Ten Ways to Put your Acupuncturist out of Business!

Of course we want to stay in business, but there are many ways, “secrets”even, that can prevent many of the symptoms that cause people to visit their acupuncturist.

Western lifestyle is generally one of over-indulgence, and pleasure-seeking which can induce many preventable health problems. There are four general principals of prevention - ERED (no we are not talking about the emergency room at the hospital) but Exercise Rest, Emotions and Diet. Having these in balance is essential to achieve a healthy mind and body.
I hope you can enjoy this light-hearted approach, and use the tools to live a healthier and happier life.

1) Get active and keep moving thought the day. Especially important if you work in a sedentary job. Find ways to stretch and move about in your breaks. Why no do some lunges on the way to the coffee machine? Go that bit further for your sandwich and get your legs and arms active!

2) Self Massage. Your TCM practitioner can give you specific exercises which may only take 1 minute to do, but make a huge difference. Try squeezing (pinching up the skin) at the point between your eyebrows, on your forehead with your thumb and first finger, this can activate clear thinking and revitalize the eyes.

3) Have an afternoon lie-down.Resting for 10 to 30 minutes a day between 1 and 3pm is extremely beneficial in promoting the regeneration of blood. You must LIE DOWN FLAT. You don't have to sleep, but don't be on your phone etc! for 10 to 30 minutes a day between 1 and 3pm is extremely beneficial in promoting the regeneration of blood.

4) Have a laugh at least once a day. Watch something funny or tell a joke. Laughter is a great preventative medicine and in TCM it releases stagnant Liver energy.

5) Cook your own food. Cooking takes time, it's not instant (wow!). Cooking for yourself can help stop the cycle of satisfying cravings instantly and binging on foods you probably don't want to eat.

6) Eat till your 70% full. Either fill up your plate to 70% or take home a “doggy bag” from your restaurant foods. Avoid Food Stagnation by not overfilling the Stomach.

7) Practice emotional energy conservation. In the classical texts of TCM, over a thousand years old, sages of Chinese medicine warn of the dangers of excessive emotions. Every emotional response uses energy. Some emotions are good (we don't advocate to keep it all bottled in!) but to conserve energy and prolong life, is to conserve emotions. Excess emotions can damage their associated organs resulting in illness.

“Those who search beyond the natural limits will retain good hearing and clear vision, their bodies will remain light and strong, and although they grow old in years they will remain able-bodied and flourishing; and those who are able-bodied can govern too” Huang Di - Chinese Yellow Emperor BC 2700-2600

Excess of the emotions can damage their associated organs resulting in illness.

8) Don't eat and do other things. (Easy to say, difficult to do in our society I know!) Your body will always favor mental functions over your gastro-intestinal system! When you eat and do mental activities, you are forcing your body to override it's desire to send blood to your guts to help absorb nutrients from food

9) Loose a few kilos! Extra weigh will contribute to back pain, make recovery from illness slower and means your body has to supply all the extra fat with blood vessels (puts pressure on your heart) and contributes to high blood pressure. If you are within your normal healthy weigh range Great! Go and encourage your friends. Research shows people with healthy weight friends are more likely to loose weight than those with fat friends.

10) Enjoy your life. You can't always choose what happens to you, but you can choose your attitude. A positive mental attitude is encouraged by all forms of medicine as an indicator for faster recovery and less illnesses.

Of course our practitioners love treating patients and helping you in your road to recovery. We wouldn't be in this business otherwise. So please feel free to make an appointment!

Keeping Kids Healthy...Naturally!

Chinese medicine (CM) has a long, 2000+ year history, and treatment of children is by no way exempt from it's tradition.

Children have a special constitution, different to adults.

Firstly, their age indicates they are free of the chronic build-up of disease and degeneration that is typical of adults.

Secondly, babies are born with a degree of immaturity about their organs. This is, they are still developing.

This development mostly pertains to the Chinese medicine view of the digestive system. It centers around the Spleen and Stomach organs, which initially are incapable of digesting anything but breast milk. As the child grows, the digestive system matures and they can tolerate other various foods.

This development takes place slowly; hence diet therapy and weaning advice is vitally important in treating and preventing illness. The more mature the digestive system becomes more variety of foods that can be eaten and assimilated into energy for the bodies needs.

Thirdly, children are said to be of a predominantly yang constitution. Yin and Yang are fundamentals, opposites of energy in TCM. Healthy adults would have a balance of yin and yang energies. To help understand yin and yang, box 1 shows their qualities.

Children’s energetic and active nature is part of this predominance of Yang energy. Yang energy is also warm so they have a tendency to become hot, or suffer hot diseases fever, earache, yellow phlegm, skin rashes are all diseases caused by heat in children.

In addition to their yang nature causing disease, the immaturity of the organs also predetermines children to get sick from inappropriate foods. Inappropriate foods are simply those they cannot digest.

Some might be ok foods in the future, but the time of weaning is very delicate. Parents need patience and sensitivity to the child's response to each food. Chinese medicine practitioners will give you more specific diet advice and appropriate ways to wean your child

There are some foods which Chinese medicine thinks should rarely be given to children. These include sugar, raw foods, cheese, greasy foods.

