Every day, glands in the linings of your nose, throat, airways, stomach, and intestinal tract produce mucus. Mucus is a thick, wet substance that moistens these areas and helps trap and destroy foreign invaders like bacteria and viruses before they cause infection. Normally, you don’t notice the mucus from your nose because it mixes with saliva, drips harmlessly down the back of your throat, and you swallow it. But sometimes there is so much of it that it becomes overwhelming and you get a runny nose, sinusitis, or terrible allergies.
In acupuncture, one of the theories behind this dysfunction of too much mucus is a weakened digestion. Whenever the digestion weakens the excess becomes excess mucus somewhere in the body. Acupuncture treats this by doing digestive points like stomach 36, or actual points on the belly, mixed with points to target the problem. If it’s a stuffy nose or sinusitis, we do points on the sinus glands.
If it’s allergies, this can also be a form of “wind invasion” and we do points to move wind out of the body, like Large Intestine 4 and Gallbladder 20. Sometimes you may have gotten over a cold, but you still have a stuffy nose and then we do points to help boost your body’s immune system, strengthen it’s defenses, and local points to clear out any “stuck mucus” that may have hardened and now is creating blockages.
There are always strategies behind where we place the needles. The idea is that mucus overwhelming the body is a disharmony, and we are attempting to bring the body back into balance so mucus can function in the way it’s meant to – as protection in the body.
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Alyx Soesman, Acupuncturist
Acupuncture Nirvana 