the functioning of your digestive system by modulating the nervous system. This reduces inflammation, improves blood circulation, and balances the hormones involved. You will experience less constipation and bloating, which will give you relief during bowel movements. Additionally, acupuncture treatment will activate the parasympathetic nervous system, balance gut bacteria, promote gut mobility, and reduce stress levels, all of which are essential in managing hemorrhoids.
Acupuncture for Detoxification
Hemorrhoids can occur or worsen when you hold in bowel movements for prolonged periods. It leads to constipation and, consequently, straining during bowel movement. This can sometimes happen if your body’s natural detoxification process is affected. You could be sitting on the toilet for prolonged periods without getting rid of all the toxins in the body, which increases pressure on your anal veins.
An acupuncturist can focus on key detoxification organs in the body to ease bowel movement and resolve the underlying cause of hemorrhoids. This will eventually result in relief from pain, which is key to healing. They can stimulate the digestive system to enhance your body’s natural detox.
Acupuncture for Improved Blood Circulation
Blood circulation helps the body naturally heal by ensuring better oxygen and nutrient delivery to all body parts. Improved blood flow in tissues, cells, and organs promotes their function, which is essential to your general well-being. Enhanced blood flow also helps with waste removal from the body. Your body can remove metabolic waste products from its tissues easily and quickly. These two processes provide significant relief to various symptoms, including pain. Generally, improved blood circulation is suitable for your general health. It supports the functioning of the cardiovascular system and promotes your body’s natural healing processes.
This is one of the ways acupuncturists treat conditions like hemorrhoids. Acupuncture can promote vasodilation, or widening of blood vessels, for improved circulation. It can also stimulate peripheral nerves, release nitric oxide, and address qi stagnation, all geared towards promoting your natural healing abilities.
Acupuncture for Better Gut Health
Gut health refers to the general health of your digestive system, especially how balanced the microorganisms in your gut are. These microorganisms help with the digestion and absorption of food. The condition of your gut health is critical, as it determines your general health. However, it mainly depends on your lifestyle choices. An unhealthy gut will likely result in constipation and indigestion, which are some of the leading causes of hemorrhoids.
An acupuncturist can help balance your gut microbiota. It can increase the abundance of the beneficial gut bacteria while reducing harmful ones. This contributes to a more resilient and diverse gut flora. A balanced gut microbiota means your foods will be digested better, and nutrients will be absorbed well. It also strengthens your immune system, promoting your general health.
Acupuncture also reduces stress and impacts digestion. Stress significantly affects your digestive health, resulting in indigestion and irritable bowel syndrome. An acupuncturist can use techniques that reduce stress by regulating stress hormones like cortisol, promoting relaxation. Once your stress levels are reduced, your body can address their negative impact on digestion.
Treatment Techniques Acupuncturists Use for Hemorrhoids
If you have hemorrhoids and are on medication, combining your treatment with acupuncture is highly advised. Modern medicine is not always effective in treating the underlying cause of hemorrhoids. It mainly addresses the symptoms, which keep recurring. Acupuncture is safe and natural and promotes holistic healing so that your body continues healing for even better results. The chances that hemorrhoids will recur after acupuncture are usually minimal.
Here are various techniques acupuncturists use in this treatment:
Needle Insertion
Remember that acupuncture is mainly about needle insertion. However, it involves special thin needles that a specialist inserts at strategic points in your body to trigger the body’s healing abilities. After examining you and reviewing your medical history, your acupuncturist will develop a treatment program to suit your needs. During the treatment session, the acupuncturist inserts the sterilized needles into already-identified acupoints within your body.
Manual Stimulation
In this technique, the acupuncturist can manually or physically manipulate the strategically located needles to trigger the acupoints. They use various methods, including twirling the needles and lifting and thrusting, to produce a therapeutic effect on your body. The goal of manual stimulation is to promote blood flow around the affected area to reduce pain and inflammation. Acupuncturists perform manual stimulation carefully, without injuring you. They are trained on the type of manipulation for a particular effect, amplitude, time, and velocity.
Electroacupuncture Technique
In this technique, an acupuncturist passes a small electrical current between the needles inserted into your body. It is a common technique for managing pain and stress. The additional electrical stimulation improves the treatment’s effectiveness in relieving hemorrhoid pain. It is a very effective technique to release endorphins in the body, which are the human body’s natural pain relievers. Electroacupuncture also modulates other neurotransmitters within the body and stimulates neural pathways, which is essential for its therapeutic effects.
However, acupuncturists must examine and review your medical treatment before using these techniques. Before developing a treatment plan, they could recommend tests to determine your suitability for some methods. For example, electroacupuncture is not suitable for all patients. Although acupuncture is natural and largely safe, electroacupuncture is not recommended for patients with seizure disorders or those already using implanted devices like pacemakers. It can worsen their medical condition or affect the implant’s functioning.
Therefore, talk to your acupuncturist about any medical condition you have been treated for or any ongoing treatment for effective decision-making when developing your treatment strategy. They will create a unique treatment plan for your specific needs and goals.
Find a Competent Acupuncturist Near Me
Hemorrhoids are painful, uncomfortable, and itchy. They start mildly and worsen with time, especially with delayed treatment. When their symptoms worsen, you can develop complications like anemia in case of excessive bleeding. Fortunately, there is treatment for hemorrhoids in Los Angeles. While you can obtain relief from modern medicine, combining it with acupuncture offers more effective, faster, and lasting results.
Our acupuncturists at Art of Chinese Healing are highly trained and experienced in treating hemorrhoids. We conduct a proper diagnosis and review your treatment history to develop a safe and effective treatment plan for your needs. We also use the best acupuncture techniques to promote holistic healing within your body. Call us at 310-405-1610 to learn more about acupuncture and our services.