Acne

"Acne" Issue / Symptom Connections

Below you will find various relationships to, and potential clinical treatment approaches for acne.

Content Related to Acne

It is critical to appreciate that in Chinese Medicine, treatment for "acne" is rarely focused on the symptoms exclusively. Alternatively, a practitioner is looking at the factors that led to the development of "acne" - i.e. the "cause(s)".

For non-practitioners, we recommend reading treating the "cause" and not the "symptoms" for more on the overall approach and the importance of the TCM diagnostic system in formulating treatment approaches.

Within TCM, "acne" is potentially related to one or more of the following diagnostic patterns: heat in the blood, liver fire, and/or spleen and stomach damp heat.

The above patterns are common examples. In clinical situations, however, there are any number of other possibilities. Many times there will be a layered combination of patterns in an interwoven blend with their symptoms - some being the cause of an issue and the result of another issue. While initially complex, this is illustrative of the the web of relationships that Chinese Medicine is designed to approach.

• View EX Huatuojiaji at T4 (Sides of Spine at T4)
  
      .5 cun lateral to the lower border of the spinous processes of T4
  
      T4 innervates the breast and influences the sweat glands and hair follicles, important point for breast cancer in the tam healing system, excessive, irregular or lack of sweat, inability to control body temperature and many skin problems, …
• View SP 10 (Sea of Blood)
  
      With knee flexed, 2 cun above the superior medial border of the patella on the bulge of the medial portion of quadricep…
  
      Any Gynecological issues originating from Blood, Heat, Stasis a/or Deficiency - irregular menstruation, dysmenorrhea, amenorrhea, cramping, lin disorders, PMS, uterine bleeding. Skin problems from damp-heat or hot Blood - eczema, painful/…
• View UB 16 (Governing Shu)
  
      1.5 cun lateral to GV 10, level with T6.
  
      Hot a/or toxic skin conditions (esp. on the back): acne, boils, psoriasis, alopecia. Harmonizes the qi in the chest and abdomen - epigastric pain, abdominal distention, borborygmus. Chest / Cardiac pain - unbinds the chest.