You see, the school I attended also trains chiropractors.  This is not a problem.  The school trains chiropractors to perform acupuncture.  This is also not a problem.  However, the school trains chiropractors to perform “acupuncture” in 105 hours over seven weekends while at the same time they train acupuncturists in a three-year, 3,000 hour program.  This is a problem.

When I gave the fundraiser the short story, she assured me that she understood.  In fact, she had heard the same story several times already that day.  Really?  I asked her how many.  She shared, “Well, over the course of this morning alone I’ve heard it about 25 times.”

What this means, people, is that we acupuncturists mind that chiropractic schools are turning out Minnie Me acupuncturists in the equivalent of two months of weekends or less.  And we’re speaking with our wallets.

Let me spell out why we mind. 

First of all, this is a consumer issue.  Many chiropractors who perform acupuncture represent themselves as fully trained acupuncturists, which they are not and could not possibly be with the minimal training they have had.  When asked about their credentials, chiropractors call themselves Board Certified acupuncturists.  (At least in my state.) This simply means that they passed an exam held by their local board at the end of their seven weekends. (This is compared to licensed acupuncturists who must pass a national exam after 3,000 classroom and clinical hours of study. However, the consuming public is not aware of this fact.  And it shows.

During the first few years of my practice, I attended several health fairs and networking events.  I ended up talking to dozens of people who had been treated unsuccessfully by chiropractors with “chiropractic” acupuncture.  Not only does this give the acupuncture profession a black eye, but we also have to reeducate consumers and undo the negative effects of well meaning, but under trained chiropractors.

My second objection is purely selfish.  My school is cranking out chiropractors to perform acupuncture.  They compete head to head with the licensed acupuncturists who have spent considerable time and money to obtain their credentials.  Isn’t this a conflict of interest?

So, yes, we mind.  And while we may be a small profession, we’re growing fast.  And we’re letting you know in a language that is universally understood—financialese.  I am asked frequently by my patients for referrals to chiropractors, which I will do.  However, I won’t refer to one who’s doing abbreviated acupuncture.  And no, I will not support my school while they continue to train chiropractors in “acupuncture” in a weekend seminar format, or in any format, for that matter, less than the training in Chinese medicine demanded of licensed acupuncturists.

Chinese medicine is all about flow, whether it’s the flow of digestion, blood, energy, or emotions.  When that flow is blocked for one reason or another, symptoms arise.  We practitioners of Chinese medicine consider that lack of flow a kind of stagnation, much like a dam on a moving river.  Behind the dam, water backs up and creates a lake.  However, down river, there’s only a trickle of water getting past the dam.  In your body, stagnation works in much the same way, in which a blockage creates a backup, but can ultimately create depletion.

In Chinese medicine, depression is caused by emotions gone wild, including anger, grief, excessive worry, frustration, or anxiety.  It’s important to note that some people have depression caused by chemical imbalances, traumatic life events, and even medications they’re taking.  However, I have found that people I have treated who suffer from depression experience a large difference between the way they would like their life to be and the way that their life actually is.  These strong emotions ultimately affect the physical body and can cause symptoms such as poor digestion, insomnia, a lump in the throat, a sensation of heat, aches and pains, and fatigue.

Early on, depression is usually characterized by stagnation.  This means that your blockage of emotional energy is strongest during this time and most likely to cause symptoms associated with stagnation.  Symptoms include feeling despondent, frequent sighing, feeling full, pain under your ribs, and chest pain.  If there is some heat involved, you may also experience irritability, impatience, a dry mouth, thirst, a bitter taste in your mouth, and constipation. 

Sometimes the blockage feels like a lump or something stuck in your throat.  The Chinese call this Plum Pit Qi and believe that it is the physical manifestation of a situation that is figuratively too difficult to swallow. 

Over time, if your depression is unresolved, it will begin to act like the trickle of water below the dam, in that you may cry easily, experience a lack of energy or motivation, poor appetite, restlessness and constant worry.  At this point, your depression is zapping your energy.

Treating depression in Chinese medicine can be very effective and involves the use of acupuncture to calm your spirit and to unblock energetic and emotional stagnation.  The use of Chinese herbs is extremely helpful for depression, and there are several formulas that can be used based on your particular symptoms. 

