Acupuncture
“Acupuncture is recognized worldwide for it’s ability to remedy acute or chronic ailments, relieve pain, enhance recuperative potential, and strengthen the immune system.”
How does acupuncture work?
Acupuncture improves the body’s functions and promotes the natural self-healing process by stimulating specific anatomic sites–commonly referred to as acupuncture points, or acupoints. The most common method used to stimulate acupoints is the insertion of fine, sterile needles into the skin. Pressure, heat, or electrical stimulation may further enhance the effects. Other acupoint stimulation techniques include: manual massage, moxibustion or heat therapy, cupping, and the application of topical herbal medicines and linaments.
Traditional Chinese Medicine is based on a philosophy that describes the universe, and the body, in terms of two opposing forces: yin and yang. When these forces are in balance, the body is healthy. Energy, called “qi” (pronounced “chee”) flows along specific pathways, called meridians, throughout the body. This constant flow of energy keeps the yin and yang forces balanced. However, if the flow of energy gets blocked, like water getting stuck behind a dam, the disruption can lead to pain, lack of function, or illness. Acupuncture therapy can release blocked qi in the body and stimulate function, evoking the body’s natural healing response through various physiological systems. Modern research has demonstrated acupuncture’s effects on the nervous system, endocrine and immune systems, cardiovascular system, and digestive system. By stimulating the body’s various systems, acupuncture can help to resolve pain, and improve sleep, digestive function, and sense of well-being.
What happens during an acupuncture treatment?
First, Dr. Heaverlo will ask about your health history. Then, he will examine your tongue’s shape, color, and coating, feel your pulse, and possibly perform some additional physical examinations depending on your individual health needs. Using these unique assessment tools, he will be able to recommend a proper treatment plan to address your particular condition. To begin the acupuncture treatment, you lay comfortably on a treatment table while precise acupoints are stimulated on various areas of your body. Most people feel no or minimal discomfort as the fine needles are gently placed. The needles are usually retained between 30 and 50 minutes. During and after treatments, most people report they feel very relaxed..
How many treatments will I need?
The frequency and number of treatments differ from person to person. Some people experience dramatic relief in the first treatment. For complex or long-standing chronic conditions, one to two treatments per week for 1-2 months may be recommended. For acute problems, usually fewer visits are required, usually eight to ten visits in total. An individualized treatment plan that includes the expected number of treatments will be discussed during your initial visit.
Chinese Herbal Medicine
Chinese herbal medicine is a powerful and effective method of healing. Chinese herbs have been used medicinally for over 5,000 years. They have the unique ability to treat both the symptoms as well as the underlying condition, as defined by traditional diagnosis. This is achieved without unwanted side-effects. Herbs, more like food than drugs, can supplement our diet, fortify our constitution, and prevent or remedy our ailments.
We have a complete herbal pharmacy that includes dried herbs, herb pills, powders, tinctures, and topicals. Herbal formulas can be custom designed for each patient and may address a variety of ailments including (but not limited to):
*allergies *colds *inflammations * acute and chronic pain *women’s health issues *gastro-intestinal disorders *oncology medicine *plus many more.
Nutritional Therapy
“Those who practise medicine must first recognise the origin of an illness; they must know which violations have caused the suffering. Then they must treat it with dietary means. If dietary therapy does not cure the illness, only then can they employ herbs.”
Sun Si miao -680 AD
Food therapy of traditional Chinese medicine aims to maintain a balanced and healthy lifestyle through diet and nutrition. Traditional medical diet therapy, aims to achieve the balance of Yin and Yang through the combination of nutrition and herbal medicines. On the basis of traditional food therapy, medical diet therapy adopts traditional culinary skills and modern processing methods to produce food, which is not only with terrific color, aroma, taste and shape but also promotes health, disease prevention and healing as well as promotes longevity.
