If you were sightseeing in China and wanted to receive traditional Chinese medical treatment for your knee osteoarthritis pain after climbing the Great Wall, you may ask for what sounds like, “zhen jiu.” This is a standard term for acupuncture, and can be translated as “warming needle” or “acupuncture and moxibustion.” In this example of knee osteoarthritis, there is high quality research showing acupuncture’s effectiveness at relieving pain, but I wanted to point out that even in common Chinese language, the word for acupuncture includes warming, or moxibustion.
You may be unfamiliar with moxibustion (or moxa), but I happen to use it regularly in my practice of Chinese Medicine and thought you may be interested in learning about another tool that can help the body address illness. Moxibustion is the use of Chinese mugwort, an herb that when dried becomes somewhat spongy and can be clumped to the end of an acupuncture needle. It is then burned and warms the area where the needle is placed. It can also be shaped into a small pyramid and placed directly on the skin, carefully burning it to stimulate the point it is placed on. Moxa is also commonly packed into a cigar-shaped stick and the end is burned and placed above a specific acupuncture point to have an effect in the body.
According to Chinese medical understanding, the moxa helps warm and stimulate circulation through an area. I often use the moxa stick with chronic joint pain due to arthritis or tendonitis. The heat from the mugwort increases the circulation of blood through an area to help reduce the chronic inflammation. With slow to respond conditions, I find that the addition of the moxa can sometimes be more effective than just the acupuncture alone. Moxa is specifically helpful with conditions that are worse with cold as it has the opposing effect. Without going into too much theory, certain digestive conditions are considered cold related and moxa is helpful with such a diagnosis. Diarrhea may be an example of this and one may find help by holding the moxa stick over the navel for twenty minutes daily.
Another interesting historical and modern use of moxibustion is in turning a baby who presents in the breech position. This is what we may think of as feet first rather than head first for birthing. Those women who’ve experienced carrying a baby who is found to be breech in the last few weeks of pregnancy are aware of the potential concern with smooth delivery. We have found through thousands of years of experience, that burning Chinese mugwort by the outside edge of each little toe can turn a breech baby. It sounds somewhat magical, but from a Chinese medical view, it is stimulating the end of a channel that moves through the area of the uterus. So the moxa can cause the baby in the womb to excite and to turn head downward. I find that this doesn’t work every time, but it does more often than not and is certainly a simple, first course of action for breech presentation. The more room that’s still available to move, meaning closer to 35 weeks rather than 40 weeks of pregnancy, the more likely the moxibustion will do the job.
Moxibustion has been used for thousands of years in Asian countries, but the first western remarks on this subject are found in reports written by Portuguese missionaries in Japan in the 16th century. There is some modern research to understand why burning Chinese mugwort over specific points on the body can help pain or dysfunction. I find it to be a time-tested,non-invasive, safe treatment to help with some persistent situations. With careful instruction, moxa can be a therapy to be used at home without the need to visit the acupuncturist.