Walk into most medical clinics, most hospitals, and you will be greeted not with a friendly face and an empathic look, but by a stoic head behind a sliding plate glass window and a room full of other folks solemnly leafing through weekly newsmagazines.  Show up on time and wait an extra hour for your appointment with the ‘expert’ on you; someone with whom you’ve spent less cumulative time interacting than the barista who makes your lattes.  This person, whose wall tells you more about themselves than they do, will ask you to disrobe and divulge some of your most challenging, private, embarrassing issues in the comfort of a small, cold room through which thousands of people have come before you.

You’ve been living with pain for too long, and it’s interrupting your way of life to such a degree that you’ve been forced to choose this route; the one where a state-certified authority will tell you who you are, what’s happening inside of you, what you should be doing instead, and what the likelihood is that you’ll ever be the person you were before or would like to be in the future.  After all the waiting, filling out forms, and being shepherded through various doors, you will have 10 minutes between you and your practitioner to solve your problems. 

Pills.  A referral. A shot of cortisone, a nerve block.  Perhaps a surgery, followed by physical therapy. Maybe some massage, exercises you’ll never do, and then…that hopeless feeling.  It didn’t work.  Now it hurts not only where it used to hurt, but in new places, too.  You have to take medication indefinitely, some with side-effects that add to your growing list of problems. The sleep cycle is off.  Exhausted all the time.  Eating habits change.  Not able to do what you used to do.  “I’m falling apart.  It’s happening all at once.  What’s happening to me?  Maybe I’ll try some unusual forms of medicine. My friend’s mother has a chiropractor she swears by.  That guy on TV said acupuncture saved his life.”

At this point, you may be realizing that the medical system is just that: a system.  “A complex of methods or rules governing behavior;” “an organized structure for arranging or classifying.” (wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)  Your behavior since you’ve started this journey has been governed by rules you have barely questioned.  You have been classified by a medical system as someone with a certain complex of diagnoses, who has therefore been run through a discrete set of steps in search of a standard outcome.  That outcome is your health, and what you may begin to realize is that it didn’t ‘work;’ that there was always a lot of hope involved.  Hope that your medical practitioners and their expert advice would reclassify you with new words and push you out the other side as a whole person again. 

But now that you have been processed through the medical digestive system and have come out feeling like crap, you may also come to understand what all experienced practitioners know.  Namely, that every time we as practitioners see someone, no matter what we name the condition or how we treat it, we are only hoping that our suggestion or intervention will work or appear to work.  We’re bluffing–doing a complex, shamanic dance. We’ve read books on what has appeared to work before, what constitutes a legally-defensible treatment for your condition.  We’ll modify your identity, your sense of who and what you are, by attaching long descriptive subtitles to your name from a big book, perhaps two or three names.  Once we’ve done that, then we will start a war against your new subtitled identities, using anti-identities such as anti-biotics, anti-inflammatories and the like, hopefully without adversely affecting your own natural antibodies.  It’s the standard of care.  It worked for other people. It worked in test tubes and on animals of different species, so maybe it’ll work for you as well.  If it doesn’t, you must be doing something wrong.  Try an anti-depressant and maybe you just won’t think about it so much anymore.  You think too much, anyway.  

Where’s the humanity in all of this?  Where did medicine lose its way?  When did doctors become mortal gods, and why isn’t anyone protesting the fact that the puppet-masters of medical treatment are not trained medical professionals or anyone with your best interests in mind, but insurance companies and lawyers, who determine what kind of care you are permitted based on your ability to pay and how uncreative the doctor can be in treating you?  Because creativity in medical practice, having an open mind, saying “I don’t know” or “let’s try something new,” may mean expensive tests and extra liability.  Because malpractice insurance is so expensive that doctors need to see as many people as fast as possible just to pay their bills.  It’s so much faster to write a prescription for drugs or to send someone to other people than it is to actually look someone in the eye, get creative, or tell a patient what you know.  Which may be something as simple and truthful as, “I don’t know.”

