Chinese Medicine’s Role in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Endometriosis

I haven’t written about endometriosis before because every blog or research paper I’ve read that has talked about acupuncture treating endometriosis has only focused on the pain and treating the pain. 

Of course treating your pain is important, however, endometriosis pain is often the end result of a complex, chronic pattern of hereditary, physical and emotional disharmony.

Endometriosis in Chinese medicine is often explained in one pattern – Blood Stagnation in the Pelvis. This makes sense when we see images of endometriosis being ‘chocolate’ cysts sitting on tissue and ligaments in the pelvis via images from laparoscopies, literally looking like cysts of blood that are stuck. 

But the best question to work out the most ideal long term treatment is what caused the Blood Stagnation to begin with?

Blood stagnation in Chinese medicine has many causes – from immune system dysfunction, emotional causes of disease, physical changes to the pelvis area and hereditary causes. Emotional causes of disease is a huge factor as well. 

In Chinese medicine, we have a system of diagnosis and treatment called the ‘Root’ (Ben in pinyin) and ‘Branch’ (Biao in pinyin) treatment. They represent two interconnected approaches to addressing illness.

Root treatments focus on the underlying cause or fundamental imbalance in the body. In the context of a chronic pain condition like endometriosis, this would aim at treating the deeper patterns of disharmony that show up as a whole system imbalance.

Branch treatments are more symptom focused, addressing the immediate discomforts or ‘branches’ of a condition. With endometriosis, branch treatments would be focusing on pain, inflammation and menstrual irregularities.

A laparoscopy would be a really good example of a ‘branch’ treatment. Excising endometriosis cysts and immediately reducing inflammation. This is very much needed and helpful for reduced symptoms and improved fertility outcomes. But if it’s not followed up with whole system support, the endometriosis comes back as we see this with people often having multiple surgeries.

In an ideal world, treatments would aim to combine both Root and Branch approaches. In the short term we can work to reduce acute symptoms but maintain treatments over time to support longer and deeper healing and prevent recurrence.

In considering a wholistic approach to endometriosis treatment with acupuncture and natural health support, the below list needs to be considered. 

• Genetics – maternal estrogen metabolism
• Immune system dysfunction – viruses, vaccinations, parasites, STDs
• Gut health
• Hormone imbalance
• Inflammation
• Diet and Lifestyle 
• Adrenal system dysfunction – stress and stress response
• Physical trauma – car accident for example
• Emotional 

Understanding where the condition started and what it’s progression has been will help with long term health goals.

Natural health support treatments take minimum four months to show improvement and depending on your compliance to treatment, supplements, changes to diet, lifestyle and stress management, up to 12 months and ongoing.

Things happen in life and we can’t always expect treatment results to be linear. Grief, physical trauma, birth, stress, etc can all contribute to symptoms returning.  Having a holistic support system when this happens is really important.

Endometriosis is a complex, whole system imbalance that has many contributing factors. It needs to be treated as a long term health management plan, rather than short term fix.

Acupuncture treatments can be used to address acute pain, whilst working on the underlying causes.

In conjunction with Acupuncture, herbs and supplements, I would recommend castor oil packs daily (learn more here), an appointment with a Dietitian for nutritional support (learn more here), a physical treatment like a Women’s Health Physiotherapist or an specialised Osteopath (learn more here) as well as movement support like Yoga (learn more here).

Addressing the mental challenges of chronic pain management with a psychologist can also be beneficial.

If you have any specific questions around how we can help you at the clinic, please get in touch.

Written by Paige Waters

Fertility and Women’s Health Acupuncturist