There are also some things that you can do at home to help relieve depression, including:

-Stay flexible, both literally and figuratively.  Some gentle stretching feels good and is relaxing.  Emotional flexibility is also crucial to overcoming depression.  Making friends with your life as it is or making changes to improve your personal situation will help your mental outlook.  Also, flexibility in terms of an open mind will arm you through future upsets or disappointments.

-Get moving.  Again, this is both literal and figurative.  Movement, in the form of physical activity, will help improve your mood through the production of endorphins, the feel-good chemicals in your brain. Research studies are clear on this: physical activity is an effective way to relieve depression—in some cases as effective as medications.  Emotional movement in terms of trying something new or a new solution is also a way to rise above your depression.

-Get enough sleep.  While insomnia may be a component of depression, do everything you can to get a good night’s sleep.  Lack of sleep will only make you feel worse.

-Eat well.  Healthy foods that you can easily digest will help combat lethargy and fatigue.  Eat a good breakfast to maintain your energy; and eat lost of well-cooked vegetables, fruits, whole grains and a little protein at each meal.

-Keep a gratitude journal.  Research has shown that just writing down a couple of things each day for which you are thankful can in some instances be as effective as antidepressant medications.  Remembering those positive things and people in your life helps you will shift your thinking from your glass being half empty to being half full.

I’m writing from experience here.  I’ve blown out my knee on the altar of faulty ski equipment.  I’ve suffered stress fractures from stubbornly refusing to stop running.  And I’ve nursed a shoulder injury by not training adequately for a paddling event.  Uh, make that not training at all.

The good news is that you can do a lot to make sure you end up in the middle of play rather than on the sidelines, whether your venue is in a kayak or the tennis court.  Here are my best tips:

-Warm up.  This means stretch a little, get your body moving, and ease into your workout.

-Start slowly.  Once you begin your workout, stay in low gear for the first five or ten minutes.  As an acupuncturist, I’ve treated my share of athletes from the basket ball court to the softball field who have badly pulled a muscle going out too fast before they were warmed up.

-Use the right equipment for your sport, and make sure your equipment fits.  On more than one occasion, I’ve restrained myself from yelling out the car window at cyclists who need to raise their seats.  I can see the knee injuries awaiting these people after a few months of riding like this.  Borrowed, old, and ill-fitting equipment are a recipe for injury. 

-Dress for the weather.  This means wearing layers to keep warm and dry during the cold weather and clothes that breathe and wick away moisture during the heat.  How does this help avoid injuries?  Cold muscles and joints are more prone to injury, and I consider heat stroke to be an injury.

-If something hurts, stop doing it.  This is an ancient Chinese secret.

-Stretch.  Flexibility is a frequently overlooked component of being physically fit.  The only way to hold onto your flexibility is by stretching regularly.  A flexible muscle is less likely to get injured under stress.

-Drink!  Not the Fat Tire Pale Ale…well, at least not until later.  Be sure to stay hydrated during and after you’ve exercised.  This helps your body recover from the stresses of your workout.

-Be consistent with your workouts.  This is where the weekend warriors take a hit.  Your body will rebel if you try to blast the competition without training for the game.  Give yourself enough time to build up some fitness first.  A good rule is to increase by no more than ten percent of your previous week’s effort.

-Listen to your body.  If you’re feeling achy, on the verge of getting sick, or fatigued, heed the message that your body is sending.  Sure, you could go out and take a run or lift some weights, but you’re feeling funky for a reason.  A better choice may be to skip the workout, do something easier, or go get a massage.

-Rest.  When you rest, your body recovers from those killer workouts.  If you’re really training for an event, you actually need some rest days to get better.

-Mix it up.  Do more than one kind of workout.  This may take the form of different sports, easy days, or playing your game in a different way.  Switching it up gives your body a rest, uses different muscles, and allows you to recover from those harder workouts.  It also keeps things fresh.

-Know the signs of an overuse injury.  Pain that lasts hours or days after your workout, swelling, decreased range of motion, a decrease in strength, or favoring a particular muscle or joint may mean you’ve got an injury waiting in the wings.

-Take care of your body.  Get a massage, stretch, get some acupuncture, or take a Yoga or Tai Qi class.  Your body will thank you.

-Work with a trainer.  An athletic trainer is a beautiful thing.  They can help you achieve your goals while ensuring you’re using the right equipment, form, and training schedule.

