Winnie Chan LAc, MPA - How does Traditional Chinese Medicine/Acupuncture support Endometriosis Pain Management?

Hi everybody. My name is Winnie and I'm a traditional Chinese medicine acupuncturist based out of New York City. First off, I want to thank you EndoFound for inviting me here and speaking to everybody today. How many of you have tried acupuncture? Please raise hand. Wow, I love that. How many of you are interested in trying acupuncture? Oh, wow. I love that too. So I like to talk a little bit about endometriosis is a full nervous system disease. You have chronic pain that rewires your brain. Every single day when the patients, endo patients come to me, they have cold hand, cold free, anxiety, flare up, flare up that they can't even walk. Intense bloating when they're having their flareup almost look like they're two or three months pregnant, but after their period comes as like a release, release of energy, release of blood flow, and they feel so much better.

So in traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture is important, but there's also other toolkits. There is moxibushion, there is Guasha, there's cupping, there's also bleeding, a bleeding technique. So all these are actually under traditional Chinese medicine, including Chinese herbs. In traditional Chinese medicine, there's tea or energy and blood.

When energy and blood flows, there's no pain. When chi or energy and blood is blocked, there is pain. For endo patients, it is a blood stagnation issue, a blood blockage. That's why you see like clots when you come out. For endo patients, we can't categorize it all in one category, blood stagnation. Some endo patients bleed excessively and have to go to the ER. Some patients like myself, cold hand, cold feets. My belly is always cold. I'm like in full shutdown mode is because I'm so cold inside that I don't even bleed that much. It's like one or two spotting. So endo is very, very differently defined in traditional Chinese medicine. But the goal is very, very simple down to flow. Chi and blood flow. Right? But I want to also talk about the vagal nervous system of how acupuncture stimulates the vagal nervous system directly.

In previous days in the medical conference, it talks about how to stimulate the vagal nervous system through music and also through smell as well. So when babies, right, they cry. Mama's hump.

Humming stimulates the vagal nervous system. But sometimes when you're in so much pain, what are you going to do? You just think hum all day. Right? You're not going to do that. But acupuncture, I would say go to someone who's licensed acupuncture who specializes in fertility, woman's health, not someone who does everything under the sun. Right? Okay. So as I mentioned, endometriosis is a nervous system disease, full body affects your nervous system, immune system. You're always getting weak and sick. Your digestive system, bloated. I can't poop. I can't pee. Why during my period? And also hormones. I feel sad. I'm crying for no reason. And also affects your emotional health. I'm a happy person inside, but after years of surgery and like every single month of tolling and tolling, right? My happiness becomes depleted. I become sad. So physical health really affects your emotional health.

Okay. All right. This is just a pointer. Okay. All right. And that lovely lady over there asks about the vagal nervous system. This is really good drawing. Look at it. The vagus nerve is right behind the airs. I usually needle acupuncture. I go for the ears right away. And look how it stimulates the lungs, the heart, spleen, stomach, pancreas, kidneys, small intestinal large and sun, gallbladder, liver. That's the whole connection pathway. And also, unfortunately, that is where endo travels too, everywhere in the human body. So the vagus nerve, a little bit friendly reminder, who those who didn't go to medical conference, it controls inflammation. Your digestive system, your pain regulation, emotional balance, pelvic organ communication. It's a rest and heal mode that you need and acupuncture doesn't really needle the vagus nerve directly. Anybody needles done any type of nerve. I'll feel electric right away.

Right? We don't do that. Instead, with vagus nerve, it signals the brain and your nervous system to shift to a calm and healing mode, the parasympathetic mode.

And there's a lot of research behind how traditional Chinese medicine using arricular vagus nerve stimulation, arricular means air is a potential therapeutic effect. Sometimes you don't even really need the full body treatment. If you have an licensed acupuncturist who knows the different areas of the air, they can give you two or three needles and you're in complete, calm, parasympathetic mode. And the venova tone is low. The nervous system has a harder time to turning pain down. So this is some of the arricular points that I want to talk about. Acupuncture as a non-pharmaceutical neuromodulation. So no drugs to calm you down, but using specific air points. And air is the most direct vagus nerve access. Okay?

Another thing I want to talk about is when I needle patients, when a patient comes in with a flare up and severe pain, I would needle the eight holes in the back. These eight holes are the sacroforamen in the back of your pelvis. Let's see if there's a blinker right here, but you can see there's these eight holes. Over time, as human beings, as we age, why the elderly is not able to touch your foot? My dad, he's like 80. He can't touch his foot anymore because over time, these eight holes, they will close up. Just like an airing, if you don't use it, it closes up over time. But a lot of the nerves, pudendal nerves, and a lot of nerves travel through these eight holes into your legs. So sometimes endometriosis, when you're having a flare up, for some reason you have leg pain and it's very stiff too.

So I use acupuncture to treat urinary dysfunction, incontinence, and chronic pain in lower back. I want to talk about a case study here. I see a lot of endometriosis patients, and as a TCM doctor, I use tongue diagnosis and pulse diagnosis. So whenever you go to a traditional Chinese medicine doctor, make sure that they know how to read the tongue. If not, they're just doing the minimal and that's not the best, right? So let's see, this is a classic endometriosis case. Look at her tongue. There's a lot of red dots, right? This is high chronic stress. And overall, this is a pale colored tongue. And underneath right here, you would see a lot of zebra prints, right? Blood stagnation. Blood stagnation means blood is stuck somewhere in the body, but where? Mostly right here in the pelvic area, right? So this patient has colostomy bag, a urinary catheter bag for one year, a lot going on.

Eight surgeries everywhere, walks around New York City with a cane due to multiple pelvic damage from surgeries, and she lost a signal to pee. So she had to do self-catheterization, which is like a lipstick tube and you just remove it and there's a bag that comes out like a parachute and you got to insert it in and you have to wear gloves. It's a lot, right? And she is unable to poop normally because she has so many issues going on that she had to use gloves, jelly, and the longest fingers to remove whatever stool she has. This was her life until she was introduced to traditional Chinese medicine, and this is me. I turned from patient to practitioner, and this is my story, TCM really specializing in endometriosis management, and I'm also a dedicated endo coach to all my patients. For nutrition wise, what does Winnie eat, right?

Winnie eats really all cooked food, all warm foods, and all my patients following me eating that has noticed a drastic change in their life. So no salads, okay? No smoothies. Unless you can warm up your smoothie. All right. So my healing journey really led me to traditional Chinese medicine to compliment Western medicine. I am a big, big supporter of Western medicine, okay? So it's a full team that you need to manage this pain.

My closing message here is that endometriosis can push the body into survival mode, but the nervous system can heal with the right care and right team. We have excision specialists. Don't do ablation. Your traditional Chinese medicine acupuncturist specialize in endometriosis pain management. Don't find an acupuncturist who does everything under the sun. Have a pelvic pain specialist. Have a nutritionist as well and also pelvic floor therapy. Your pain is real. I hear you. Your experience is valid and your body can heal. Look at me. I am standing here today. I'm thriving. Your body can heal. If you have any questions, I post a lot of tips on what to eat and to support other womans on Instagram.