Everyday Acupuncture Podcast

Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order! I'm Mary Beth Huwe, my husband Brian, and I run Huwe Acupuncture, an acupuncture and herbal medicine clinic in a super tiny town in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia. We are often asked, what does acupuncture treat? And we explain it in this way. Acupuncture treats people not diseases. That means no matter who you are or what you're suffering from, acupuncture is an option for you, not just an alternative or a last ditch.But an actual, serious, thoughtful medicine. We've helped people aged one month to 92 years with conditions such as fatigue, headaches, menstrual problems, joint injuries, and pain, H I V, digestive complaints, back aches, earaches, nose bleeds, nightmares, constipation, anxiety, cancer, insomnia, nausea, brain injury, neuropathy, pregnancy, depression, lupus, diabetes, and smoking.And each of those individuals, Individualized care. That's because effective acupuncture is specifically tailored for an individual at a certain place in time. For examp

Real Mushrooms 25% Off Your First Order! I’m Michael Max from Yong Kang Chinese Medicine Clinic in St Louis, MO. And today I’m here to answer the question….Will one session of acupuncture fix my problem?this is common question. And it shines a light on our magical thinking about acupuncture.  That it’s either magic or mumbo jumbo, or a wing and prayer attempt at stepping out of the box of convention and maybe getting lucky. One of the problems with acupuncture is that there are times people indeed do get dramatic relief from a single treatment. And so acupuncture gets a reputation as being magically effective. But for the most part we have to grow into our health, the same way we grew into our illnesses….over time. One of the curious things I noticed from practicing acupuncture that often people have a big change in how they feel after a treatment, and then the next time they come in the request is--- “whatever you did last time, do that again.” Which almost never brings a s

This is Dr. Neal Sivula. I'm a veterinarian and owner of Dancing Paws Animal Wellness Center, a holistic veterinary practice located in beautiful Richfield, Ohio. Today I'll answer the question- "I love acupuncture for myself, can I get it for my pet?" Of course, you can! The basic acupuncture certification program for Veterinarians in the United States is a post-graduate course, usually around 200 hours in length. We learn Traditional Chinese Medicine theory, acupuncture point locations, case management, and in some courses, students study herbal medicine as well. Some courses only teach TCM, others teach a combination of TCM and Medical Acupuncture, and some teach Medical Acupuncture exclusively. All courses offer a certification examination upon completion of the course and most require internship hours with a certified doctor and the submission of a few case reports to verify that the candidate can think logically through an acupuncture case.  Like our human acupuncture coll

Can children really have acupuncture? I’m Rebecca Avern, a paediatric acupuncturist at http://www.rebeccaavern.com/ (The Panda Clinic) and http://www.thelittleacupunctureroom.com/ (The Little Acupuncture Room) in Oxford UK.  When I tell people what I do for a living, a common response is – can children really have acupuncture?  The simple answer to that question is a resounding ‘yes’. And I’m going to explain to you why. Firstly, acupuncture is a lot more than purely needles. It includes many other, non-insertive techniques that are both gentle and effective, and that are often used with children. These involve medical massage (specifically a system called paediatric tui na) and techniques that involve using small tools to gently stroke and tap the acupuncture channels. There are also some really useful modern innovations which are often used with children, such as small seeds which can be stuck on acupuncture points and low-level laser pens which can be used

Hi, this is Heidi Markland with Ancient Spring Acupuncture in beautiful Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Today I’m gonna talk about a question that I often get asked when someone first finds out that I’m an acupuncturist. So, while most people are familiar with the idea of acupuncture treating pain, many people ask what if I feel pretty healthy overall, why should I try acupuncture? First, if we look at the historical Chinese texts about acupuncture, we know that it was originally used as a preventative medicine. Dating back to 3 rd century B.C., the Yellow Emperor’s Classic speaks of treating disease by preventing illness before it even begins. 1 Chinese medicine is about keeping the body in balance. A good practitioner does this by observing a patient. So, imbalances can be seen in inspecting facial complexion, body type, fingernails, tongue appearance, and feeling the patient’s pulse, among other things that we can observe. Let’s look at an example of someone with very few to no health complaints. She’s an active 56-