At a certain point, as a consumer of healthcare, you begin to see the Matrix (like the movie of the same name).  Having experienced much of what the system has to offer and yet still symptomatic, you see that the people who wore the white coats and have the offices full of newsmagazines are just agents of hope, but not necessarily agents of change or health.  It didn’t work for you, anyway.  The blinders are now off, the system has been exposed, and a period of deep disappointment, disillusionment, and perhaps depression ensues as you begin to question yourself.  “In what other important areas of my life have I fundamentally given over my trust?  What do I have faith in that perhaps I should not?  Is hope really just a precursor to disappointment?  What should I believe in now, and how can I ever prove that what I trust is worthwhile? “

This is the moment of truth.  This is the bend in the road, te threshold, the choice.  Will you choose to drop into depression, continue to allow yourself to be a hopeless subtitled character, walking through the world barely protecting the tiniest flame of hope that perhaps someone, somewhere is the expert you’ve been looking for?  Or will you take the other path, the harder one, the hero’s journey.  The one that has not been charted, because you have to walk it alone, relying only on yourself, your inborn knowledge and wisdom to be your light through the dark.  Finding your own internal and external resources.  Connecting to others in your situation.  Being your own primary source and being the master of your destiny.  

You’ve read this far, so I’ll give away the ending.  The goal of health, and its very definition, is not to be out of pain, or ‘all better.’  It’s about flexibility and quality of life.  In Chinese medicine, the term “Qi” is thrown around quite a bit.  It’s a word, a character, that cannot be wholly and accurately translated into English, but one way of looking at it is to call it ‘function.’  Qi is both the capacity and the realization of function.  Something without Qi is medically dead.  Health is about focusing on what you want, need, and are able to do, how you function in the world.  It is not a focus on what’s missing, what hurts, except to the degree that the hurt keeps you from what makes your life worth living.  A good medical practitioner, a wise one, will focus not on curing you (something none of us, when we’re honest, know how to do); they’ll focus on maintaining your quality of life.  On helping you get back to what keeps you getting up each morning.  You may be forced to take permanent detours.  You may have to stop walking and learn to swim.  You may have to learn to do things without one of your limbs being as involved as it used to.  At this point in my journey, I have had to learn to be left-handed as a result of my own unresolved medical issues.  Quite a challenge, yet I’m still fully functional, can do what I want and need to do, and am therefore healthy.  

Is this view a bad one?  Does it mean our medical system is falling apart?  That those who are not helped by the current system are doomed?  I have my opinions about what constitutes good medical treatment in this day and age, but in the final analysis, a full medical journey is near its end when we return full-circle to ourselves.  When we realize that there is no real safety net.  That doctors and nurses and physical therapists and acupuncturists are tools, nexuses of specialized information that may or may not be a propos to our individual condition and fate in this world.  When we realize that we are indeed all alone, and yet, there are billions of us, side-by-side, in the same communal situation, we’ll understand the nature of our reality. 

We all have our own hero’s journey offered up to us.  Will we embark on the road less traveled, the risky one without established signposts empowered by ourselves?  Or will we continue on the path of flickering hope that someone else will magically save us from ourselves?  Either way, the path ends in the same place, and the way we look back on our journey will be through the lens of the quality of the lives we lived to get there.

My Latest Health Diatribe (Seeing The Matrix) is a post from: Lamorinda Acupuncture

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Cancer treatment often causes nausea and other unpleasant side effects. Surgery can result in pain and the cancer itself is often painful.

Acupuncture has been shown to alleviate some side effects of cancer treatment. It works so well that even the National Cancer Institute speaks of its benefits. Studies have shown that acupuncture is effective at preventing vomiting caused by chemotherapy and other treatments.

For the best results, cancer patients should look for an experienced acupuncturist who focuses on treating the side-effects of cancer and its treatments. Proper acupuncture can alleviate the nausea and vomiting of chemotherapy, and greatly reduce pain. This can bring a huge improvement to the quality of life of anyone battling cancer and the problems that can accompany it.

