Zephelline Huerta, Jacob Appel
Gastrointestinal (GI) disorders among Latine populations remain frequently underdiagnosed due to limited access to care, language barriers, and culturally discordant care. Traditional healers remain an important source of care for individuals of Mexican descent, yet healer perspectives on GI illness have not been documented in Morelos, Mexico specifically, leaving a gap in regionally grounded knowledge relevant to clinicians caring for patients with ties to this region. Ten traditional healers (4 curanderas, 4 terapeutas, 2 integrative medicine practitioners) were recruited through community networks with subsequent snowball sampling in Morelos, Mexico. Semi-structured interviews averaging 60 minutes were conducted in Spanish. Data collection relied on contemporaneous handwritten field notes analyzed using inductive thematic analysis with iterative constant comparison. Healers described GI illness as an underlying imbalance between the digestive and emotional systems rather than distinct physiological disorders, attributing symptoms such as constipation, bloating, and diarrhea to emotional disturbance or dietary excess. Treatment was conceptualized as rebalancing through four interconnected modalities: herbal medicine including plant-based teas and tinctures; manual therapies such as abdominal massage and ventosas; energetic and spiritual interventions including limpias; and lifestyle and dietary counseling. Healers also described referring patients to biomedical care when needed and expressed desire for greater collaboration with biomedical providers. Traditional healers in this study conceptualize GI illness as the embodied convergence of physical, emotional, and spiritual imbalance. These findings encourage clinicians to explore emotional and cultural dimensions of digestive illness, ask patients about their use of traditional medicine, and recognize traditional healers as community resources whose engagement could contribute to more culturally responsive GI care.