Moxibustion or Moxa

The Chinese word for “Acupuncture” is 針灸 Zhen Jiu, which means ‘needles and moxibustion’.

I often refer to Moxibustion as a herbal heat treatment. Moxa is made from purified and dried Mugwort leaf. The leaves are ground in a mortar and pestle, sifted to remove any powdery residue then dried again. This grinding, sifting and drying process is done repeatedly. The more times, the more pure the moxa wool or floss. Types of ‘Moxa-therapy’ that you might see in my clinic:

• Electric Moxa - A small hand held device replicates the Infra-red light and the heat emitted by traditional moxa techniques. The benefit of this is that there is no smoke.

• IR heat lamp - A combination of Ceramic Infrared light (invisible) and heat are similar to the effect of moxa and is easily applied to a large area of the body. Almost all clients will experience this during the cooler weather.

• Rice Grain Moxa, ‘Tonetskyu’ in Japanese. Rice grain sized moxa floss of the purest quality is placed on a small amount of balm on the skin, lit with an incense stick and extinguished. This process is performed repeatedly, often more than 9 times.

• Direct moxa cones, chinestsu kyu, pyramids of moxa floss, about the size of your thumbnail, are placed directly on an acu-point, burnt half way down, and then removed.

• Needle-head moxa - moxa floss can be attached directly to the top of metal handled acu-needles, then lit to warm the needle and the point. It is a lovely gently heat that produces less smoke. This technique uses mid-purity moxa floss.

• Moxa Sticks - Moxa is rolled into cigars, lit and smouldered a few centimetres above acu-points on the body. This creates lots of smoke and I don’t tend to use it in clinic. These sticks may be given to you to use at home, for example for Breech presentation.

Moxa treatment is gentle, warming, relaxing and it improves circulation.