Once or twice a month, the throat turns dry and burning again, sometimes with a feeling that something is rising all the way up into the nose. In bad spells, the patient had to go and have the sinuses rinsed. This had been repeating for several years, along with poor eating and loss of appetite. The throat had been treated many times, and each time it got a little better, then went back to the way it was.
A pale pink throat wall, not red
Looking into the throat, Dr. Dinh Ngoc Duc (MD, MSc in Traditional Medicine) saw that the back wall of the throat was pale pink, not red, with no pseudomembrane. The patient had also never been diagnosed with granular pharyngitis. The burning was strong while the throat looked fairly calm, so the doctor kept asking: where do you work, and what do you usually drink each day?
The patient spent almost the whole day working in an air-conditioned room, liked to drink coconut water, and sometimes drank iced water. Examining the abdomen, the doctor found that it felt cold to the touch. When the doctor pressed on the upper abdomen, the area above the navel and below the tip of the breastbone, the patient felt a pressing discomfort.
A burning throat can also come from the stomach
When people hear “sore throat,” they usually think straight away of a cold, bacteria or a virus. In some people, though, a long-lasting burning throat may be linked to acid reflux (GERD). Fluid from the stomach flows back up, reaches the throat and sometimes even the nose, and not everyone feels obvious heartburn.
In this case, the feeling of something rising into the nose, the loss of appetite, the tender upper abdomen and the cold belly led the doctor to think of acid reflux rather than an infection in the throat. Traditional medicine usually links a cold belly and poor eating to the Spleen and Stomach, and long hours in a cold room or frequent cold drinks can weaken this part further.
When endoscopy comes first
Some signs mean you need an endoscopy, or a visit to an ear, nose and throat specialist or a digestive specialist, before thinking about acupuncture: hoarseness or a burning throat lasting more than three weeks, difficulty or pain when swallowing, unexplained weight loss, coughing up blood, swollen lymph nodes in the neck, or chest pain. Chest pain in particular should not be quickly put down to reflux. Chest pain that comes on with exertion, or with shortness of breath or sweating, needs a heart check-up right away.
Two acupuncture sessions aimed at the stomach
The doctor chose acupuncture with the Old Ten Needles (老十针 / 老十針, lǎo shí zhēn), a well-known point prescription for the Spleen and Stomach, combined with needling based on the Five Elements (五行, wǔ xíng). The patient came because of the throat, but the doctor chose the point formula to look after digestion.
Right after the first session, the patient said the burning in the throat had eased by about half. At the second session, the doctor kept the same point formula, and this time the dryness and burning eased a good deal more. The doctor also noticed that the crack running down the middle of the tongue had changed right after the needles were removed, which tongue reading in traditional medicine sees as a sign that the body is responding to the direction of treatment.
Two sessions with one person are not enough to say that acupuncture cures reflux, nor that everyone with a burning throat will get better this quickly. Reflux comes in many degrees and has many causes; it needs to be assessed by a gastroenterologist and may call for endoscopy and medication. A long-lasting burning throat or hoarseness also needs an ear, nose and throat doctor to look carefully at the throat and larynx. While the cause is being found and dealt with, acupuncture helps ease the burning, going alongside those check-ups rather than replacing them.
Keeping a cold belly warm
Besides needles, the clinic also offers moxibustion, which means warming points with burning mugwort. For people who often have a cold belly and sit in air conditioning all day, like the case above, the doctor may add moxibustion to the abdomen, depending on the examination results.
Eating and drinking are also worth discussing in concrete terms. If you are used to coconut water and iced water, like the patient in this case, you can try cutting back on cold food and drinks on days when your throat is burning, eating dinner earlier, and not lying down right after a meal.
Worth keeping
- Eat dinner early, a few hours before bedtime;
- On days when your throat is burning, cut back on iced water and cold drinks;
- Don’t lie down right after eating; sit or walk gently for a while;
- Keep a note of each bout of throat burning: which day, and after which meal, so you can tell the doctor.
