D'oh!

There is a Chinese Medicine technique called Moxabustion (or Moxa for short) where you burn the herb, mugwort, on or over acupuncture points to introduce heat into the body. I had never had moxa done to me, and there was part of me that doubted its efficacy.

In class yesterday, we learned how to moxa patients and practiced on each other. It was fun, we played with fire, and no one got burned. One of the points that we used (ST 36) is good for a great number of ailments. One of the things that it does is to increase production of HCl in the stomach. My stomach is already too acidic, so I knew that this particular point was one that I shouldn't have anything done to. Because we were using moxa, though, and the point is below the knee rather than over the stomach, I figured I'd be fine. The amount of mugwort used was miniscule, so how could it possibly have an effect?

I have now learned the very important lesson that just because I don't understand exactly why Chinese medicine works, doesn't mean that it isn't going to do exactly what the text books claim it will do. This system of medicine has been around for thousands of years and has been fine tuned and perfected. I spent all day yesterday being absolutely miserable because my stomach was producing huge amounts of acid, exactly as promised. Oops.