Acupuncture is a time honoured 3000-year-old medicine that is highly beneficial and low-risk. It is helpful for many conditions, such as boosting the immune system, treating digestive issues, improving women’s health or reducing stress. But, it’s commonly known for treating pain effectively.
How Does Acupuncture Treat Pain?
Chinese Medicine essentially looks at pain as a blockage. Where you have blockage or stagnation, you have pain. Your practitioner might say that your Qi is stuck (pronounced ‘chee’, this can be interpreted as the energy that runs through your body). They will then insert several very fine, sterile needles into points on the body and leave them there for roughly 20-30mins. Often the needles can be distant from the problem area. The reason being that acupuncture works holistically, i.e. it assists the body to heal itself by working on the person treating the root of the problem and not just the symptoms. Inserting needles into these points helps to move the stagnation and allow blood to flow again, relaxing tight muscles and allowing freer movement in the area.
Common Types of Pain Acupuncture Can Help With
Neck and shoulder pain
Lower back pain and sciatica
Headaches and migraines
Menstrual pain
Fibromyalgia
Carpal tunnel
How many treatments do you need?
First start weekly treatments until the condition improves, then gradually lengthen the time until the next visit. Consistent appointments are important as they start to improve the problem and the treatments build on each other.
It’s worth noting that often these issues have taken weeks or months or even years to develop and several visits will be needed to be effective. We experience that often remarkable results occur within one to three treatments.
Come to the community acupuncture which provides a low-cost, drop in service for $30. This is a wonderful way to support your health and see a reduction in your pain through regular visits.
Pregnancy. It’s a beautiful melting pot of experience and it can be difficult to know how to navigate the ups and downs that come with each trimester. When you first find out that you’re pregnant, it’s exciting. There are lots of changes ahead, and at the end, a baby! It’s not without its challenges though. With this short article, we are looking at how acupuncture and herbal medicine can help successfully transition from conception to birth over those important 40+ weeks.
First Trimester
Holding the pregnancy. Acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine are fantastic in those early few weeks before you can tell anyone you’re pregnant. Treatment aims to smooth the early growth phase, and can help with the hormonal changes that arise in those early few weeks.
Morning sickness. Affects approximately half to two thirds of pregnant women, and can last from a few weeks to almost the entire pregnancy. Acupuncture can reduce the nausea, by assisting digestive regulation and efficacy and help level out the blood sugar. Your practitioner will also discuss food options specific to your needs and give you take home acupressure techniques to get you through each day.
Fatigue. Many women experience an overwhelming lethargy in the first trimester. Your body is changing daily, hormones are surging and you don’t feel like yourself. Acupuncture is a beautiful way to balance your hormones, and it will release happy endorphins to help pick up your energy.
Constipation and bloating. Your hormones will naturally slow down your digestion, so you may experience bloating and constipation which doesn’t help the comfort of a growing belly. Treatment can assist your digestive system pick up steam and improve movement in your intestines.
Emotions. There’s a lot going on. Your hormones are all over the shop and you might be feeling scared and confused about everything that’s happening. Acupuncture targets emotional imbalance by reducing stress, calming anxiety and resetting any stuck thought patterns.
Second Trimester
In the second trimester your baby will grow rapidly and reach significant developmental milestones. It’s a time to connect to your body and your baby. Looking after yourself is important! Consider having some acupuncture for general pregnancy health maintenance or address anything that is stopping you feeling the best you can. Here are some examples of what we treat with acupuncture.
Sleep disturbances. Hormonal fluctuations, changes in blood flow, aches, pains, snoring, frequent urination at night or stress can all contribute to a poor night sleep. Acupuncture is a beautiful way to ease these symptoms and reset your body to work more efficiently during the day and rest properly at night.
Back and hip pain. Increased progesterone in your system will help to relax your ligaments to accommodate the growing baby. You may feel more supple than before, but you are also at risk of overstrain and injury. Neck, thoracic, and lower back pain are all common as your pregnancy progresses. Acupuncture helps ease the pain and give you back your mobility. Treatment also aims to reduce any underlying emotional tension that can contribute to pain.
Placental position. If your placenta is low lying, Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture may be able to help your placenta to move up away from your cervix, reducing the risk of placenta previa at birth. In Chinese medicine, this is related to ‘sinking qi’, which can be complicated by fatigue, and poor nutrient absorption. Treatment aims to improve energy, ‘raise the qi’ and assist the body to function at an optimal level.
Coughs & cold. Getting sick when pregnant not only makes you feel awful, but can be symptomatically worse, due to the extra fluid and phlegm production that occurs during pregnancy. It’s not advisable to take cold/flu medication, or anti-inflammatories during pregnancy, so acupuncture is a brilliant way to unblock your nose, settle the cough and relieve aches and pains without any side effects on the baby.