For more information, check out http://www.mesotheliomaweb.org.

Acupuncture and Mesothelioma (Guest Post) is a post from: Lamorinda Acupuncture

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-Jason

Neurolinguistic Programming in the Medical Consult (PDF) is a post from: Lamorinda Acupuncture

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For more on this new study from the University of Rochester, check out a general article on it in the UK’s Guardian newspaper by clicking here, or click here to read the study itself.

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One issue I’ve been asked about repeatedly and have not had a lot of resources to deal with is sleep apnea (along with snoring).  Up ’til now.

A study last year in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine split two groups: one was trained to do breathing exercises daily, while the other did throat exercises, including swallowing and chewing motions, placing the tip of the tongue against the front of the palate and sliding it back, and pronouncing certain vowels quickly and repeatedly. After three months, those who did the throat exercises snored less, slept better and reduced the severity of their condition by 39 percent. They also reduced neck circumference, a known risk factor for apnea. The control group who did the breathing exercises showed almost no improvement. 

To learn more about this study, check out this link.

An (Easy) New Idea for Sleep Apnea is a post from: Lamorinda Acupuncture

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One recent read was the poorly-titled but well-written “Anti-Cancer” by David Servan-Schreiber, MD, PhD. 

A research doctor who got cancer himself, it’s an evidence-based approach to keeping oneself cancer-free, primarily through dietary advice, though it has much more to offer.  It’s a quick read, has useful, actionable intelligence, and I highly recommend it to all. 

Check out the author’s story below…

You can, of course, purchase it on Amazon by clicking here (no, I don’t get any kind of commission!).

While focused on food, Michael Pollan, a professor of Journalism at UC Berkeley, has been writing about where our food comes from, and what to eat, for years.  His best sellers (much recommended) include “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” and “In Defense of Food,” among other titles.  In the end, his readers have often asked what foods they should be eating.  In response, he has written a quick and easy to digest guide, “Food Rules:  An Eater’s Manual.”  Simple but profound.  Some excerpts may be found in Pollan’s article in The Huffington Post.

If you, the reader, have any recommendations of your own, let us know by posting a reply below…

A Couple of Highly Recommended Reads is a post from: Lamorinda Acupuncture

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Insomnia is more than tossing and turning. It’s more serious than an inability to fall asleep early and has more debilitating effects than are commonly recognized. An estimated 32 million people suffer from insomnia in the U.S. Oriental medicine, with its focus on healing whole syndromes rather than individual symptoms, is widely used as an insomnia remedy and has shown great success treating those who experience insomnia.

Insomnia may present itself in different ways. For some, the inability to fall asleep is the most noticeable insomnia symptom while others are unable to reach a deep level of sleep and are startled awake by every noise. Any insomnia symptom would frustrate most sleepers, but night after night for months or years, the most serious issues of insomnia accumulate – the daytime effects. These can include physical tiredness, difficulty concentrating and feeling depressed, irritable or lethargic. Oriental medicine is a great insomnia remedy . It focuses on patients’ individual insomnia symptom and builds a whole-healing plan from each symptom. It also has been widely successful in treating depression, stress and physical pain.

While these are standard symptoms of a poor night’s sleep, they are magnified by chronic conditions and can have severe negative setbacks in a person’s life. True insomnia is defined as poor sleep followed by daytime fatigue. Because sleep needs, such as number of hours, varies for different people, the real issue of insomnia is quality of feeling during the day.

Insomnia may have a number of causes, including stress, depression or anxiety; irregular work schedules; medications, drug or alcohol abuse; major life changes; chronic pain, hyperthyroidism or arthritis. Acupuncture and herbs for insomnia have high success rates with each insomnia symptom and can therefore treat insomnia at its root.
 
