Thinking of trying acupuncture? There’s some things you should know.

If you’re thinking of trying acupuncture? There’s a few things you should know if have never been to a practitioner of Traditional Chinese or East Asian Medicine.

1) I may ask you questions you did not expect.

To a Chinese Medicine Practitioner, the big picture of your life is extremely important. I will want to know what your mood is like, how you’re sleeping,  if you tend to run hot or cold, what your family environment is like and most importantly how your condition affects you. Your digestion is important to us so I will be asking about digestion and toilet habits.

Some of these questions may seem unrelated to the symptom that brought you into the office that day, but from a Chinese Medicine perspective, everything is connected.

These seemingly unrelated questions give us insight into what organ systems (Zang Fu), channels, and energetic or Qi mechanisms are out of balance and need to be addressed.

2) The physical exam is different from the way a Western Medical Doctor would examine you.

You’ll notice that your acupuncturist will feel your pulse on both of your wrists for a pretty long time. The pulse is key in making a correct Chinese Pattern Diagnosis. Your practitioner isn’t just feeling the rate and rhythm of your pulse, but is also paying attention to the quality, intensity, and size of your pulse.

There are 28 qualities of the pulse that must be discerned and whilst assessing your pulse, your practitioner may have additional questions for you. And you might just feel like they’re reading your mind when they ask you about a piece of information you forgot to mention.

I will also want to look at your tongue. They will be looking at the size, shape, color, and any indentations or cracks on your tongue. Like the pulse, the tongue gives us more information about your organ systems and energetic health.

You might notice me having a good look at your face, eyes, nails and ears all of which gives me more information about you.

3) Your treatment will address the symptoms that are bothering you, and much more than that.

From your answers I will build up a picture of how you are and what your diagnosis is, I will then use your pulse, tongue etc. to confirm my diagnosis, which I will then explain to you.

From a Chinese Medicine perspective, the mind, body, spirits (in Chinese Medicine there are 5), Qi Qua, Yin and Yang are all related. Each organ has a physical, mental, and spirit function and depending on your diagnosis you might receive: Acupuncture, Acupressure (Tu Na Massage), Korean Hand Therapy (KHT) Fire Cupping, Qi Gong exercises etc.

Your treatment will address your mind, body, and spirits to relieve your symptoms and to address the energetic cause of your symptoms so you can move back into balance and health and will be unique to you.

4) Will I feel the needles?  Will it be painful?

Acupuncture works with the qi of your body. Qi is the life force that powers every organ and cell in your body. You might not feel very aware of it on a regular day, but you will learn to recognize it.
The sensation of qi is different for everyone, but you might experience it as a tugging feeling, a warm and tingly feeling, a dull achy feeling, or some other feeling I don’t know about, because my qi is different than yours.

You might feel qi around the needle site or radiating to another part of your body. Patients often describe the sensation traveling through the acupuncture channels, even though they don’t know where they are.

Some points can be sensitive but we are never looking for pain!  You may well feel a pin prick as the needle goes though you skin but after that we are looking for a sensation but never Pain.

5) Your life may never be the same.

Once you’ve experienced acupuncture you will notice some side effects. You may want more acupuncture. You may become interested in what your acupuncturist is doing and learn to speak Chinese Medicine. You may want to go deeper with your treatment and ask your acupuncturist for herbs, lifestyle, and diet recommendations. You may become more aware of your energy and the people, places, and activities that effect you.

And you may get to know yourself and this beautiful planet we call home in a way you never knew was possible.

6) Can I ask questions?

Yes.  There are no silly questions and I encourage all my patients to ask as many or as few questions about their treatment as necessary.

If you have any questions or would like to contact me to arrange an appointment please click here.

JHS Acupuncture
Hope Centre
Hampden Road
Sale
Manchester
M33 7UB
England

http://jhsacupuncture.co.uk/thinking-trying-acupuncture

Tai Chi for Depression: New Research

Tai Chi for Depression: New Research

Complementary Use of Tai Chi Augments Escitalopram Treatment of Geriatric Depression: A Randomized Controlled Trial – Published in the American Journal or Geriatr Psychiatry October 2012:

This study set out to show that Tai Chi would augment the treatment of depression in a population aged 60+ with the drug Escitalopram, which is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI).

Complementary use of a mind–body exercise, such as Tai Chi, may provide additional improvements of clinical outcomes in the pharmacologic treatment of geriatric depression.

This, on the face of it, is an interesting piece of work by the University of of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as the experiment sets out to compare  Tai Chi (TC) against Health Education (HE), which I interpreted to mean some form of  age appropriate physical education, such as hill walking or swimming.  Reading though the report my heart began to sink a little as HE turned out to be:

The HE protocol served as an active control for nonspecific treatment elements such as attention and group support that pose rival explanations for the effectiveness of TC. Similar to the TC group, participants assigned to HE were informed that this was an intervention for “depression in older adults,” which served to balance expectations for the TC and HE interventions. The rationale for this intervention is that education about depression, stress, sleep, and health-related issues will play a central role in helping patients with depression understand and self-manage their mood symptoms and the factors affecting their mood (e.g., stress). The trained study staff implemented HE by using a manual that presented educational information and described learning objectives and patient activities to promote an integration of the material. The HE sessions were held once a week for 120 minutes over the 10-week treatment period and followed a didactic format, with lectures on key topics, followed by focused group discussion and post-discussion self-help quizzes to assess patient learning. This novel use of a non-exercise control intervention, which matches the exercise intervention in duration, frequency, and social contact, represents an important methodological advance.

