Abdominal pain — lower abdomen

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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

SP6 Sanyinjiao bilateral

Meeting point of the three foot yin channels; distal point for the lower abdomen
- Pregnancy: contraindicated
ST29 Guilai bilateral

Local point in the lower abdomen
CV4 Guanyuan midline

Local point in the lower abdomen
- Pregnancy: contraindicated

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 in the lower abdomen by combining the meeting point of the three foot yin with local points.

Indications

Pain in the lower abdomenAccumulated 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. SP6 is contraindicated in pregnancy, and CV4 should not be given strong stimulation or moxibustion in pregnancy. Empty the bladder before needling CV4 and ST29.

About

One of three location-based prescriptions the colleges give for abdominal pain, used when the pain is in the lower abdomen.

Rationale

The three foot yin channels all pass through the lower abdomen, so SP6, where they meet, is the distal point. ST29 and CV4 act on the painful area directly.

Clinical Notes

Choose the prescription by where the pain sits: above the navel, around the navel, or in the lower abdomen (this one). 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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