Kiah McGowan TCM

Kiah McGowan TCM Acupuncturist and Chinese Medicine Practitioner in Northcote, Melbourne.

29/12/2025

5 things I’d tell you if I wasn’t afraid to hurt your feelings (TCM Dr edition) 🙂‍↕️

🚨 PSA: Your face shows what your system is dealing with! 🚨📌Skin isn’t a surface issue. It reflects digestion, hormones, ...
23/12/2025

🚨 PSA: Your face shows what your system is dealing with! 🚨

📌Skin isn’t a surface issue. It reflects digestion, hormones, stress, sleep, and nourishment.
📌Where you break out matters: jaw, cheeks, forehead and eyes all tell different stories.
📌Eat your skincare. Blood, fluids, and Yin build skin. Serums don’t.
📌Stress ages skin faster than time. A dysregulated nervous system always shows on the face.
📌Hydration is non-negotiable, internally and topically.
📌Conserve your Yin. Overdoing everything dries and inflames the skin.
📌Sleep is skincare. Full stop.
📌And collagen needs stimulation, which is why cosmetic acupuncture works with the body, not against it.

Treat the system. The skin follows!



cosmeticacupuncture naturalskincare tcm chinesemedicine skin

20/12/2025

If acupuncture only treated sore backs, it wouldn’t have survived 2,000+ years!

Acupuncture is often misunderstood as a symptom-based therapy, but it is fundamentally a systems medicine. Rather than treating a diagnosis in isolation, it works by regulating the nervous system, circulation, hormones, immune response, and digestion through a shared underlying mechanism: restoring balance and communication within the body.

This is why two people can come in with completely different complaints and both benefit from treatment - and why one person may notice improvements in areas they weren’t even treating. The body does not function in silos, and neither does acupuncture.

When you treat the system, symptoms stop competing for attention and start resolving together.

18/12/2025

🤡 Men have always been told that their s***m stays fine, and egg quality declines…
So of course this conversation feels like hitting a brick wall.
But the research now tells a different story.

Large studies show that as men age:
❗️Sperm concentration declines
❗️Motility drops (fewer s***m swim effectively)
❗️DNA fragmentation increases, especially after 40
❗️There are more damaged or non-viable s***m

These findings can hold even after adjusting for lifestyle factors like smoking and illness.

So when men seem surprised or resistant, it’s not ignorance or defensiveness! It’s the result of a fertility system that didn’t prioritise researching male reproductive ageing, and quietly placed the burden of fertility almost entirely on women.

Now that the evidence exists, the conversation gets to change and fertility care finally gets to be shared.

Research:
PMID: 40469622
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-84051-w

***m ***mquality

16/12/2025

Cold floors? Make sure you wear some warm socks 🧦

In TCM, pathogenic Cold can enter the body from the ground up.
Your feet are the beginning point of important channels (including the Kidney and Spleen’s) and once cold gets in, it can slow everything down.

Warm feet = better circulation, digestion, and reproductive health.
• Warm feet → support the Spleen → better digestion + energy
• Warm feet → support the Kidneys → vitality + hormonal health
• Warm feet → support the womb → improved blood flow to the pelvis
• Cold feet → Qi and Blood stagnation → fatigue, bloating, cramps

If you’re cold at the feet, the body has to compensate elsewhere and over time, that shows up as symptoms. So, wear some socks to keep ‘em warm! Chinese medicine can be really easy sometimes.

Save this if your feet are always cold 🤍

02/12/2025

EPISODE 3: What to Expect After Coming Off the Pill

🔄 What’s happening inside
• Brain + ovaries are reconnecting
• Natural estrogen + progesterone production resumes
• Hormones can fluctuate as your cycle re-establishes itself

Common post-pill symptoms (temporary!)
• Irregular or missing periods
• Acne (often jawline, back, chest)
• PMS, mood swings, anxiety
• Breast tenderness
• Heavier or painful bleeds
• Sleep changes or fatigue
(Most symptoms settle within 3–6 months as ovulation returns, up to even 2 years).

🥑 Functional medicine supports
• Eat enough: don’t restrict calories while rebuilding hormones
• Focus on protein + healthy fats daily
• Support detox with cruciferous veggies + fibre
• Limit caffeine + alcohol while hormones rebalance

🍵TCM support
• Move Liver Qi: gentle exercise, avoid emotional stagnation, acupuncture
• Nourish Blood & Yin: red dates, black sesame, bone broth, spinach, eggs, tofu, spinach
• Warm the womb: ginger tea, cinnamon, avoid excess cold/raw foods
• Calm the Shen (mind): grounding routines, meditation, early nights

Remember:
Your body isn’t broken! It’s recalibrating.
Be patient, nourish deeply, and allow your natural rhythm to return. If you need some extra help, or things just aren’t changing, it could be sign your body needs extra (with conditions such as PCOS or endo). Get in touch :)

The lead-up to the holiday break can be exhausting, and your cycle feels that pressure.Aligning the way you work with yo...
30/11/2025

The lead-up to the holiday break can be exhausting, and your cycle feels that pressure.

Aligning the way you work with your hormonal phases can help you get more done without burning out.

Small shifts, big difference!