A study published recently in the American Journal of Chinese Medicine, reports that patients who received acupressure and transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) experienced a significant improvement in their insomnia symptom, including problems of fatigue, sleep quality and depression. The results from this study suggest that acupressure or TEAS might have an important role in managing patients with fatigue, poor sleep quality and depression.

Oriental medicine relates insomnia to the heart. Of course, an insomnia remedy would include a complete diagnosis and treatment system that would focus on each individual, and the many syndromes that are differentiated within the context of insomnia would be explored. Other organ systems and syndromes may be involved, and until the body is brought back into balance through Oriental medicine treatment such as herbs for insomnia and acupuncture, each insomnia symptom will continue.

One contributor to insomnia, stress, weakens the function of the Liver, which in turn affects the health of your nerves. According to the 5 Element Theory, the relationship between the Liver and nerves flows both ways, causing the function of the Liver to be weakened from the accumulation of things that “get on your nerves.” Stress-related insomnia is often accompanied by another nerve-induced problem: restless leg syndrome. This can make bedtime even more of a battle for sleep. When your Liver is unbalanced and being asked to deliver energy it does not have, uncomfortable symptoms are your body’s way of signaling the need to get things back into harmony, the need for an insomnia remedy .

Acupuncture has a calming effect on the nervous system. It clears obstructions in the muscle and nerve channels, facilitates the flow of oxygen-enriched energy and relaxes the system. Common noted benefits of acupuncture include deeper breathing, improved digestive abilities, better sleeping patterns, decrease in various pains and a general sense of well being, which are all excellent treatments for insomnia. General acupuncture protocol for the treatment of chronic insomnia includes 10 initial treatments at two to three treatments per week, followed by a two to four week observational period and possibly one treatment per week.

Acupuncture and herbs as an insomnia remedy can greatly improve sleeping patterns, but in order to successfully and completely resolve sleep disturbance one must address all the contributing factors. Oriental medicine helps do this by treating the whole person and focusing on bringing the entire body into balance. Other suggested actions include:

Learn to relax physically

Techniques such as yoga, meditation, biofeedback and progressive relaxation, as well as acupuncture and massage, can help your body become more restful.

Have a regular bedtime

If you are not asleep after an hour, get up, go to another room and do something relaxing until you feel sleepy. Don’t try to force yourself to sleep.

Reduce food and drinks that increase sleep problems

Heavy meals before bedtime, late afternoon or evening consumption of alcohol, chocolate, tea, coffee and caffeinated soda should be avoided. Consider adding herbs for insomnia to your diet as well.

Keep in shape

Regular exercise helps with stress and reduces fatigue, both of which can exacerbate insomnia. Systems such as Tai Chi or Qigong are gentler exercises that balance staying fit with staying relaxed.

Treat physical problems

If physical pain or discomfort is a factor in the inability to fall asleep, don’t put up with it. Acupuncture has proven successful in treating pain associated with arthritis and many other physical conditions.

Nutritional Counseling and Lifestyle Changes

Nutrition can contribute to the cause and cure of insomnia. Excess protein and the over reliance on stimulants and quick-energy foods contribute to fatigue by weighing on the liver, kidneys and intestines. Quick fix foods increase the depletion of the body-mind energy reserves. Tailoring a diet that includes foods such as whole grains, beans, vegetables and fruits to the individual replenishes energy and diffuses built-up stress.

Chinese Herbal Medicine and Supplements
 
Chinese herbs and herbal medications are also useful in combating insomnia. An Oriental medicine practitioner can recommend an insomnia remedy to best suit individual insomnia symptoms. Herbs for insomnia such as longan fruit, golden thread, sour jujube seed, fossil bone or mimosa bark may be prescribed.

Insomnia should not dictate when or for how long you sleep. It can be frustrating and scary when any disease or disorder takes away control. Oriental medicine will lead you back to a place of balance and calm, giving you the power to lay insomnia to rest.

Ideas for Dealing With Insomnia is a post from: Lamorinda Acupuncture

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Click here to read the article (a pdf/Adobe Acrobat file).

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