-Lose some weight.  If you’re overweight, you are putting all kinds stress on your body from your lower back to the arches in your feet.  In addition, poor form or a mechanical imbalance will be magnified by any extra weight you’re carrying.

-Get some acupuncture.  I know, I know; it’s all about acupuncture.  The reality is that if you’re injured or if you want to take care of yourself so you don’t get injured, acupuncture can help.  A few sessions on the table can get you balanced,  pain-free and back in the game.

My brush with butt pain happened about three days into a week long kayaking trip in the middle of nowhere.  I woke up one morning and tried to walk down to the beach to wash my face, but my leg, or more accurately, my butt wouldn’t cooperate.  I could walk, but just barely, because a nagging pain on the right side of my low back and butt was causing my leg to fold up like a card table.

I managed to get through the kayaking trip—surprisingly; I was able to paddle without much pain, but once I got out of my kayak, I was pretty well hobbled.  It wasn’t until a week or two later that I learned that I had something called Piriformis syndrome. 

Since then, I have made it my business to know as much as possible about sciatic nerve pain.  If you suffer from this kind of pain, here are some things you should know:

•Not all pain that begins in your butt and radiates down your leg is sciatica.  True sciatica is due pressure on your sciatic nerve from compressed lumbar disks, trauma, or degeneration in your lower back.

•Piriformis syndrome often feels just like sciatica, but the cause is from a spasm in the Piriformis muscle.  Your Piriformis is a core stabilizing muscle that runs deep from your sacrum (at the base of your spine) to your hip (the bone on the outside top of your thigh.)  Your sciatic nerve runs under, and for some people, through the Piriformis muscle.  When your Piriformis is injured, it can compress the sciatic nerve where it passes through the pelvis.  Beyond pain deep in your butt, Piriformis syndrome usually causes pain that radiates down the back or side of your leg, and can travel through your knee and into your foot.  The pain can be achy and dull, sharp, nagging, and even cause numbness and tingling.

•It can be tough to tell the difference between true sciatica and Piriformis syndrome, because the symptoms tend to mimic each other, but there are a few clues.  With sciatica, you will usually have pain radiating all the way into your lower leg and foot, but with Piriformis syndrome, the pain often radiates only as far as your knee.  Areas of complete numbness along the pathway of the nerve indicate sciatica.  Also, Piriformis syndrome is associated with some very tender trigger points in your butt.  For a definitive diagnosis, your doc will need to rule in or out disk problems as the source of your pain.

•Overuse is a common cause of Piriformis syndrome, and it can be a common injury that sidelines athletes.  Prolonged sitting and trauma can also aggravate the Piriformis muscle, causing it to swell or go into spasms, which causes the sciatic nerve to be pinched. 

•I have found in my acupuncture practice that Piriformis syndrome is frequently caused by cold.  It seems to be more prevalent in the winter or after a patient has been outdoors in the cold.  I believe that my kayaking debacle was caused by sitting in a cold, wet kayak for hours on end.  (No pun intended.)

•In my experience, Piriformis syndrome is far more common than true sciatica.  The good news is that I find that my patients with Piriformis syndrome respond far more quickly to treatment than those with sciatica.

•Treatment for butt pain in Chinese medicine would include acupuncture, heat, body work, stretching, and at home care. Acupuncture speeds healing by promoting circulation to the area of injury.  In addition, research has documented that acupuncture works by increasing the release of pain-relieving chemicals in the brain.

•I have found that electro acupuncture, in which the inserted needles are hooked up to a small machine that painlessly contracts or “vibrates” the muscle is especially effective in relieving pain and speeds up the healing process.  Electro acupuncture works by relaxing the muscles that are tight or in spasm.

•Western treatments for butt pain may include rest, physical therapy, injections of local anesthetics or steroids, and prescription medications for pain or to relax the muscles.  For difficult or chronic cases, your doctor may recommend surgery.

•At home treatments include heating the painful area, rolling on a tennis ball to release trigger points (points that are especially tender), and gentle stretching.  A simple stretch for the Piriformis muscle:  Sit in a chair with both feet on the floor.  To stretch the right side, place your right ankle across the top of your left knee.  Then gently lean forward until you feel the stretch in your butt. Repeat on the other side by reversing the action.

