Chinese medicine and acupuncture are a wonderful way to treat a host of conditions. Acupuncture has been used to treat everything from the common cold to fibromyalgia. It is used very successfully to treat pain. It even treats many forms of addiction and helps people who are ready to quit, finally stop. Chewing and smoking tobacco accounts for most new cases of lip/ mouth, throat and lung cancers every year. There are several ways that acupuncture can help you “kick the habit.” The first is by helping the liver detoxify. This allows the liver to clear nicotine out of your body more quickly which reduces your cravings for tobacco. The second is by relieving stress and increasing your se
“Have you seen Michael Phelps?” “What are those marks?” “Have you ever heard of cupping therapy?” I have been asked these questions a lot since the Olympics started August 5th. My favorite are my patients who come in and say, “You did that to me!” What is cupping therapy? Cupping is a modality utilized in Chinese Medicine. It has roots in Shamanistic medicine. It has been used in Africa, Asia, North and South America, Australia, and Europe in one form or another. We know it to be at least as old as acupuncture, but it could be much older. There are two categories of cupping: Wet cupping and Dry cupping. Wet cupping refers to the practice of causing bleeding and then putting a cup over the ar
Imagine that any stressor in your life is a rock. Some are pebbles, some are good skipping stones, some may be boulders, others may be no larger than a grain of sand. What may be a boulder sized rock for one person, may shrink to a grain of sand for another. It’s all how the individual perceives the stressor. I drop my pencil, bend over and pick it up. No big deal, for me it’s a grain of sand I choose to leave on the floor. I walk away without a second thought. Someone already battling a load of rocks may drop their pencil, bend over and pick it up, but believe everyone around them saw them drop the pencil and is judging them. For this person that may be a large river stone that she picks up