How Medicinal Mushrooms Help Immune Function? I’m Dr. Mason Bresett Chief Science Advisor and Naturopathic Doctor from Real Mushrooms in British Columbia, Canada. I’m here today to answer the common question I hear about how mushrooms help the immune system? Firstly, mushrooms have been used as medicine for thousands of years and our understanding of them has grown exponentially with modern research and paired with traditional knowledge. Mushrooms have the unique ability to inform our immune system to increase our defence system. Mushrooms have this impact due to their nutritional components, complex sugars called beta-d-glucans and their adaptogenic actions. These immune supporting compounds can even be found in your local market mushrooms, in the produce aisle. Mushrooms can help your immune system by fortifying how the 2 parts of our immune system The first is called the innate immune system. It is our immune systems first response to an invader like a cold virus sort of like first responders, who ever ca

"How does acupuncture help with chronic pain? My name is Caitria Thiele, L.Ac. I’m a licensed acupuncturist practicing at Connected Healing in Franklin WI, just outside of Milwaukee. Today, I’m going to share some information with you about how acupuncture helps with the healing of chronic pain. The first thing that you need to know is that acupuncture works by modulating and regulating the functions of the nervous system. The nervous system controls everything in your body, including how you perceive pain. The second thing to keep in mind is that your body will always prioritize survival above all else. Any time that there is a perceived threat to survival, like an injury, it will become a really high priority initially which is a good thing. Let’s say for example that you hurt your back at work, or raking leaves, or maybe at the gym. Right away your body will send a lot of resources to that area for the purpose of healing that injury because it poses an immediate threat to your survival, either directly or

Hi, this is Toby Daly at Flourish Medicine, and I have, I'm gonna be answering questions today from my patient, , do you have any questions about Chinese medicine?  I do. I have had different types of treatment of acupuncture, and I am curious to know I've been coming in here just going completely by feel, but I'm curious to know how this particular acupuncture is special and how the four needles. How do, how does it.  Okay. Yeah. That's, that's so great. You've been, , paying close attention to the four needles. Uh, so the four needles, we're always trying to figure out what's going on in your body, what quality we need the most in your body. So we take those four needles and generate that quality. So, especially for your case, , your chief complaint has to do with digestive system. So we're always trying to strengthen up what's going on in digestive system, pertains medicine, your digest system itself this time. Was too wet. So we're using those four needles to dry your body and take that burden o

CAN ACUPUNCTURE TREAT LONG COVID OR POST COVID SYMPTOMS? Better than you can imagine my friends, better than you could imagine. AAM was built for this type of multisystem mayhem. But before I get into the how, first I want to state that “Long Covid or “post COVID conditions” are considered western diagnosis. AAM cannot diagnose or treat CoVID or LONG Haul Covid,  but we definitely can take someone who has been diagnosed or suspects they are suffering from the lasting effects of having had covid or strange symptoms from having a vaccine and treat them according to a chinese medical diagnoses.  What I am saying is yes, but we would call it something different.  According to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) “Post-COVID conditions are a wide range of new, returning, or ongoing health problems that people experience after first being infected with the virus that causes COVID-19.  There is no test to diagnose post-COVID conditions, and people may have a wide variety of sympto

My name is Dr. Heidi Lovie. I am a Chinese medicine practitioner in New York city Manhattan. And I've been in private practice since 2009. One of the questions I often get asked by medical doctors or other healthcare practitioners is how do I refer to myself and how do I refer to the field when I don't automatically open with, Hey, I'm Heidi, the acupuncturist Chinese medicine is really complex, beautiful medical system unto itself. And there are eight pillars in the medicine, five of them that we use therapeutically in the treatment room. And another three we don't often talk about because they're not applicable quite in the same way, but they're equally as important. So the treatment room five are nutrition, our nutrition herb. Movement, which is the right movement for the right body. tuina a type of medical, massage and acupuncture. But when I say acupuncture, that's really a title heading for anything where I'm using a tool, whether that's the needles or whether that's gua sha cupping moxibustion, we have