20/11/2025

EPISODE 2: Preparing Your Body Before Coming Off the Pill

⏳ Why 2–3 months of prep helps
• Re-awakens your brain–ovary communication
• Supports balanced estrogen + progesterone production
• Rebuilds nutrients depleted by the pill (zinc, magnesium, B vitamins)
• Strengthens Liver + digestion for hormone clearance
• Reduces post-pill symptoms like acne, PMS, or irregular cycles

🥗 Nourish with food
🥑 Healthy fats: avocado, olive oil, salmon, tahini
🍳 Protein: eggs, legumes, organic poultry
🍠Complex carbs: sweet potato, quinoa, brown rice
🥬 Cruciferous veg: broccoli, kale, cabbage → supports estrogen metabolism
❤️ Blood-nourishing foods: beetroot, bone broth, goji berries, red dates

☯️ TCM perspective
• Build Yin (fluids + nourishment) → soups, congee, cooked veggies
• Move Liver Qi gently → leafy greens, daily movement, breathwork

🔥 Support detox pathways
• Keep bowels moving → fibre, hydration, whole foods
• Add lemon water, radish, bitter greens, dandelion tea
• Move daily to support Liver Qi + hormone excretion (“fire” process)

💆‍♀️ Support stress + sleep
• Journal, breathwork, slow walks
• Herbal teas: chamomile, lemon balm, reishi, schisandra
• Aim for 7–9 hrs of sleep

➡️ Next: What to expect after coming off the pill.

10/11/2025

Hot take: Most people aren’t infertile. In fact, I think that infertility is actually just a symptom of a wider imbalance.

What they call “unexplained infertility” has an explanation… it just hasn’t been investigated deeply enough.

Things l commonly see behind what others call “infertility” include:
• Suboptimal egg or s***m quality
• Nutrient deficiencies (iron, B12, iodine, zinc, vitamin D)
• Thyroid or insulin resistance patterns
• Gut inflammation or microbiome disruption
• Chronic stress chemistry (cortisol, adrenaline dominance)
• Hormonal miscommunication between the brain and ovaries

Fertility is a multifactorial state of health. When we restore balance, nourish the foundations, and identify the why, the body often knows exactly what to do.

If you’ve been told you’re infertile, without a definitive reason WHY, that’s your sign to dig deeper.
Your body isn’t broken. You just haven’t been given the full picture yet.

05/11/2025

EPISODE 1: How the pill works❓
- Switches off ovulation → no egg released
- Replaces your natural estrogen + progesterone with synthetic versions
- The “period” you get is a withdrawal bleed (not a real menstrual cycle)
- Puts your brain–ovary communication (HPO axis) on pause

Why this matters ‼️
- Natural estrogen supports mood, skin, bone strength, metabolism
- Natural progesterone calms the nervous system, supports sleep + regular cycles
- Synthetic hormones can’t fully replicate these effects

When the pill can be helpful ❔
- Reliable contraception
- Reducing heavy or painful bleeding
- Managing acne or endometriosis symptoms
- Regulating cycles in PCOS (short-term support)

The empowered choice ❣️
Your body, your choice! Stay on the pill if it supports your lifestyle.
It’s also okay to come off- just do it intentionally, with preparation.

➡️ Next up: How to prepare your body before stopping the pill.

Your PMS cravings aren’t random! They’re your body’s way of telling you what it needs. In Western medicine, it’s often a...
07/09/2025

Your PMS cravings aren’t random!

They’re your body’s way of telling you what it needs. In Western medicine, it’s often about hormone shifts, serotonin dips, and nutrient demand. In Chinese medicine, cravings reflect imbalances in Qi, Blood, Yin or Yang, and the flavours your body calls for to restore balance:

🍫 Sugar → energy dips + Spleen Qi deficiency
🍟 Salty → adrenal stress + Kidney imbalance
🥒 Sour/Fermented → Liver Qi stagnation
🥩 Red Meat/Protein → low iron + Blood deficiency
🌶️ Spicy → Liver Qi stagnation / internal Cold
🍞 Carbs → serotonin support + Spleen Qi weakness

👉 Instead of seeing cravings as weakness, try viewing them as messages. With the right food swaps and lifestyle supports, you might just reduce PMS, improve mood, and nourish your cycle long-term. This, with the addition of TCM treatments can be great for those with more severe symptoms.

Save this for your next cycle + share with someone who always gets pre-period cravings!


Struggling with heavy periods, sore b***s, PMS, or bloating before your cycle? These are all not normal, and tell us it ...
01/08/2025

Struggling with heavy periods, sore b***s, PMS, or bloating before your cycle? These are all not normal, and tell us it is time to check in on your hormonal balance.

You might be dealing with oestrogen dominance, one of the most common hormone imbalances I see in my clinic.

It can show up as:
• Mood swings
• Painful or heavy periods
• Breast tenderness
• Fatigue or poor sleep
• Weight gain around hips, thighs, or belly

The good news? There’s so much you can do to support your body naturally. From liver and gut health to blood sugar balance and reducing hormone-disrupting exposures, it’s all connected!

This post breaks down:
✔ What oestrogen dominance is
✔ Why it happens
✔ What symptoms to look for
✔ And practical steps to start rebalancing today

Save this one to come back to or screen shot along

And if it feels like your hormones are all over the place - you don’t have to figure it out alone.

📩 DM me if you’d like support with your cycle or hormones


Address

2A Elm Street
Northcote, VIC
3070

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 7pm
Tuesday 11am - 7pm
Friday 8am - 1pm
Saturday 8am - 1pm

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