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Herbal Medicine

Why You Should Get Regular Acupuncture Treatments

Everybody knows you should see your family physician at least once a year and your dentist at least twice a year. But not everybody knows about acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine and the many benefits it can provide for you. If you start incorporating acupuncture into your health and wellness regime, you may not have to rely on the family physician so much for those minor little issues. Let’s look at how getting regular acupuncture treatments can help you stay happy and healthy. continue reading »

Herbal Tonics for Allergies

Herbal Tonics for Allergies

An allergy occurs when your immune system reacts to a foreign substance, called an allergen.  This could be anything from something you inhale to something you touch to something you eat.  An allergic reaction may cause sneezing, coughing, watery eyes, a running nose, a sore throat and rashes. In severe cases, allergic reactions can induce something known as anaphylactic shock, which can actually be deadly. continue reading »

Allergies and Alternative Medicine

canstockphoto4836101Allergies are common in the spring season, so I would like to share our perspective on this topic.

 

What is it?

 

An allergy is described by the Merriam-Webster dictionary as “1: altered bodily reactivity (such as hypersensitivity) to an antigen in response to a first exposure; 2: exaggerated or pathological immunological reaction (as by sneezing, difficulty breathing, itching, or skin rashes) to substances, situations, or physical states that are without comparable effect on the average individual.”

In terms of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), sneezing, itching, or skin rashes are considered pathological effects of “wind,” and the causes may be multiple. In general, it represents a weakness in the “protective qi” or protective shield of the body.

What can TCM do for allergies?

There are several approaches available to the TCM practitioner, such as acupuncture, herbal remedies, and dietary and lifestyle recommendations.

Using a combination of the above-mentioned methods helps the body to rebuild the protective shield.

TCM is not meant for emergency situations, however.

It may take a few months for you to notice changes to your reactivity to seme allergens, so we recommend not stopping the medication your doctor has prescribed to manage allergic symptoms.

If you would like to learn more about allergies from a TCM perspective, you may find  You may find this article useful.

 

Disclaimer: This article contains general information about health topics but does not constitute medical advice. If you have any questions related to your condition, you should contact your doctor or healthcare provider. If you think you may be suffering from any medical condition, you should seek immediate medical attention.

Stress management – Alternative medicine

Overworking and staying super busy is important in our times. It seems that if you look relaxed it is because you are lazy or not doing your job. What is happening is that we are immersed in a culture of overachieving at a very high cost to our health, our family and our social life. I do not have the answer to how to handle that, but I do have some recommendations of alternative methods I make to my patients to help manage stress, other to have acupuncture sessions on a regular basis.

Meditation

There are many different types of meditation techniques such as guided meditation, mantra meditation and mindfulness meditation.   You can do guided meditation by forming mental images in your mind of places that you find relaxing and using as many of the five senses as possible to experience those places.  Another type of meditation is the Mantra meditation, where you silently repeat a word in your mind to help you to avoid distracting thoughts and stay focused. Find more at How meditation can help with stress.

Finally, there is mindfulness meditation which is a way of increasing your acceptance and awareness of living in the present moment not being distracted by the future or the past and you do this by expanding your conscious awareness, which is done by  focusing on the flow of your breath, as the Mayo Clinic website explains.

Yoga

Yoga is a way of doing a series of different postures and stretches to help promote a flexible body and a calm mind.  The poses used in yoga need to be done with concentration and balance and meditation is a key part to yoga because meditation helps center your body to help perform the yoga stretches that will most benefit you in the long run. Yoga is also a low-impact form of exercise, to there would be no added tension or stress to the body’s joints or muscles, when done under proper supervision to ensure proper postures to avoid harm to your body.  Yoga and meditation go hand in hand, with each other because meditation is incorporated to the yoga and is the essential part of yoga.

Tai chi

This is a form of gentle Chinese martial arts. In tai chi (TIE-CHEE), you perform a self-paced series of postures or movements in a slow, graceful manner while practicing deep breathing  Find more of the Tai chi story.

Other ways of taking care of yourself when your busy is finding time to to play sports and eat healthy. In order to do so you should be able to manage your time in balancing your work life and your personal life to take care of yourself.

 

Disclaimer: This website and posts do not constitute or substitute medical advice.

Weight Loss with Acupuncture

Weight control is a major concern in today’s world.   According to Chinese medicine, being overweight is a form of dampness.   Ancient Chinese wisdom recognized that dampness was a common cause of disease. Dampness does not relate only to obesity, it also relates to an abnormal accumulation of water and fat. It affects not only your physical appearance, but also your mood and your energy.  Dampness feels as if you are swimming in a swamp, as opposed to swimming in clean water.  You can also notice the effects of dampness in your thinking,  you may be more distracted or your mind can feel “foggy.”   Have you noticed that for some people it takes a long time to get up and lots of coffee in the morning to get moving?  We all have some degree of dampness in our bodies when our organs that are in charge of digestion do not work as well as they should. Oriental Medicine can help you improve your digestion with acupuncture and herbal formulas, and we can also recommend some lifestyle changes that can help you to control stress and anxiety. For more information, read this article which summarizes a number of ways Oriental Medicine can help you www.acufinder.com/Acupuncture+Information/Detail/Acupuncture+for+Weight+Loss

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