Written more than 2000 years ago, Plain Questions: On Laws and Times of Organs had already pointed out that grains to nourish, fruit to assist, livestock to benefit, vegetables to supplement, take them in proper proportion to supply energy. The key point is to keep a balanced diet. Besides, it has suggested that when one’s illness is already under control, it could be removed gradually by eating grains, meat, fruit and vegetables. There is no more need to take too much medicine, which might cause extreme side effects to our health. The claimed “grains to nourish” refers to using millet, sorghum, beans, wheat, rice and other cereals and beans as staple food for maintaining one’s life. “Fruit to assist” means that pears, apricot, chestnut, peach and other fruits and nuts are essential food aid to balanced diet. “Livestock to benefit” emphasizes that cattle, sheep, pigs, chicken and other livestock are beneficial to human body along with making up the deficiency of nutrition that grains can’t provide. They serve as the main complementary food in the balanced diet recipe. “Vegetables to supplement” indicates that vegetables like kwai, leek, allium, scallion, shallot etc. can supplement various essential nutrients.
Cupping
“Acupuncture and cupping, more than half of the ills cured,” is a famous Chinese saying, supporting traditional Chinese medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine brings to mind acupuncture and the use of natural herbs as healing remedies. Cupping is a lesser-known treatment that is also part of Oriental medicine, one that can provide an especially pleasant experience. One of the earliest documentations of cupping can be found in the work titled A Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies, which was written by a Taoist herbalist by the name of Ge Hong and which dates all the way back to 300 AD. An even earlier Chinese documentation, three thousand years old, recommended cupping for the treatment of pulmonary tuberculosis.
There are several ways that a practitioner can create the suction in the cups. One method involves swabbing rubbing alcohol onto the bottom of the cup, then lighting it and putting the cup immediately against the skin. Suction can also be created by placing an inverted cup over a small flame, or by using an alcohol-soaked cotton pad over an insulating material (like leather) to protect the skin, then lighting the pad and placing an empty cup over the flame to extinguish it. Flames are never used near the skin and are not lit throughout the process of cupping, but rather are a means to create the heat that causes the suction within the small cups.
Once the suction has occurred, the cups can be gently moved across the skin (often referred to as “gliding cupping). Medical massage oils are sometimes applied to improve movement of the glass cups along the skin. The suction in the cups causes the skin and superficial muscle layer to be lightly drawn into the cup. Cupping is much like the inverse of massage – rather than applying pressure to muscles, it uses gentle pressure to pull them upward. For most patients, this is a particularly relaxing and relieving sensation.
This treatment is also valuable for the lungs, and can clear congestion from a common cold or help to control a person’s asthma. In fact, respiratory conditions are one of the most common maladies that cupping is used to relieve.
Cupping’s detoxifying effect on skin and circulatory system is also significant, with a visible improvement in skin color after three to five treatments. Cupping removes toxins and improves blood flow through the veins and arteries. Especially useful for athletes is cupping’s potential to relieve muscle spasms.
Cupping also affects the digestive system. A few benefits include an improved metabolism, relief from constipation, a healthy appetite, and stronger digestion.
Qigong and Tai Chi
Many common health issues that modern people face today can be addressed holistically with acupuncture, herbal medicine, Tai Chi and Qigong energy exercises, as well as healthy lifestyle choices, diet, and stress reduction.
Qigong and Tai Chi have been a critical part of Traditional Chinese Medicine for thousands of years. The aim of Qi Gong is to promote the movement of Qi (energy) in the body. A key point in Qi Gong practice is relaxation and deep breathing, both of which are prerequisites to allow Qi to flow.
Qi Gong can harmonise, strengthen and have a healing effect on the functioning of all the internal organs and bodily systems. It increases the supply and flow of energy throughout the body, can have a variety of rejuvenating effects and is believed to increase longevity, and it induces calm mental and emotional states.
According to Chinese medicine, the energy relating to the body’s internal organs flows around the extremities of the body – the hands and the feet. Thus by stretching the arms and legs in specific movements, the health of the internal organs can be improved.
Tai Chi is considered an internal martial art. It differs from hard martial arts in the way that it utilizes the body’s internal energy circulation and power rather than using the muscles to create external force.
There has been a great deal of research on the health benefits of practicing Tai Chi. It is has been shown to reduces stress, improves mood, better sleep, promotes weight loss, improves cognition in older adults, reduces risk of falling in older adults, improves fibromyalgia symptoms,
improves COPD symptoms, benefits arthritis, plus many more.