As for my own butt injury, once I was out of the wilderness, I enlisted the help of an acupuncturist to relieve my pain.  I was lucky; it took about a week before I stopped limping, and a few more before I was completely pain-free.  Combined with some daily stretching and strengthening exercises from a physical therapist, I haven’t had a recurrence.  My butt’s just fine, thank you.

Okay, I admit that I have a hand in this, and while it seems unlikely to have happened to me (!) the answer to this mystery is that obviously I’ve eaten a few too many acorns over the winter.  And, rather than buy a whole new wardrobe, I need to drop a few pounds. 

While losing a few pounds may sound simple on paper, we all know it’s not easy. Most of us have tried to lose weight at one time or another—some of us actually are successful; some struggle with weight on a daily basis; and some have just given up.  Through personal experience and by working with many patients who have figured out how to lose or maintain their weight successfully, I offer up my best weight loss tips: 

-Plan ahead.  You know you’re going to come home from work hungry.  It’s a given that you’ll eat lunch tomorrow.  It’s not that difficult to plan for those meals and have something healthy on hand.  Stock your refrigerator and pantry with healthy foods that you like.  You can also make meals ahead of time and freeze them in meal-sized portions.

-Watch what you’re drinking.  For some reason, many people think that if they drink it, the calories don’t count.  Think again.  Fruit juice, alcohol, pop, lattés, and chocolate milk all have the potential to derail your weight loss efforts.

-Make small changes you can sustain.  While you may not be able to stick to a strict plan, you can cut out that pop you have every day with lunch.  And while you may be too busy to get to the gym, you can take the stairs to your office on the sixth floor. 

-Think lifestyle, not diet.  A diet is something you undertake for a limited period of time.  When you reach your goal, you go off your diet.  (And weight inexplicably reappears).  However, if you think about making lifestyle changes, you will need to choose those that you can maintain for the rest of your life.  This tip goes hand in hand with the one above—make only those changes that feel doable long-term.

-Quit snacking.  Or if you must snack, plan ahead and have healthy snacks on hand.

-Get your emotions under control.  Strong emotions, especially stress, cause an imbalance in a number of hormones in your body, including cortisol and insulin.  These changes mess with how you metabolize food, cause you to gain weight around the middle, and cause cravings for those fat-laden sugar bombs that you always regret eating.

-Get moving.  Exercise is key to losing weight.  It burns calories, relieves stress, helps you sleep better at night, and dampens your appetite.  Bonus tip:  Build muscle by lifting weights.  Muscles burn more calories than fat.

-Eat for good digestion.  You may be eating the healthiest diet in the world, but if your digestion is funky, you might as well be ordering your meals at the McDonald’s drive through. If you have heartburn, gas, rumbling, bloating, constipation, loose stools, stomachaches, or nausea, your digestion could definitely be better.  The first step is to slow down and chew your food.  The second is to prepare your foods in a way that they will be better digested.  Generally cooked foods, in the form of soups, stews, stir fries, and fruit compotes take less energy  and are easier to digest than cold or raw foods.

-Eat foods that are locally grown and in season.  First of all, they taste better than something that’s been on a truck for the past week.  Second, according to Chinese medicine, foods should be eaten during the season in which they are grown.  For example, during the spring, your diet should be full of rich green shoots and baby lettuce.  In contrast, during late summer and early fall, you should be eating the yellow and orange veggies, like carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, and corn.  Trust me on this—it’s better for you.

-East mostly vegetables and fruits with whole grains, a little protein, and small amounts of everything else.  This is the ideal diet according to Chinese medicine.

-There are really no bad foods unless you eat them all the time.  We tend to label foods as heroes and villains, and sometimes try cut out entire food groups we perceive as unhealthy.  However, we need fat in our diet; we need carbohydrates; and we need protein.  So, while you may want to beat yourself up over that doughnut you had at yesterday’s staff meeting, in reality, once in a while won’t kill you, so get past it.

-Exception to the above tip:  Grease-laden fast foods.

-Eat breakfast.  Get up in time to have a breakfast that includes whole grains and a little protein; it’s the best way to get through the morning without hunger pangs, sugar cravings, and low blood sugar.

