The Tongue as a Map of Body

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By admin December 29, 2014 18:27

Written by Dr. Kristen Bohnet

Q: What is the importance of the tongue in acupuncture?
Dr. Bohnet: We say the tongue reflects everything that is happening internally in the body. So looking at the tongue is very important. The things you look for are mainly the color of the tongue. Also, the shape of the tongue and coating on the tongue. You can have a blue tongue, pink tongue, pale tongue, purple tongue; all those different colors in the tongue mean different things.

Every organ in the body has a place on the tongue. The tip of the tongue is the heart and the lungs. The sides of the tongue are the liver. The normal color of a tongue is a fresh pink or a fresh red. A patient could come in and have a normal looking tongue expect for an orange color on the sides, and that has to do with the liver.
Q: Is this theoretical or physically accurate?
Dr. Bohnet: It is theoretical, but there is a practitioner who practices out of England who writes a lot of our books for western culture who documents information about the tongue. When you learn this, see it and practice it, you believe it is not theoretical. You believe that the tongue really is a map of what the body is.

For instance, I’ve been to seminars and seen slides of patients who have breast cancer; unilateral, left-sided breast cancer. There is a place in the tongue that corresponds to the breast. And you look at that person’s tongue and she may have a purple color in that breast area or a red mark there.

There are practitioners that take pictures of the tongue and follow cases looking at the progression of the tongue. I do the same thing with patients by looking at their tongues from week to week or every other week to see how it changes. As you improve the workings of the body, it will show up in the tongue.

Dr. Kristen Bohnet, D.C., L.Ac. with sister Julie Walls, D.C., L.Ac., licensed in both acupuncture and chiropractic, are accepting new patients at The Wellness Center in Palm Desert.

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By admin December 29, 2014 18:27