Cumbria Acupuncture Blog

Angela started having a bad cough one and a half years ago. She also had breathlessness and often brought up phlegm. The symptoms were worse when she went upstairs or rushed around. These made 35 year-old her feel like an old lady. X-ray and blood tests didn't show anything positive so the doctor couldn’t make a diagnosis. She had been given antibiotics and several other medications, which didn’t help. Recently she had been trying homeopathic remedy and it didn’t seem to be helpful either. Now the symptoms were getting worse and even her sleep was being affected. She couldn’t lie on her right side and was always woken up by the cough. When examine her chest using stethoscope I could hear wheezing, and her breathing on the right side was remarkably weaker. So I suggested she go to see her GP to ask for another x-ray. Then I gave her acupuncture treatment on the points Yuji, Dingchuan, Fengmen, Feishu and Geshu. Electric pulse and moxabustion were also applied. When Angela came back the week after, her cough was better and the phlegm was less. She had been to see her GP but was told it wasn’t necessary to have another x-ray. When she came for the third session of acupuncture, her lungs sounded clear though the right side was still weaker than the left. This time I added the acupuncture points Kongzui and Lieque. After this session, she could sleep through the night without waking up and didn’t have problem with lying on her right side any more. Then we carried on with weekly treatments. During the period of over half a year, apart from two times when the symptoms got worse due to catching cold, she only had slight cough and very little phlegm when she got up in the morning. She kept working and only felt some short breath after physical activity. Nine months after first came to see me, she finally got a chance to have another x-ray, which did show a problem, and soon afterwards she was sent to have a bronchi-endoscopy, which showed a tumour in her left bronchus. The medical staff who did the endoscopy were very surprised to know that Angela had such little symptoms and said it should have been a lot worse as the blockage in the bronchus was pretty serious. Luckily, the biopsy showed the tumour was benign, and a laser operation was successful carried out to remove it.