TREATMENT OF UPPER DIGISTIVE DYSFUNCTION

Acupuncture

There are many ways of treating the ‘liver’ by acupuncture:

1. Dorsalls pedis/dorsal interosseous area. Liv3 (LV3)
2. Lower ribs anteriorly; a large area extending say 7 cm vertically and 15 cm horizontally. Liv14 S19 G24 (LV14 ST19 GB24)
3. Spinous processes or interspinous ligaments of T8 to T12 or the sacrospinalis at this level. Gv9 to Gv6 and B17 to B20 (GV9 to GV6 and BL17 to BL20)
4. Sometimes a needle anywhere in the leg is sufficient; sometimes a needle anywhere in the upper abdomen, lower chest or back at the same level.

Diet:

Raw fruit and vegetables is the way to heaven, but hell on earth.

Rich food
Many illnesses and general ill-health in Western countries are caused, at least partially, by our Western diet, which is too ‘rich’. In poor, Third World countries, with their frugal diet, some of the illnesses which we have in the West are a rarity.

Chinese medical books, written 2000 years ago, give a list of many illnesses which have a greater tendency to occur in wealthy Chinese who eat a rich diet, something a poor peasant could not do. By ‘rich’ was meant too much fat, oil or sweetness.

The following ‘rich’ items should be reduced, though not given up completely.

Fats
The fat should be cut off meat and the skin (which is fatty) should be removed from chicken. Meat consumption should be reduced a little, as there is still fat between the meat fibres. Pâté and sausages usually contain a high proportion of fat. Game, which runs or flies around in the wild, usually has less fat than farmed animals. 

Milk contains a lot of fat, as may be seen from looking at a normal bottle of milk. One should therefore have skimmed milk, not semi-skimmed. Also reduce the consumption of butter, cream, cheese, yogurt made from unskimmed milk, etc.

Oils
All vegetable oils should be reduced, particularly olive oil, which is the hardest to digest. Other oils should also be reduced: corn oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, soya oil, etc.This means a reduction of fried food, mayonnaise, French salad dressing (containing oil), margarine. Nuts and avocados also contain much oil. 

Sugar
Sugar of all types (glucose, dextrose, fructose, sucrose, whether made from cane or beet, white or brown, as well as honey) should be reduced.This means no sugar in tea and coffee; also a reduction in jam, cake, biscuits, ice cream and many soft drinks, squashes and fizzy lemonades. Remember that dried fruit contains more sugar than fresh fruit, which is why it is sweet.

Other items
All forms of alcohol, coffee and chocolate should be reduced drastically. Eggs, smoked salmon and caviar should be eaten only in moderation.

Someone who has eaten too much rich food for many years may no longer notice the effect it has on him,much as an alcoholic may drink several whiskies with little effect, whilst a teetotaller may feel the effect of a single whisky. After one has stopped or considerably reduced the consumption of rich food for several months, one may become sensitive (like a teetotaller) to rich food, so that if one suddenly consumes more than a limited amount one may feel heavy, overfull, slightly headachy, have a thick head, nausea, a dry, bitter or bad taste in the mouth, a feeling like a very mild hangover. The French would call it being ‘livery’. It may occur within seconds or 24 hours of excessive consumption. This ‘feeling livery’ is the best guide one can have as to how much rich food one can eat or drink with relative impunity. Some people feel livery with items other than those on this list – these items should be avoided. Others never experience being livery and they cannot use this test. 

Gross overeating of any type of food may have the same effect as eating moderately too much rich food.

Some people are hypersensitive to certain foodstuffs (nothing to do with rich food), chemical additives, etc.This may cause a large variety of illnesses or symptoms, and a cure depends on excluding the offending item or items.This is not the same as the intolerance of ‘rich food’ mentioned above, though both conditions may coexist.

I feel I am ideally qualified to write about the ‘liver’ as I am livery myself, and hence have repeatedly experienced many of the symptoms mentioned in this chapter. There is no need for me to read a book about the subject, for I can practically experience the symptoms within myself when patients relate their history to me.

I do not know why I am livery. I presume it might be because I grew up in an era when most people thought that rich food was good for you. Thereafter I became addicted to rich food andtended to eat more and more. If I eat a healthy meal I feel I am eating rabbit food, and if I have half a day free I feel it has not been consummated without a visit to a patisserie.

If I eat too much rich food, the following almost invariably happens, alas! I feel heavy, my brain works less well, I partially lose my mental and physical drive; I have a pain on the right/posterior side of the neck; I also have a pain on the left side of my head stretching along a line from the middle of the forehead above the eye, over the scalp to halfway along the lambdoid suture some 5 cm from the midline (corresponding roughly to part of the course of the supraorbital and greater occipital nerves or the gall bladder meridian from G14 to G19 – GB14 to GB19). If this continues for a long time I have discomfort in the area of the left tonsil, as if I had mild tonsillitis; my bowel motions become slightly soft, a little pale and occasionally actually loose. I may develop acne.

This concept of the liver I find extraordinarily important in my practice of acupuncture and I am always astounded that it is hardly known in the Anglo-Saxon world. Possibly a third of my patients are ‘livery’ whatever else they may have in addition. It is a great pity that they remain mostly untreated due to the paucity of objective, scientific data – most doctors only believing in patients’ symptoms if they can find something objective.

FELIX MANN
MB, BChir (Cambridge), LMCC
Founder of The Medical Acupuncture Society
President: 1959‒1980
First President of The British Medical Acupuncture Society (1980)
Deutscher Schmerzpreis 1995