-Set attainable goals. If you have a lot of weight to lose, it can feel overwhelming to set a goal to lose it all at once.  However, if you set a goal to lose ten pounds, and once that’s done, then lose ten more, you’re less likely to give up, and more likely to feel successful with each goal you reach.

-Don’t go to a party hungry. Ditto for the grocery store and out with friends.  In every situation, your hunger will derail all your good intentions, especially when combined with cocktails.

-Eat foods that haven’t been processed to death.  There are a couple of tipping points here.  If you look at the label on the package and it lists more than ten ingredients, put it back on the shelf.  Also, if the food is unrecognizable as to what it once was, put it back. 

-Pack your lunch.  If you buy your lunch each day, you are eating one meal out of three in which you have no control over the ingredients, caloric content, preparation, portion size, or freshness. Think about it.

-Try something new.  Check out some new recipes, try a food you’ve never eaten, rethink your meal menus, and try a new grocery store or farmer’s market. It will bring you new motivation to eat more healthfully.

-There is no magic bullet or miracle food.  There are lots of good, healthy foods, but there is no one single food that you can eat every day that will peel off the pounds, give you boundless energy, immortality, and keep you disease-free.  For those things (except the immortality), you need an assortment of foods, with their variety of nutrients.

-Eat as many differently colored foods each day as possible.  This is especially true for darkly colored foods. The colors in natural foods represent their inherent nutrients. Think red peppers, tomatoes, cherries, grapes, blueberries, dark leafy greens, yellow squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, black beans, sea vegetables, eggplant, white mushrooms, turnips, and brown rice.  You can’t go wrong.

One of the best parts of what I do is that I learn a little something from each and every patient who comes in through my door. Some of those lessons are uneventful, but some are profound. Here is a short list of some of the incredible things I have learned from my patients:

-Aging is a state of mind. I have had people in my clinic in their 60’s who seemed very old. I have also had a number of 80 and 90-year olds who have appeared to be much younger and more vital than their age would indicate. The difference? Those people who are aging so well have a love for life. They get out of their house, they’re active, they have places to go and things to do. This is not to say they don’t have health problems; they do. However, they are somehow able to stay active, engaged, and upbeat despite their health issues.

-Your emotions are the key to your health. The Chinese have a saying that the emotions are the root of 100 illnesses. I have found this to be true in the clinic. Chinese medicine is all about treating the root of an illness, and in the majority of my patients, that root is emotional in nature. Strong emotions, such as anger, depression, fear, anxiety, grief, and intense longing have the ability to affect your health, causing symptoms as diverse as insomnia to digestive problems.

-Never make assumptions. That ass of u and me thing is so right! Whether it’s a patient’s ability to heal, their willingness to change unhealthy habits, or their ability to pay me for my services, more often than not when I have made an assumption, I have been wrong.

-Unless you change the behaviors that are making you sick, you will never heal completely. This may include a funky diet, an overwhelming lifestyle, working too hard, and stressful relationships, to name a few. Remember, Chinese medicine is effective because it gets at what’s really making you sick. If you’re unwilling to change, you’re going to stay…uh, sick.

-Shut up and listen. This has been a hard lesson for me. However, over time I have learned that if I just close my mouth and really hear what my patients are saying, they will tell me exactly what I and my patient need for them to heal. Part B of this lesson is that most people already know what’s making them sick. From the man who was “trying to fight his way out of a wet paper bag” (damp heat) to the woman who just needed a dark, quiet place (Yin deficiency), if I just open my ears, they will tell me what’s going on.

-There is no magic bullet to better health. Many years ago, a woman came to me for help with weight loss. She had tried every diet under the sun, but couldn’t lose the weight. I treated her and began talking about dietary therapy and some lifestyle tweaks. She came back for her second appointment and told me that she hadn’t lost any weight, and that she would not be coming back to me. People, Chinese medicine is an incredibly effective system of health and healing, however, you have to give it time and help it along. Geez…

-The best thing you can do to improve your health is to exercise regularly. Simple. Exercise improves your mood, reduces stress, improves the health of your heart, brings your blood pressure down, and keeps you young. I have seen patients completely turn their health around simply by adding exercise to their routine (plus the acupuncture, of course!)

-Learning is never complete. I will never know everything. Every patient that I see teaches me something, and I thank each and every one for their insight, lessons, and confidence in my ability to help them.

