Bronchiectasis woes

Comment by Chad J. Dupuis, L.Ac.

Why are you trying to treat yourself? Have you seen a practitioner? If not, that is where I would start. There are many formulas that might be appropriate for you and the issues you are describing are generally well treated with Chinese Medicine.

Comment by Archived User

I was treated once a week by a Chinese acupuncturist here in rural Australia, but after 6 weeks with no change, the $100/session cost for each treatment plus the bags of herbal capsules each week at $25 per bag became too much for a pensioner like me. I thought there might be at least some kind of beneficial result from the treatments ( he tried several different things, like cupping on the Bladder meridians on my back and once a heat lamp warming my back; changing the herbal capsules and needling general important points like St36, LI4, etc.) Sigh… so I’m reading the big acupuncture books and articles from the internet, plus the articles on this Forum to look for further advice on how to best treat myself.

Comment by Chad J. Dupuis, L.Ac.

You should be able to find someone less expensive, but, honestly, you have serious health conditions and relatively long term at that - it is unreasonable to expect that in 6 treatments you would have considerable changes in your conditions. Particularly with phlegm it can be quite slow to move. That is the nature of it after all.

You may find some helpful diet/lifestyle tips and a better understanding of the underlying conditions by reading “My Spleen is What?” and “My Lungs Are What?”.

Generally speaking, you would need 3 months to 1.5 years of treatment (not necessarily weekly) to deeply resolve these issues and that would include work on your part emotionally, dietary wise and lifestyle wise.

I can’t really get into all of the details because cases like yours are complicated to treat, but in general you first have to carefully and slowly clear the excess conditions - the damp/phlegm - and then, when largely cleared, build the deficiencies. You can’t do this with a TENS unit - it will take proper acupuncture treatment, carefully tailored herbal formulas and, usually, significant dietary change. The points you are currently using are largely the wrong idea.

For a home remedy, assuming your diagnosis is right, you would do best with appropriate diet and lifestyle changes (read the articles listed above), --possibly-- an herbal formula like ding chuan to help improve the asthma and moxibustion on SP 9 to resolve dampness and ST 36 to mildly build the stomach//spleen energy. You have to be careful with the moxibustion - you want just enough to dispel the damp and lightly strenghten - not too much to overheat the dampness and create a worse scenario (i.e. part of any number of reasons why it is easier to work directly with a practitioner who knows your situation well.)