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Functional dyspepsia
1. A functional disorder of the digestive organ causing indigestion in the upper abdomen
2. Called functional dyspepsia or nervous gastritis; Without any underlying cause, upper abdominal discomfort and pain repeatedly occur continuously.
There are other factors causing a stomach problem other than the gastrointestinal phlegm stagnation that damages the tissues in the stomach and the gastrointestinal muscularis layer.
In this case, western medicine suggests causes such as functional, irritable, reflux, nervous, autonomic nerve or hormone secretion abnormality, however there is no definitive cure yet.
The biggest characteristic of oriental medicine is that it looks for the cause of the stomach from the entire body.
Unlike western medicine that searches for the cause of stomach problem just from the stomach, oriental medicine approaches the problem from the entire body system
This means the stomach problem occurs not just because of the stomach but also due to other organs.
The foundation of this principle lies in the theory that digestion is not done by the stomach only but with the help of neighboring organs including liver, heart, and kidney.
Liver, a neighbor of stomach
Usually, the food we consume is digested in the stomach and intestine. Once digested, all nutrition other than excretory product enter into the liver through the blood vessel called portal canal. However, when under stress, biliation, nutrition supply, and various hormone secretion functions of the liver are stop. Active liver functions enable the food to enter into the liver smoothly, but without the nutriment going out through the liver, stomach feels bloated, gassy, and even sees a reflux.
The liver stasis occurs usually when things don’t go well and you feel pressured or stressed. Therefore, in this case, liver relaxation therapy, a therapy that relaxes the stagnant energy in the liver, is applied instead of treating the stomach.
Heart helping stomach
Heart helps the stomach by supplying helpful nutrition and blood. However when excessive stress weakens the heart, not enough blood is supplied to the stomach that the ability to digest, defend, and recover declines, and the stomach fails to abet or prevent ulcers. Under nervous or extremely sensitive situation, the heart contracts and fails to supply sufficient amount of blood to the stomach, which leads to anemia of the stomach and declined digestive power. This stomach problem from stress is usually occurred in people who experience indigestion when they are bothered with something, who get scared easily or easily feel heart racing, and who have cold hands and feet as well as orthostatic vertigo and somnipathy.
In this case, heart strengthening medicines like jangdamboshim or guibiondam-tang are prescribed to improve the stomach conditions.
Kidney the resin supplier
Kidney saves beneficial resin like lubricants and supplies to different parts of the body - particularly, mucous membrane protecting substance called mucin to the stomach. This mucus protects the stomach from various toxins and excess gastric acid. However, over working or excessive stress or innately weak kidney lead to insufficient supply of this mucus to the stomach. And this leads to frequent occurrence of atrophic gastritis, and damages from gastric acid causes ulcerated lesion. As widely known, the kidney is where yang energy – stamina – is stored. This yang energy controls stamina and warms the organs around the kidney – intestines, and for women, uterus.
Intestine is where water is stored, therefore, it is cold. This causes frequent stomachache, but the kidney supplements this problem. Those with weak yang energy in the kidney occasionally experiences diarrhea or irritable bowel syndrome as their intestine is cold. Therefore, it is necessary to apply the restorative therapy that enhances the yang energy in the kidney and increases the amount of resin.
Lung degassing intestine
Lung controls breathing as it inhales good oxygen from the air into our body and exhales waste such as carbon dioxide to keep our body clean. In oriental medicine, the lung is known to cleanse the body, which means the lung is able to discharge waste and bad matters from the body. Usually, it is thought that lung only purifies the body through breathing, but it also controls excretion in the colon to purify the toxins from coprostasis. This means strong lung leads to active excretion.
Weak stomach
This refers to the case when the defense ability of the stomach is weak due to weak gastric muscle unable to perform peristalsis, insufficient blood or resin supply to the stomach, not enough yang energy in the stomach making the organ cold. Such condition occurs from over working or due to problems in other organs, but sometimes a person is born with a weak stomach.
As explained, treatment for stomach problems must consider therapies that cure gastrointestinal phlegm-stasis disorder along with other stomach issue-related factors. Only this will solve various stomach problems that could not be treated due to inability to identify the cause.
Considering the reality where 60 to 70% of patients with indigestion as a symptom fail to identify the organic reason, this theory and therapy will play a significant role in treating the root of stomach problems.
In addition, it is recommended to receive western medicine treatment at the same time when the patient has a serious ulcer in the mucous membrane and inflammatory lesion or Helicobacter pylori and polyps.
The effectiveness of treatment can be enhanced when lesion in the mucous membrane is treated with western medicine and problems in the gastrointestinal muscularis layer and functional problems caused its relationship with other organs are treated with oriental internal medicine.
1. Pressure on the chest, bloated feeling, indigestion
2. Frequent diarrhea and burping, anorexia
3. Abdominal distension, discomfort or heartburn in epigastrium, burping, gastric acid reflux, nausea
4. Frequent discomfort and bloated feeling after a meal