Olympic athletes in any sport are finely tuned machines, trained to perform at their peak during the Games.  Most of us who will never stand at the top of a bobsled run or take to the ice don’t realize is that there is a fine line between peak condition and breaking down.  This breakdown is the stuff of overuse injuries; something we amateur hackers have in common with Olympians.

There are, however, a few differences between an Olympic athlete having an overuse injury and one of us mere mortals popping a hamstring on our Saturday morning run.  First, top athletes are so finely tuned and in touch with their bodies, that they can see an overuse injury coming, and can proactively slow down or change their training to avoid a full blown disaster.  Second, any athlete who is good enough to be in the Olympics has a posse of trainers, coaches, massage therapists, and (yes!) acupuncturists to keep them injury-free.

We won’t worry too much about the Olympians getting injured, as they’ve pretty much got it covered.  However, if you’re active in your favorite sport, training for an upcoming event, or just trying to stay in shape, how do you deal with the aches, pains, and annoyance of an overuse injury?

From my years as an active participant in about a dozen sports, and from my years as an acupuncturist treating athletes, here are a couple of insights:

-Stretch and warm up.  In Chinese medicine, warmth equals flow.  By stretching a little and starting slowly, you’re getting the flow started in your muscles.  No Olympic athlete takes to the ice, slopes, or half pipe without warming up first.  Cold, tight muscles are prime targets for injuries.

-If it hurts, stop now.  From personal experience, I have found that no good ever comes from trying to play through the pain.  Continuing through the pain only causes muscle pulls, tendonitis, and stress fractures.

-Let the glue dry.  If you stop participating because you’re feeling pain, take the time off to let your injury heal.  Several years ago, I treated a woman who was an ultra distance runner.  She had an upcoming 100 mile race, and was experiencing some foot pain.  I treated her with acupuncture, and her foot was improving beautifully.  She was well-trained, and had ample time to rest before the race, but instead decided to test the foot out with a 50-mile training run.  Ultimately, she was well enough to get to the start line of her 100-miler, but she had to drop out because her foot didn’t hold up.  If she had taken a week or so off to let her foot heal, I believe that she would have finished her race.

-Use the right equipment for your sport, and make sure it fits correctly.  Bike seats that are the wrong height, worn down running shoes, and borrowed hockey skates all have the potential to cause injuries if used long enough.  If you’re going to do the sport, invest in the right gear.

-Know the signs of an overuse injury in the making.  It’s pretty clear when you sprain your ankle that you’re out of commission for a couple of weeks.  Overuse injuries, however, can be a little trickier.  Are you really getting injured or just suffering the common aches, pains, and sore muscles that go with your active lifestyle?  A couple of signs that you may be nursing an overuse injury include, pain that lasts hours or days after your workout, swelling, reduced range of motion, and weakness in a muscle or joint. If you’re favoring a certain part of your body, the potential for injury is pretty high.

Where does the Chinese medicine come in?  As an acupuncturist, I’ve spent many hours treating people with overuse injuries—from competitive athletes to the weekend gladiators.  Acupuncture is really effective to speed the healing of injuries and to relieve pain.  However, with a little foresight and self-care, most of those injuries didn’t have to happen.

Earlier this month, Lindsey injured her shin, resulting in a painful bruise, right where her shin comes in contact with her ski boot. Lindsey, while being model-gorgeous and gracing the pages of the current Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, is also hot on the slopes. She is a legitimate contender for five gold medals, so any whiff of an injury or weakness becomes international news.

When I see any kind of news story about celebrity illness or injury, my Chinese medicine mind clicks into gear. Every time an actor opens their mouth wide enough, I’m doing a TV tongue diagnosis. When some entertainer has an illness, I want details. As an acupuncturist, I want to diagnose these people. In Lindsey’s case, the diagnosis is pretty easy. According to Chinese medicine, she has something called blood stasis.

Good health in Chinese medicine is all about flow , whether it’s energy, blood, digestion, or emotions. When blood is not flowing smoothly, it stagnates and causes pain; usually the kind of pain that is fixed in one place and is stabbing in nature. Blood stagnation, or blood stasis is also associated with the color purple; not the book, but what happens when you get a bruise. Some examples of blood stasis include blood clots, varicose veins, some types of headaches, endometriosis, and in severe instances, heart attacks and pulmonary emboli (blood clots in the lungs). In the case of heart attacks and pulmonary emboli, the patient’s face, nails, and tongue will turn purple.