However, the great thing about children is they generally have a “clean slate” when it comes to build up of toxins, pathogens and are not affected by a life of feeling run-down or 'stressed' as many adults are. Hence, they are easily and quickly able to recover.

Classical texts of TCM pediatrics say that children are easy to get sick, but quick to recover.
Once the diagnosis is established, children can be treated with acupuncture, cupping, Chinese herbs, massage or a combination of these.

Acupuncture for children is relatively quick compared with adults. Needles don't need to be retained for babies, and children they are only left in a few minutes depending on their age.
Children generally respond quickly to acupuncture and herbs, treatment courses are a lot shorter than adults.

For more info about what types of conditions Chinese medicine can treat, or a profile on our practitioners at my clinic, check out http://www.metrohealth.com.au/

BACK PAIN - Your Questions Answered

One of the most debilitating conditions is back pain. It contributes to days off work, reduced productivity and quality of life impacted. Chinese Medicine practitioners routinely see patients with pain, and back pain is definatley on the top of the list of commonly treated conditions in my clinical practice.

Here are some answers of frequent questions and common treatments we offer:

1) Firstly, seeking help earlier can reduce the number of treatments needed.

2) One big difference between acupuncture and other therapies such ans chiropractic, is acupuncture is not designed to be an ongoing treatment. CM practitioner must treat both the root and the manifestation of the disease in order to administer proper CM protocol of therapy.

3) IF the cause of the problem is ongoing and not eliminated, then ongoing treatment may be necessary. The above principal (2) cannot be applied correctly if the patient is continuously exposing him/herself to the cause. EG - lack of exercise, extreme weight, poor posture & repetitive movements are all common ongoing causes.

4) Moxibustion is a warming method we commonly use to treat back pain. Moxa as it is easily known, treats back pain by providing a blood moving and warming therapeutic effect to the acupuncture (by warming the needle). It's like having a hot pack but going straight into the points where the muscles are tight or the inflammation is causing the pain

5) Cupping is a NO NEEDLES technique which works by a heated suction effect on the skin. This warms and stretched the muscle gently, which, over a 20 minute period cause the old blood to be brought to the surface and fresh, new blood can get in there and heal the area. This method is great for children and adults who might be scared of needles. A bruise-like mark is produced. During the treatment a pulling feeling is felt, but there is no pain (during or after). Sometimes after the treatment, patients feel like the pain moves around the next day, followed by a great pain relief feeling the second day.

Cupping is particularly beneficial in "telling the muscles" their new position. As muscles have a memory and they often go back to their old, regular tightness after manual therapies such as chiropractic or massage therapy.

6) Everyone is different, and I generally don't like to generalise number of treatments needed, however it is a common question,

HOW MANY TREATMENTS WILL I NEED?

Back pain can be treated in 1 -3 sessions, chronic conditions usually require 4 - 6 treatments in a 2-3 week period, followed by ongoing monthly or fortnightly treatments to maintain a pain-free back.

If you have any questions about back pain, or any other health condition, you may call Marie at Metro Health and medicine on 1300 132 830, or email to marie@metrohealth.com.au.

Acupuncturist who are not properly trained

As a TCM practitioner (i.e. someone who has devoted their training in acupuncture to it's original context - i.e. traditional Chinese Medicine diagnosis and treatment) it really ticks me off to see so many other health practitioners offering acupuncture treatments.

Some are physio's, naturopaths, GP's, chiropractors, massage therapists and even some barely-trained "healers" that do spiritual healing or untrained musculoskeletal therapists.

Firstly, patients often have a negative experience of acupuncture because these poorly trained acupuncturists don't spend years practicing their needle technique. This is an important part of a TCM-acupuncturists training.

We practice on cushions, oranges, stacks of paper etc before moving onto a "fellow student", let alone a patient in a student clinic.

It appalled me when i worked at a physio clinic once in Beechboro, that a Physio there simply purchased a box of acupuncture needles and started sticking them into the patients.

Of course, many say they are doing "dry needling" not acupuncture. But patients don't know much of a difference and they end up with a bad experience of acupuncture, or the understanding of "I've tried acupuncture and it doesn't work for me". When they haven't tried acupuncture at all, they have been some practitioners practice cushion!

Of cource not all other health practitioners are poorly trained in acupuncture. I'm just hiliting that we should be aware of this - Patients - check the training of your practitioner. In our modernised, "consumer-driven" health care system, the practitioner has come to expect this kind of scrutiny. It's good that you ask about qualifications and practitioners - we shouldn't take this as a negative thing when potential patients ring up and ask all kinds of questions about your qualifications.

Chinese medicine is a complex medical system, requiring years to fully understand the principals and philosophy behind a good acupuncture prescription, let alone the ability to make the right diagnosis.

Acupuncture, whether treating pain, injuries and musculoskeletal type conditions or internal medicine conditions (eg constipation, insomnia, infertility) gets the best results when it's used according to the Chinese medicine diagnosis.

You won't get the benefit of the Chinese medicine diagnosis and treatment Principal use from a non-TCM trained practitioner offering acupuncture.