My name is Michael Forman. I am a Doctor of Oriental Medicine. I practice what is called Clinical Nutrition, a form of  ‘Functional Medicine’. Perhaps some of you have heard this term before and many of you might be wondering what this means. ‘Functional medicine’ is a Holistic approach to supporting and correcting the body’s organ functions as a means of handling disease, symptoms and maintaining good health.
Acupuncture is an ancient practice in Chinese medicine that has been used to treat a variety of health issues, ranging from headaches to digestive problems. It has also been associated with an improved chance of conceiving in women who struggle with fertility problems.
How Acupuncture Works
The belief behind acupuncture is that the body contains channels, or meridians, through which energy, known as Qi, flows. Interruptions or blockages of Qi are thought to result in health problems, depending on where the blockage or interruption occurs. During an acupuncture session, very thin needles are placed into particular points on the body that are linked to the affected meridian. The needles help unblock it so that Qi can flow freely again, which can help ease health symptoms or stimulate certain functions.
How Acupuncture Affects Fertility
Acupuncture can increase a woman’s chances of conceiving in several ways, including:
Acupuncture is often used with other forms of treatment, rather than as a sole method of treatment to enhance fertility. It is commonly used with herbal medicine to boost fertility, and it has also been successfully used with in-vitro fertilization (IVF). The results of a 2005 study published in “Fertility and Sterility†showed that the use of acupuncture greatly improved the reproductive outcome for infertile women who underwent IVF. Acupuncture was most successful when done on the same day of the embryo transfer.
Another study done in 2012 at Tel Aviv University showed that combining intrauterine insemination (IUI), another conventional form of fertility treatment, with acupuncture and herbs leads to a higher chance of a successful conception compared to only relying on IUI.
When Acupuncture Should Be Done
Acupuncture should ideally start a few months before a conventional fertility method, such as IUI or IVF, is done. Acupuncture sessions are typically continued throughout the first trimester to help reduce the risk of a miscarriage.
Acupuncture and sound acupuncture is renowned across the athletic community, and it remains a safe way to tap into the human body’s energy meridians. Dieters, fitness professionals and common individuals have utilized the practice for chronic pain relief, nausea and weight reduction, and there’s a reason why.
A Multi-Purpose Approach to Weight Loss and Success
Weight is gained through a variety of reasons, including reduced metabolisms, hormone imbalances, poor nutrition and lack of exercise.
Regardless of the cause, weight gain is primarily caused by energy flow alterations. Each of the above causes directly relates to the body’s natural energy levels—as well as their disturbances.
The brain’s hypothalamus is responsible for keeping the body “in balanceâ€. It’s no surprise hormone imbalance, altered sleep cycles and poor nutrition can warp the hypothalamus’s perception of that balance.
Acupuncture influences obesity hormones through increasing a hormone called ghrelin while decreasing leptin. Through acute manipulation of the hypothalamus, acupuncture can effectively increase weight loss through the following processes:
Other Bodily Functions
Similarly, acupuncture targets the body’s processes dealing with digestion. Acupuncture realigns energy involved with the liver—an organ responsible for producing vital digestive nutrients. Acupuncture increases the muscle’s smooth muscle tone, further curbing appetite.
Getting the Most Out of Acupuncture-Based Weight Loss
Many resources have defined acupuncture’s weight reduction benefits. In fact, the practice has become one of the Western World’s leading medical advancements. Authorities like The Balanced Life Institute and The International Journal of Obesity have researched clinical trials, and they’ve depicted positive results.
While acupuncture does, indeed, benefit weight loss, a supplemental exercise routine is advised. Acupuncture effectively stimulates the body’s fat loss, and pairing it with a healthy routine can “jump start†an individual’s fat burning processes
Where acupuncture, itself, is considered, its practice has become incredibly popular among medical practitioners and alternative medicine providers. While the world waits for increased evidence, many individuals have obtained amazing results. It’s time to shed the extra weight, and it’s time to realize the power of restorative techniques.