Chinese medicine has a lot to offer for someone with symptoms related to blood stasis. Acupuncture is all about flow, and for most patients, it would be the first line of defense. There are also dozens of Chinese herbs that get your blood moving. Some of them are recognizable, such as safflower flower, frankincense, myrrh, peach pit, salvia root, red peony root, and turmeric tuber and rhizome. Needless to say if you’re having a heart attack, are short of breath, or having severe chest or abdominal pain, get to a doctor–now.

So what should Lindsey do? Start out with compression (wrapping it) and ice to keep the bleeding and swelling to a minimum. Elevate the injury, as blood moves downhill. After a day or so, begin heating the injury so the blood will move out of the area, and take it easy. She should also be having regular acupuncture treatments to speed up the healing process, get the blood moving, and relieve the pain.

Go Lindsey!

First of all, let’s talk about…me.  The reality is that health insurance companies do not pay me or any other acupuncturist adequately for their time.  They typically will determine what they think is “appropriate and reasonable” and only reimburse that amount, which is often about half of my usual fee.  (My fees are in line with and often lower than other acupuncturists in my metro area.)

In addition, the insurance companies take months to get the check in the mail.  And they do it shamelessly.  I have had numerous letters from one insurer offering to send the check right away if I would take even less money than I’m entitled to! (The patient paid for the treatment, so they were barking up the wrong tree.) The inference is that if I don’t agree, they’ll take much longer to send the payment.  This begs two questions:  One, why can’t they just send the payment right away? And two, isn’t this blackmail?  Okay, three and four:  Who does business this way?  And, what would happen if you tried to pay your bills in this manner?

Furthermore, if I accepted health insurance, much of the time I now spend treating my patients would instead go to filling out documentation and paperwork to satisfy the insurance companies.  Or I would have to hire someone to do it.

So let me recap—I get paid less, they take forever to pay,  and it takes more of my time.  Where do I sign up?

How does my not taking health insurance benefit my patients?  I’ll answer that with a story:  Two weeks ago, I saw a new patient—a lovely, vital woman in her 90’s with some back pain.  She had been to another acupuncturist who accepted health insurance.  My patient’s experience with this provider is what brought her to me.  She complained that the other acupuncturist didn’t even talk to her to explain her condition or how the acupuncture would work.  He just plopped the needles in (her words), and left her.  His office assistant came take the needles out, and she never saw the acupuncturist again during that treatment.

This acupuncturist may be an excellent practitioner, but because he’s being paid less for each patient, he needs to see two, three, or four patients in an hour just to make a living.  One of the strengths of Chinese medicine is that listening to your patient is part of the diagnostic process.  However, if your practitioner is racing from patient to patient, that listening component is compromised.

My patients benefit from my non-participation in insurance reimbursements because I choose to see only one person at a time.  If I were dealing with health insurance companies, I couldn’t do that.  My patients get my full attention and intention, which enhances their treatment and the healing process. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

My patients who have insurance that covers acupuncture aren’t completely out of luck. I do offer my patients is a receipt that has been formatted with all my practitioner information, diagnosis and treatment codes, dates, amounts, etc., so they can submit it to their insurance for reimbursement. This type of receipt also works perfectly for patients who have Health Savings Accounts or Flex Plans.

Many would argue that acupuncture treatments should be accessible to everyone.  I agree.  However, MRI’s, doctor’s visits, and medications should also be within everyone’s financial reach, but they are not. Some acupuncturists have chosen to open community-style acupuncture clinics, with the cost of treatments determined by a sliding scale.  These clinics are a fabulous solution to working outside of the health insurance system.  However, many of my patients who are familiar with the community-style clinics still choose to come to me; to pay a little bit more and be seen one-to-one; a choice they should also have.

More and more providers of all kinds are opting out of the health insurance system.  Last month there was an article in our local paper about a family practice MD who opened his own fee for service clinic.  Many psychiatrists have also opted out of the system because the insurance companies want them only to prescribe medications and will not reimburse them adequately or at all for talk therapy.