Third Trimester
You’re almost ready to welcome your new baby into the world. You’re almost there. The last 10 weeks can be a whirlwind of planning, preparation, growth, and trips to your antenatal checkups. No matter where you are in the 3rd trimester, acupuncture is a valuable addition to your self-care.
Anxiety. Feeling scared, uncomfortable and stressed is a common component of approaching birth. Your sleep patterns will be disrupted, you’ll be tired, and you’ll be trying to work out how this new little person will fit into your life. Acupuncture helps to balance your emotions, releases endorphins, and reduces stress hormones. This will help your body to produce the hormone oxytocin – which is needed to start labour.
Turning your baby. Around 30-32 weeks your baby should be making its way to a head down position. If, by 34 weeks the baby is either breech, or lying sideways in your uterus, then come and have some Moxibustion. Moxa (a Chinese herb) over the little toe can improve your baby’s chances of moving into the head-down position ready for labour in 4 or so weeks. It’s best to come and see us before 36 weeks so the baby still has some space to turn.
Preparing your body for birth. Not only are you taking time out to look after yourself, but regular acupuncture can help little symptoms as they arise, and work towards opening up and relaxing your body for birth. The acupuncture works in assisting the healthy progression of pelvic ligament relaxation and cervix dilation towards your due date. Regular treatments from 36 weeks leading up to your due date are a great idea.
Induction of labour. Acupuncture can help you to reach your labour targets including cervical dilation, contraction, and pelvic release. If you are overdue, it’s best to come in as soon as possible, as several treatments are usually required.
We celebrated the clinic expansion and our services to include community acupuncture on Thursday, 16th February 2017. Our treatment center also includes several consulting rooms to accommodate for the increasing demand of Chinese medicine services on Phillip Island and the Bass Coast Shire.
Brian Paynter, MP for Bass lead through the official ribbon cutting ceremony. He was accompanied by both Hans Seiwald and Brigitte Linder (founders) and witnessed by a spirited group of individuals. The heart piece of the new premises located at 10 Bluebird Court in Newhaven is a big space which will accommodate community acupuncture. It offers treatments for five people at the same time.
Research has shown that the community acupuncture setting positively influences patients. It is understood that people receiving it, like the motion of a shared healing journey.
The opening included a short welcoming by Hans Seiwald and the introduction of the Safflower team. Brian Paynter’s whole hearted address in his very down to earth style was entertaining and insightful. Brian noted that he accessed acupuncture in the past to treat a long standing lower back problem successfully.
Brian also pointed out how important he felt, acupuncture was to impact mental health. He has taken great pride in promoting both, adolescent mental health, and suicide prevention. He has also taken on board the tackling of domestic violence and is an advocate of health and physical well-being.
The evening provided a presentation by Brigitte Linder on the Chinese medicine view of cancer. It is estimated that in 2016, 36 million people were living with cancer across the globe – within five years of diagnosis.
Despite the fact that we have sophisticated treatments available, more people die of cancer in highly developed countries. During the address, factors like emotional and dietary health were investigated and put into the Chinese medicine concept of Qi (energy flow).
Light refreshments and networking followed Brigitte’s address. Allied health practitioners with various backgrounds discussed ways to optimize communication between modalities to help and support patients more effectively.
The Safflower Chinese medicine clinic is delighted and excited to be able to offer acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicines to residents of the Bass Coast Shire. “From the feedback so far, we expect the community acupuncture to thrive and are thrilled, that this model will make acupuncture incredibly accessible for a lot of people”, says Brigitte Linder.
If you have any questions or queries about acupuncture or Chinese herbal medicine, please email us or simply call (03) 5956 7011.
Everyone seems is taking turmeric in some shape or form. It’s for inflammation or pain or gut health or else. It’s currently for everything and everyone. From a Chinese medicine perspective we are familiar with three different medicinals of turmeric. All of those belong to the ginger family.
Curcumae Rhizoma (E Zhu)
E Zhu is in the category of blood regulating substances; herbs that invigorate the blood to be precise. This means that these substances will facilitate the flow of blood in the vessels. We believe in Chinese medicine that once the blood flow has been slowed, obstructed or becomes static it can lead to many health problems. E Zhu is slightly warm, pungent and bitter in taste. If used alone, its actions and indications are: breaking up blood stasis promoting the movement of qi as well as alleviating pain. We us it in patterns with abdominal pain and masses that are due to blood stasis. The rhizome is the part of the plant that grows a horizontal stem and forms new roots and shoots. We tend to dry-fry the roots to make them less aggressive and easier on digestion.
Curcumae longae Rhizoma (Jiang Huang)
Jiang Huang has similar properties to E Zhu: it’s warm, acrid and bitter. It’s used to invigorate the blood and to unblock menstruation. Its action is to resolve blood stasis caused by cold from deficiency. It can also be applied topically to treat swelling from trauma or in the early stages of abscesses. According to Chinese medicine, it expels wind and can be used for damp-cold obstruction which means, arthritic conditions that are aggravated by environmental cold. It’s the turmeric rhizome and the literal translation from the Chinese is ‘yellow ginger’.