By stimulating certain points on the body called “acupuncture points” with subtle pressure produced by the insertion of fine needle tips into the epidermis, an acupuncturist stimulates biological responses from the body that naturally alleviates pain. Principles of acupuncture involve energy patterns called Qi that flow through the body and positively influence a person’s overall well-being. Experienced acupuncturists remove disruptions in this energy flow by altering physiological processes that may be inhibiting the Qi.
Pain Relief Through Acupuncture
Endocrinological imbalances, restricted blood flow, a dysfunctioning immune system and musculoskeletal tension are a just few health issues that readily respond to acupuncture, but remain unaffected by traditional medication. Acupuncture also increases activity in the pituitary and hypothalamus, two glands responsible for the release of several neurotransmitters and hormones important to pain relief. In addition, acupuncture techniques meant to ease pain generate production of endogenous opioids and analgesicsâ€â€specifically endorphinsâ€â€that are often called the body’s natural painkillers.
Types of Pain Relieved by Acupuncture
The University of California San Diego Center for Integrative Medicine offers clinical study results that show acupuncture is effective for reducing or eliminating the pain of:
A fascinating 2012 Bloomberg article discusses results of the largest acupuncture treatment study conducted yet, with data from 29 studies involving nearly 18,000 people concluding that “acupuncture was superior to both sham and no acupuncture control for each pain condition”.
Insertion of acupuncture needles does not cause pain. Instead, patients experience a slight prickling sensation that subsides within seconds of penetration. A typical acupuncture session for pain relief takes about 30 to 45 minutes, during which time the acupuncturist monitors the patient’s condition to ensure complete comfort. Additionally, acupuncture causes no side effects and most patients begin to experience relief from pain or illness within several days of having the procedure performed.
In recent years acupuncture has been gaining recognition from its Western medical counterpart as a legitimate body of medicine with proven benefits to the health and well-being of patients. Integrative Chinese medicine is nowadays common practice, with many hospitals and medical center’s around the world embracing the holistic approach to healing.
The mind and body perceive an invasive procedure as a traumatic event weakening our immune systems and often the body reacts slowly to medicinal treatments. Acupuncture techniques can be sought and employed before or immediately after surgery without risk.
In practice, acupuncture has been scientifically proven to regulate red blood cell counts, boost the immune system, increase circulation, help with digestion and most importantly reduce pain. This is due a systematic approach targeting the central nervous system and stimulating the electro-magnetic impulses, a process that releases endorphins (the body’s natural opioid inhibitors).
Pre-surgery, many patients will manifest symptoms due to physical stress and mental anxieties. Acupuncture can also be sought as a per-emptive measure to ensuring a faster recovery. Studies have shown that patients receiving acupuncture before a procedure required 50% less post-operational morphine than patients who did not, and reported a 30-50% reduction in stress levels.
In the majority of cases where patients have undergone major or minor surgery, around 86% will claim to be experiencing post-operative pain. The prevalence of opioid analgesics as the industry standard for reducing post-operative pain in patients carries inherent side effects such as nausea, vomiting, vertigo and decreased or abnormal motility in the gut resulting in generally slower recovery periods.
The relevance of acupuncture in today’s age is being recognized by established medical associations and is reflected by its standing as a standard option within healthcare systems. When implemented as an adjunct (supplementary) method of pain relief, acupuncture can lead to improved post-operative recovery and most every patient can benefit from treatment of this type.
References
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/581266
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-patricia-fitzgerald/calming-the-shen-a-chines_b_439771.html
https://www.acufinder.com/Acupuncture+Information/Detail/Acupuncture+Pre+and+Post+Surgery
http://www.dukeintegrativemedicine.org/patient-care/preparing-for-surgery-success
Do you have difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or both? Do these poor sleep patterns continue on a fairly regular basis? Then you may have insomnia. The average adult needs at least eight hours of good sleep to maintain their basic health and attention during that day, and if you’re rest is being disrupted due to insomnia, the effects may bleed into aspect of your everyday life, from work to personal relationships.