To accept insurance payments or not is a personal and business choice for many practitioners, especially those who work with complementary therapies.  My personal choice is to practice in a way that most benefits both me and my patients, and to do so excludes intervention on the part of health insurers.

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If you suffer from anxiety or panic attacks, you’re familiar with the symptoms—a racing heart or heart palpitations, chest tightness, numbness and tingling in your hands and feet, feeling light headed, shortness of breath, and the general feeling of fear, or that you might die right now. 

There are a number of causes of anxiety.  Traumatic events top the list.  People who have been exposed to trauma, violence, emotional duress, or threats of any kind know the source of their anxiety. This includes unrelenting stress and worry over a life event or situation that’s not easily resolved. 

Unfortunately, many people experience anxiety symptoms and don’t know why, which only makes the anxiety worse.  These are the people who think they’re going crazy because they seemingly have no reason to feel anxious.  However, it’s important to know that anxiety can be caused by physical problems, such as hormonal imbalances, digestive issues, heart problems, and drug side effects.

Anxiety can run in families.  I have found that many of my patients who suffer from anxiety have either a parent or a child who also struggles with anxiety, too.  This may be due to genetic makeup or how a particular family copes with stressful life events. Whether anxiety in families is due to nature or nurture, it’s not uncommon that family members will have similar triggers for their anxiety.

When I was growing up, I remember a family friend who struggled with anxiety around water.  She had always been paralyzed by the thought of swimming or being in a boat.  Her children also suffered from the same fear, and while the children have ultimately learned to swim, it was a long and painful process, because they had to first deal with their anxiety (and their mom’s) of being around the water.

In Chinese medicine, there are three organ systems related to anxiety; the Heart, Spleen, and Kidneys.

The Chinese view anxiety as worry that has gotten out of control.  Each organ system is associated with an emotion, and worry is the emotion associated with the Chinese Spleen.  The Spleen is also your organ system of digestion.  It sifts and sorts what you’ve eaten, takes what is useful, turns it into nutrients to fuel your body, and gets rid of what is not needed.  While your Spleen primarily digests foods, it also plays a role in the sifting and sorting of ideas.  While the emotion associated with the Spleen is worry, it is essentially the same as not being able to sort through and let go of unnecessary ideas.  Worry is a kind of unhealthy rumination, and when it gets out of control, worry becomes anxiety and fear.

While your Spleen is the organ of digestion, your Heart is the Chinese organ of feelings.  We intuitively know that the Heart is an emotional organ.  We feel things with all our heart, have our heart broken, or thank someone from the bottom of our heart. Your Heart is home to the Shen, or your spirit, according to Chinese theory.  Its function is similar to that of your brain in Western biomedicine.  As such your Heart is the home to consciousness, memory, emotions, and thinking.  Whenever someone suffers from any kind of emotional upset or condition, such as anxiety, the Heart is always involved. 

Finally, the Chinese Kidney also plays a role in anxiety in a couple of ways.  First, the emotion related to the Kidney is fear, which is the underlying component of anxiety.  Secondly, the Kidney is the deepest and most nourishing of our organs.  It’s responsible for how well you age, your underlying body constitution, and is the source of all the fundamental substances in your body, such as Yin, Yang, and Essence.  Your Kidney is the organ system most damaged by stress and anxiety.  The Western condition of adrenal fatigue (from stress, anxiety, overwork, etc.) correlates to a severe Kidney depletion in Chinese medicine.

Chinese medicine and acupuncture can offer a number of strategies to help someone suffering from anxiety.  Your practitioner would work by first calming your Shen using acupuncture. This is an effective first line of defense, as research has documented the positive effects that acupuncture has on brain chemistry.   It has been found that acupuncture increases the secretion of endorphins in the brain, the feel good substance associated with pain relief and runner’s high. This effect accounts for the relaxing and calming sensation patients feel both during and after their treatments.

A  practitioner of Chinese medicine might also address your anxiety by nourishing your Spleen and restoring your Kidney health.  Beyond acupuncture, there are a number of safe and effective herbal formulas that can help calm anxiety. Your practitioner can prescribe the combination of herbs that is most appropriate to your individual needs.

Food therapy and lifestyle changes may also be part of your treatment for anxiety.  This may include at-home calming strategies, avoiding stimulants such as coffee or tea, dietary changes, and breathing techniques—all of which can be effective in relieving anxiety.