Curcuma Radix (Yu Jin)
Yu Jin is in the same category as E Zhu and Jiang Huang. It’s in the category of blood regulating herbs. It’s cold in temperature and acrid as well as bitter in taste. Because of its cold temperature it’s better used for situations where the pain is caused by stagnation and accompanied by heat. In practice its best used for constraints of the liver that also has caused heat accumulation. Yu Jin is the tuber part of the plant which are enlarged structures in some plant species used as storage organs for nutrients. Yu Jin doesn’t’ necessarily require dry frying or any other preparation before ingesting it. In that respect it’s less aggressive than E Zhu.
In Chinese herbal medicine, we use the various species in different situations. But most importantly, we always combine individual herbs to a well-balanced formula. A formula is like a recipe that makes sure that all potential side effects of one particular herb are counteracted or balanced with other herbs. This an elegant way to combine herbs and at the same time takes advantage of a synergetic effect. This overall action of a formula will be used to treat a pattern of disharmony rather than a single symptom.
Also, we never give turmeric (any) to a pregnant woman, as it can cause bleeding. Being a promoter of the flow of blood, it should be taken with caution when taking other blood thinners (such as aspirin).
To understand all this can be challenging, as the entire philosophy of Chinese medicine is based on Yin yang and the five elements. In this way, we undertake treatments for a pattern of disharmony and not a single symptom. A group of symptoms in our world represents a pathological pattern.
Recently I came across information that investigated the intake of turmeric capsule versus taking turmeric powder and integrate it into cooking food. It turns out that if taking capsules alone and in isolation, it’s not effective with DNA methylation and won’t stop cancer cell formation. However, when cooked with and as food, then the result of prevention cancer are very promising. I can clearly see that this discovery is mind-blowing and hence the whole hype about turmeric being a cancer preventative.
References:
Chinese Herbal Medicine Materia Medica, 3rd edition, Bensky, Clavey, Stoeger, 2004, 1993, 1986
The analysis of disease in oriental medicine is based on a concept called ‘zangfu’. The zang are solid and the fu are hollow organs. The focus of Chinese medicine on the different organs reflects the increased reliance on concepts therein. Other major concepts are ‘yin yang’ and the ‘5 elements’.
The Urinary Bladder
According to Western medical concepts, the urinary bladder is responsible for the storage and excretion of urine. In traditional Chinese medicine, its functionality is extended considerably. During urine production, liquids are transformed in various ways; this is one of the functions of the urinary bladder according to our thinking. The extent to which the bladder performs lies almost entirely on the kidney yang. Where the kidney is yang deficient, the bladder lacks the sufficient heat and qi to effectively transform fluids into urine. The most vivid result, in this case, is clear urine that is excreted relatively more.
The Kidney
The kidney is referred to as the shen 腎 in Traditional Chinese medicine and refers to two viscera that are found on either sides of the spine. Rather than the anatomical organ inferred by western medical concepts, the kidney is compromised of various interrelated parts. The kidneys are associated with the “Ming Men” and “the Gate of Vitality”. The kidney is known as the organ of fire and water, the sea of essence, the main determination of life and death, and the dwelling of yin and yang. As a zang organ, the kidney is a yin organ storing the essence of life.
For a personal consultation with our registered Chinese medicine practitioner, please call 03 5956 7011 or book an appointment online
The analysis of disease in oriental medicine is based on a concept called ‘zangfu’. The zang are solid and the fu are hollow organs. The focus of Chinese medicine on the different organs reflects the increased reliance on concepts therein. Other major concepts are ‘yin yang’ and the ‘5 elements’. As there are 12 meridians and only 5 elements, we have two additional organs to make up 12. These are:
The Pericardium
The pericardium is referred to as the heart protector. For Chinese medicine purposes, the pericardium is referred to as a yin organ; it is mainly paired with the San Jiao (triple burner) which is a yang organ. This organ is said to prevent the heart from external pathogenic attacks. Most heart problems are normally approached through the pericardium as opposed to a direct approach. This is due to the heart being the ‘emperor’ the sovereign and it’s not touched so the pericardium (the heart envelope) will be treated instead. The pericardium operates at its optimum between 7pm and 9pm.
The Triple Burner or San Jiao
The triple burners is known as the san jiao in Chinese medicine. The organ is responsible for the passage of fluids and heat throughout the body. The diagnosis and treatment of diseases may directly be linked to the triple burner not functioning effectively. With the main trunk of the body, we differentiate between upper, middle and lower burner. It is a general metaboliser or a pathway to fluid, gas and heat to flow through.
For a personal consultation with our registered Chinese medicine practitioner, please call 03 5956 7011 or book an appointment online