Western Treatments & Side Effects
There are any number of prescription and over the counter (OTC) medications on the market today which boast their efficiency in helping with insomnia, with varying ranges of success; however, if you have either exhausted many of these options to no avail, or perhaps you are seeking a treatment for your insomnia that does not involved drugs/medications (and any side effects they may cause), acupuncture may be the ticket.
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is a Chinese medical practice that dates back thousands of years whereby thin pins (best to think of them as pins versus needles, which conjures up painful pricks – acupuncture is anything but!) are inserted into specific points on the body in hopes of treating any number of disorders, diseases, pain points, and the like. Different acupuncture points correlate to different parts of the body, remedying the flow of ‘qi’ throughout the body.
Acupuncture & Insomnia: Relief Without the Side Effects
Minimally invasive, acupuncture has proven to be immensely effective in treating insomnia, typically within the span of about six to ten treatments and without any troublesome side effects. In Chinese medicine and acupuncture specifically, insomnia is thought to be caused by a disharmony in the body’s energies (‘qi’) by which the body is unable to cool itself down, and when one is overheated, sleep can become impossible. Acupuncture as a treatment for insomnia helps to remedy this imbalance.
There is no ‘one treatment fits all’ in terms of treating insomnia with acupuncture as each patient is assessed on a case by case basis; to that end, the points selected during each of your sessions may vary from time to time as the ‘qi’ is attempted to settle.
If you’re seeking to regulate your sleep, and hopefully relieve your insomniac tendencies for good, all without the worry of side effects from sleep aid medications, acupuncture would be a great option to explore further.
Traditional Chinese medicine is different from that of traditional Western medicine insofar that Chinese medicine looks at the body as a whole when assessing a singular medical complaint, and then utilizing remedies of ancient Eastern origin to heal the overall health of the patient.
An herbalist’s repertoire of herbs top out with as many as 250 different herbs and tonics (sometimes also in powder, lotion, or pill form), many of which have evidence of usage dating back thousands of years. These herbs are recommended for any number of ailments in order to restore the body’s ‘good’ humors as well as that of the patient’s overall ‘Qi’.
What Falls Under the Category of ‘Digestive Disorders’?
In this day and age, digestive disorders are becoming more and more prevalent, with ailments ranging from heartburn, reflux, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Crohns Disease, and Celiac Disease, just to name a handful. Essentially, anything that has an individual experiencing anything from stomach pain to frequently visiting the bathroom can be categorized under the umbrella of a digestive disorder.
How Can the Former Treat the Latter?
Chinese Herbal Medicine can be extremely effective in treating digestive disorders. First, a Chinese herbalist will assess a patient holistically, allowing for a full body examination, as opposed to just the stomach; indeed, in Chinese medicine, many digestive disorders can be directly linked back to issues with the spleen! Furthermore, a Chinese herbalist may examine the patient’s tongue as it is the thought in Chinese medicine and mal-absorption or indigestion (really digestive disorders as a whole) can be identified in one’s tongue: the undulations, colors, size, etc. of one’s tongue can be a window into the stomach!
After this assessment, the proper herbs can be prescribed to the patient; however, what is unique about Chinese Herbal Medicine in treating digestive disorders is that as the treatment and time progresses (and inevitably the patient’s condition improves), adjustments are made in the herbs and doses given. Again, each time the entire body is assessed and each piece taken into account in the treatment and herbs provided. Paying attention to the body as a whole entity can provide a window into holistically treating an imbalance in digestive disorders and indigestion.
Underlying Philosophies of the Human Body
Conventional medicine adopts a reductionist approach to health, which sees the body as made of many smaller units that make a whole. This approach allows medical professionals to hone in on a particular component of the body and treat it accordingly, such as the lungs, the heart or the brain. Comparatively, Chinese medicine adopts a holistic approach, believing that each part of the body is interdependent with other parts. Thus, the only way to study a human body is to observe the system as a whole. It is this understanding of health and the human body as an interrelated system that underlies the unique diagnostic techniques utilized in Chinese medicine practice.
