Abdominal pain — around the umbilicus

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Textbook Prescriptions Digestive

Essentials of Chinese Acupuncture (Beijing, Shanghai and Nanjing Colleges of Traditional Chinese Medicine, 1980) — the standard prescriptions of the Chinese colleges.

Points

KI5 Shuiquan bilateral

Xi-Cleft of the Kidney; distal point for pain in the periumbilical region
CV6 Qihai midline

Local point below the navel
- Pregnancy: contraindicated
ST25 Tianshu bilateral

Local point beside the navel; Front-Mu of the Large Intestine

Needling Safety

Cited hazards for these points. Tick what applies to the patient to see the cautions that follow from it.

Treatment Principle

Disperse cold and relieve stagnation around the navel by combining a distal Kidney point with local points.

Indications

Pain around the umbilicusAccumulated cold: sudden violent pain that responds to warmth, loose stools; white coating, deep tense pulseFood retention: distending epigastric and abdominal pain, worse with pressure, foul belching and acidity, pain that may come with diarrhoea and ease after a bowel movement; sticky coating, rolling pulse

Method

Acupuncture with moxibustion for accumulated cold; reducing method for food retention.

⚠ Cautions

Abdominal pain may be an acute abdomen: appendicitis, bowel obstruction, peritonitis or a perforated ulcer (and, in women, ectopic pregnancy or torsion) need urgent medical care; the book itself requires close observation and other treatment where needed. CV6 is below the navel: avoid strong stimulation or moxibustion there in pregnancy.

About

One of three location-based prescriptions the colleges give for abdominal pain, used when the pain sits around the navel.

Rationale

The book relates the umbilical area to the kidney, so the Kidney Xi-Cleft point KI5, a point suited to acute pain, is chosen distally. CV6 and ST25 work on the same area locally.

Clinical Notes

Choose the prescription by where the pain sits: above the navel, around the navel (this one), or in the lower abdomen. The book notes that abdominal pain accompanies many disorders of the abdominal and female pelvic organs, intestinal parasites and functional disorders, and warns specifically about the acute abdomen.

Sources

Beijing College of Traditional Chinese Medicine, et al. Essentials of Chinese Acupuncture. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1980. Chapter III, Abdominal pain, p. 356–357.

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