I'm Michael max from Yong Kang, Chinese medicine clinic in St. Louis, Missouri today, with some thoughts on the question of what does acupuncture feel like? Acupuncture feels fresh baked bread, a stone perfectly skipped, an unexpected call from an old friend…. Like old photos recovered from a dusty attic, misplaced vitality from another time becomes accessible with the right stimulation from a few skillfully placed needles. Acupuncture can turn you on dime, reflect back to you your brilliance, call you to account for your habituated excuses, and slip you into a quiet so nourishing and vast you cannot help but touch on appreciation and wonder. It feels like a well-swung bat, a nicely banked shot, a satisfying sneeze. Acupuncture wiggles you through constrained emotions, it loosen the heart and expands your chest in the same deep-sigh way that forgiveness creates an extraordinary amount of space in your spirit. You can find the traces of acupuncture on an fMRI, in the cortisol count of the blood, the disap

I’m Michael Max from Yong Kang clinic in St Louis, MO. It can help. But, if you think that it will magically make you do something your heart is not really set on, then you are wasting your time and money. Now it could be that I’ve just not figured out how to use acupuncture to bring about miracouse habit change. But my experience so far is that habit change is a parcipaparoty sport. And what’s more all the homeostatic balances that hold your body in balance and health are working against you because the body, and the mind for that matter, does not like change. How do you know this? Try changing your breakfast time. Or add some new foods to your diet. Immediately you’ll notice the friction that goes with change. Our habits might not be the best for us in the long run, but in the moment, our physiology is tuned more for maintaining the status quo than it is at promoting change. Your body has lived its way into it current balance and it has to live its way into a new one. And that takes time. Perhaps a season

My name's Stacy Whittcomb. I am a licensed acupuncturist in Bellingham, Washington, and I am also the host of the AcuSprout podcast. What to expect on your first acupuncture visit before I go into the details I just want to preface this with that. We're all. Just like any other profession, but in general, these are some things that you may expect to happen. First of all, many acupuncturists and Asian medical practitioners offer a consultation prior to your first visit. . A consultation offers you an opportunity to ask the practitioner any questions that you may have. Questions. Like how many treatments is it going to take? How often do I have to come in? Does acupuncture hurt? , consultation is my way of making sure that we are a good fit in my practice. I actually only take patients who are willing to participate in their healing, people who are ready for an individualized treatment plan, which may include anything from dietary changes and strengthening exercises to going to bed earlier. Okay. So on your fi

This is Stacy I'm a licensed acupuncturist and the host of the AcuSprout podcast. I don't believe in acupuncture. This one. I hear every once in a while, and sometimes even from a patient as I'm doing acupuncture and because it's not my job to convince anyone that it does work. I usually just reply. That's okay. You don't have to believe in it for it to work acupuncture. Isn't a religion. It's it's not the big bang theory. It isn't Santa Claus and it's not magic. It's a medicine. That's two to 5,000 years old. It worked back then and it works now whether you believe in it or not. So when someone tells me that they don't believe in acupuncture, I always wanna ask them if they believe in anesthesiology, because most people I know would never look an anesthetist in the eye and say, I don't believe in anesthesiology. I think the anesthesiologist would have a similar reply as mine. Mm-hmm yep. That's. 90 night, but don't you think anesthesiology is weird. Someone shoots stuff into your veins and you go to sleep a