Differences in the Diagnostic Process
As well as their differing understandings of the human body, conventional and Chinese medicines adopt unique processes to diagnosing illness. Conventional medicine is steeped heavily in scientific processes, based on medical history, physical examination and laboratory investigations. Chinese medicine also makes use of medical history and the physical examination, but the diagnostic process diverges steeply from Western medicine’s approach.
Because Chinese medicine views the body as a unified system connected by channels which run through key organs and other locations on the physical body, the diagnostic approach always begins with an examination of the body as a whole, no matter where the specific complaint is centered or what the symptoms are. Chinese medicine doctors will analyze many elements of their physique, including body shape, hair, face shape, facial features and skin color. This reflects the holistic philosophy of Chinese methods, which sees all parts of the body as interrelated, including physical appearance.
Because Traditional Chinese medicine views the body as a whole, similar symptoms can be diagnosed as resulting from different maladies and thus two patients displaying the same symptoms can be treated in vastly different ways. Chinese medicine’s approach can be simplified to three basic diagnostic approaches – external stimulation, internal treatment, and resetting of spiritual or informational flow between the different systems of the body.
External stimulation typically involves techniques like acupuncture, which is applied in the belief that the interconnectedness of the body means that stimulation in one area produces predictable effects on another. Internal treatment typically involves the administration of natural and herbal remedies that are formulated for specific key organs, again to affect one part of the body in order to produce an effect elsewhere. Finally, exercises are prescribed to redirect the energy within the body that has come out of sync.
As compare to Western medicine, Chinese medicine can seem very subjective. Experienced practitioners can achieve consistent results by drawing on the millennia of collective experience that makes up Chinese medicine’s diagnostic approach, an approach that is not completely dissimilar to the experience Western doctors apply to every patient they see as well, drawing on their own experiences as well as documented cases they have studied to arrive at diagnoses without or in some cases in spite of modern medical equipment and technology.
Acupuncture has recently become wildly popular in Western medicine as an alternative medical treatment, but many people are still very hesitant about it. Have a stranger stick needles into my skin? Um, no thank you. But here are a few reasons why there is no reason to fear acupuncture therapy
Acupuncture has been around for thousands of years. Ancient Chinese cultures — as far back as the 900s B.C. — practiced acupuncture therapy with needles made out of wood, bamboo, and bone. Despite a lack of scientific data regarding acupuncture, acupuncture remained a popular medical practice among Chinese cultures for many centuries. Why should this make you feel better? Because if this practice wasn’t effective, it would have died out a long time ago.
The U.S. FDA classifies acupuncture needles as legitimate medical instruments. This means that acupuncture needles have been extensively tested and are guaranteed to be completely safe. They aren’t so much like traditional “needles” you might use for sewing; instead, they’re a bit more like stiff, yet very thin, stainless steel wires that are lightly pressed into specific pressure points in the skin. These “pressure points” have already been researched and carefully mapped out on the human body (pressure point locations are all the same in human bodies), and an acupuncturist will focus on certain points for certain types of treatment.
For example, acupuncture therapy for chronic back pain focuses on points on the back, while cosmetic acupuncture for all-natural “face lifts” focus on points on the face that stimulate collagen production. One acupuncturist even discovered that, when using acupuncture for depression or acupuncture for anxiety, stimulating only a few points in and around the ear could be very effective. Why should this make you feel better? Because the art of acupuncture is perhaps better described as “a science” rather than “an art.” Nothing about it is random.
Acupuncturists are highly trained technicians. Just because acupuncture therapy tends to be classified as an “alternative” medical practice, that doesn’t mean that acupuncturists can bypass training. While they do not have to attend medical school like other doctors, acupuncturists have to undergo a rigorous course load and collect over 1,000 hours in a clinical internship before they certified to practice on patients. Why should this make you feel better? Because acupuncturists definitely know what they’re doing when it comes to using alternative medical treatments to help their patients feel better.
Feeling a little more convinced now? Thought so. But even if you aren’t 100% ready to make an appointment yet, know that it’s okay to feel hesitant about it — but don’t let your hesitation keep you from finding relief. If you, like so many others around the world, are suffering from any type of physical ailment or chronic pain, then acupuncture is definitely worth a try.