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Chinese Acupuncture Clinic Wang

       
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About Moxibustion

Moxibustion is called “Ai Jiu” in Chinese. The Chinese character is written as艾灸.

The first character 艾 (Ai) means moxa (艾草, Ai Cao). It is the herbal material used in this treatment technique. The Latin name is “Artemisia argyi”. Moxa can be manufactured into several different types depending on clinical purpose.

different moxa
Moxa in different type

The second character 灸 can be divided into two other characters, which are久 (Jiu) and 火 (Huo). The upper part 久 (Jiu) means take time, long and/or slow. The lower part 火 (Huo) means fire.

Why (or which case) do we use moxibustion to treat the patients? When the effectiveness of acupuncture is more difficult to reach, we will choose moxibustion instead. In my clinical experience, for example:

  • Excessive bleeding
  • Long coughing
  • Long lasting illness
  • Organ prolapse
  • Urinary incontinence
  • Lack of strength (“Yuan Qi” 元氣), and/or
  • Spinning the breech babies

Moxibustion certainly is a better choice.

Here I present a few frequently used techniques. It is for the educational purpose only. Although it looks easy, please do not try at home to avoid burning the skin and/or the fire at house.

1) Moxa box is placed directly at acupoint.

moxa box

2) Moxa stick is placed directly at acupoints.

moxa stick

3) Moxa is placed on top of ginger and/or sea salt (隔薑灸 Ge Jiang Jiu, 隔鹽灸 Ge Yan Jiu)

moxa on ginger moxa on ginger

4) Grain moxibustion (Mi Li Jiu米粒灸)

corn before treatment corn after treatment
Corn (During treatment) Corn (After treatment)

Clinically, either Acupuncture and/or Moxibustioncan be used as an individual treatment methodology. My experience is that “Acupuncture”unblocks the meridians and “Moxibustion” adjusts the balance of yin and yang between the meridians (針通經絡, 灸調陰陽).