A healthy gut is the foundation of a person’s wellbeing. In order to treat chronic systemic disorders, a practitioner must support the patient’s digestive functions. From a biomedical perspective, GERD is a disorder of the upper GI tract, and it is not associated with the other organ systems. However, from a Chinese medical perspective, GERD may be the origin of the condition, but it can also be the aftermath of other health conditions. First of all, let’s look at the symptoms of GERD:
– Heartburn (a burning pain behind the breastbone), the most prominent symptom.
– Regurgitation, in which the stomach contents reach the esophagus and mouth.
– Sore throat, hoarseness, dry cough, or a sensation of a lump in the throat (globus sensation) if stomach contents reach the mouth.
– Cough and/or wheezing if stomach contents trickle into the lungs.
– Dysphagia (difficulty swallowing) — people with longstanding heartburn sometimes develop this.
For treating GERD, biomed primarily aims at lowering Lower Esophagus Sphincter (LES) pressure by using drugs such as antihistamines and proton pump inhibitors, which has the adverse effect of blocking the stomach’s acid production, making it harder for the digestive system to break down food, and potentially making the person more susceptible to bacterial infections because some pathogens might not be eliminated by stomach acid in a pressurized environment and move into the intestines. Biomedicine does not acknowledge the concept of “Stomach Qi,” which is one of the key concepts in Chinese medicine. The Stomach Qi has the natural tendency to descend and close. It locks the GI sphincters, allowing food to move downwards. Without the Stomach Qi the GI sphincters won’t close properly — it is like a pressure cooker on a hot stove without a safety valve, as the pressure increases in the stomach, food, water and stomach acid are pushed up into the esophageal.
Read more on the CM treatment of GERD on Oku’s substack:
Understanding GERD from an Inner Alchemical Perspective (substack.com)
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