How do I know acupuncture will help me? You don’t. I don’t know either. It’s like any other process of discovery and intervention. We first strive to understand your present situation. What brought you to this point. What holds your current condition in place. Acupuncture and East Asian medicine seeks first to understand. Understand not just the mettlesome symptom that lead you to pick up the phone for an appointment, but to get a sense of how these symptoms and annoyances fit like puzzle pieces into the rest of your life. What holds them in place. What else are they connected to? Are there several seemingly unrelated issues that are in fact all connected? Unlike the currently popular “evidence-based” medicine model of lining treatments up with symptoms and letting researcher’s data or insurance company policies decide on the best treatment for you. Chinese medicine is an observation-based medicine that seeks to understand each individual, your unique situation and how all that fits into the greater context

My name is Stacy Whitcomb. I am in Bellingham, Washington, licensed acupuncturist, and the podcast host of the AcuSprout podcast. Did you know that acupuncture is only one of five branches of Asian medicine? That's only 20% of the big picture The five branches include herbal medicine, manual therapy, acupuncture, cheek, cultivation, and diet. In this three minute acupuncture point, I'm going to cover each branch and tell you how each one is an essential 20% of the big picture. Let's start with herbal medicine. Typically in the United States, practitioners who studied herbal medicine in school started by learning 365 single herbs. And about 10 key pieces of information about each herb, including, but not limited to the English name, the opinion or Chinese name. The herbs properties like bitter the temperature it's key characteristics such as does it tonify or move and its actions and indications. Once we've memorized all of the herbs, we then move on to learning how to combine them in formulas. And then we lea

This is Stacy Whitcomb with Shift Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine in Bellingham, Washington. Today, I'm gonna share with you the top five things to consider when choosing an acupuncturist.  Number one. Let's start with qualifications. Most states in the United States require an NCCAOM certification, which is the national certification commission for acupuncture and Oriental medicine, which consists of three board exams. [00:00:23] And a fourth. If you wanna sit for the herbal medicine board. Asian medical school is much like Western medical school. In most cases, we earn a four year Bachelor's degree and then apply to medical schools where we then go on to earn a three to four year Master's degree. [00:00:36] In contrast to Western medical Docs who go on to earn a four year medical degree. Now, many practitioners continue on to pursue a doctoral degree as. So the only states currently to have no regulations are South Dakota, Oklahoma, and Alabama, and then California has their own state exam, which

Qi is not pronounceable in English. Its whistled aspiration is not a sound found in our language. And much as we can approximate it with the “chee”, as in the beginning of “cheese”, it will forever be a curious transplant; like an exotic ornamental tree from abroad. Qi. In English we don't have anything close to the idea of an overall enlivening force in nature. A connective force that blows clouds across the sky, surges currents through the ocean, directs the growth, blooming and decline of the myriad forms we recognize as Life. We don't perceive a unified field that directs the beating of your heart and calls the tune on next week's weather forecast. We don't really have a word in our language that connects the dots between your wife's personality, the pungent taste of cinnamon, the character of the oak tree outside your breakfast window and the way thaty snowy grey-white days gentle and calm the spirit. Q-i, c-h-e-e, c-h-i, however you wish to represent it in Latinized characters, it basically translates a

I never know what will come up in a clinic session. That’s the fun part of the job; not knowing. Not knowing and being attentive to what arises. It’s a cross between meditation and motorcycle repair. This episode is one of those rare solo shows. It’s fueled by some discussions that commonly occur in my clinic. In this short discussion I’ll cover: Do I need to be sick to get acupuncture? Hydration and fluid metabolism How does acupuncture work? Who is an acupuncturist?

Qi gong can look deceptively simple. From the outside it looks like stillness in motion, but what is unfolding on the inside is another matter entirely. Here in the West we are used to aggressive, outward motion while being distracted with TV shows, music or magazines at the gym. But the Chinese internal arts, while from the outside does not look like much, inside there is an attentive focus that for many of us is the hardest workout of all. Listen in for a conversation on the simple, but not easy practice of tai chi and qi gong and the health benefits that can arise from slow steady attentive focus.