To summarise one group in this trial got to do Tai Chi the other group got to go to a 2 hour lecture about health every week.  If the study designers think that comparing Tai Chi to going to a lecture is a good placebo control then they have failed to understand Tai Chi and its practice.

In the study authors defence they are trying to differentiate between Tai Chi and something else and they may be aware that walking for 30 minutes a day may also improve response levels to anti-depressant drugs and that may not help them show up a difference.

However from my point of view exercises like walking and swimming are excellent forms of Qi Gong (as the breathing is regulated and the mind is focused on one task) and all that is missing is the more esoteric visualisation associated with Tai Chi and Qi Gong.  I personally use these during my running and hill walking and it becomes a very good form of Qi Gong, but that is another article altogether.

On the plus side this is another good piece of work showing that Tai Chi is a good exercise to help with Depression, I would have preferred the study to have used Tai Chi on its own versus normal treatment but we can’t have everything can we.

In my experience the practice of Tai Chi and/or Qi Gong every day for 30 minutes will server to improve your physical and mental well being regardless of your age and I would urge anyone to take up Tai Chi to maintain health.

Tai Chi and Qi Gong classes are on:

Monday 7pm to 8pm
Friday 11am to 12 noon

JHS Acupuncture
Hope Centre
Hampden Road
Sale
M33 7UB
England

Tai Chi Information

http://jhsacupuncture.co.uk/tai-chi-effective-treatment-depression-elderly

E-cigarettes may not be safe says new report by the German Cancer Research Centre

A new study by the German Cancer Research Centre raises question over the safety of e-cigarettes.  See the full report here.  

Here are the key messages from the research:

Product characteristics

• E-cigarettes cannot be rated as safe at the present time.
• Consumers do not have reliable information on product quality.
• Electronic cigarettes have various technical flaws (leaking cartridges,accidental intake of nicotine when replacing cartridges, possibility of unintended overdose).
• Some manufacturers provide insufficient and partly wrong information about their liquids.

Health effects

• The liquids contain ingredients that on short-term use irritate airways and may lead to allergic reactions and which may be harmful to health when inhaled repeatedly over a prolonged period of time.
• The aerosol of some liquids contains harmful substances (formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, acrolein, diethylene glycol, nickel, chromium, lead).
• The functionality of electronic cigarettes can vary considerably (aerosol production, nicotine delivery into aerosols).
• Adverse health effects for third parties exposed cannot be excluded because the use of electronic cigarettes leads to emission of fine and ultrafine inhalable liquid particles, nicotine and cancer-causing substances into indoor air.

Now I am not a massive fan of e-cigarettes, I think they have a very acrid smell and I would like to see them covered by the same regulations as normal cigarettes i.e. use them outside and not inside public places.  

My main worries are that children will see people in public places using these devices and want to emulate them and that it will normalise what is essentially nicotine addiction and Chinese medicine says any addiction is detrimental to health.

That being said I would rather an addict use an e-cigarette than a normal cigarette any day.

On the minus side I know that some people are using e-cigarettes to smoke cannabis oil and resin in public places and we will probably see this use increased as it is very difficult to identify someone doing this.

More research is needed into these devices and there also needs to be fundamental regulation of these devices so that the quality and quantity of the chemicals to be vaporised can be standardised and controlled so they can be used safely.  

There are studies showing that the carcinogens that are found in normal cigarettes are also present, all be it in smaller quantities, in e-cigarettes so yes they are better but they are in no way perfectly safe.

From the Journal of Indoor Air:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1600-0668.2012.00792.x/full

The consumption of e-cigarettes causes emissions of aerosols and VOCs (volatile organic compounds), such as 1,2-propanediol, flavoring substances, and nicotine, into indoor air. During inhalation of e-cigarette vapor, the aerosol size distribution alters in the human lung and leads to an exhalation of smaller particles. This effect is caused by the evaporation of the liquid particles in the lung and also in the environment after exhalation. The quantity of the inhaled vapor could be observed to depend on the ‘liquid’ delivery system of the e-cigarette in use.

Overall, the e-cigarette is a new source of VOCs and ultrafine/fine particles in the indoor environment. Therefore, the question of ‘passive vaping’ can be answered in the affirmative. However, with regard to a health-related evaluation of e-cigarette consumption, the impact of vapor inhalation into the human lung should be of primary concern.

Now they do point out that the release of any gasses, comparative to a real cigarette, is vastly reduced and that their experiment is small scale but they do conclude that passive vaping does exist.

And next from the National Institute of Health:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3068875/

And here are the good bits (well from my point of view, its a good read all round to be fair especially the bit where the FDA have to go to court.

Accessible information provides details about the presence of nicotine (including cotinine), tobacco specific impurities (anabasine, myosmine, ?-nicotyrine), propylene glycol (rarely diethylene glycol), and tobacco specific nitrosamines (which include carcinogens) in commonly available brands of electronic cigarettes

Moving on to The Journal of the American Medical Association (who also point out that impurities and carconogens have be detected in e-cigaretts):

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=184501

Chemical analyses of several samples of products by FDA scientists detected tobacco-associated chemicals that may be harmful to humans, including known human carcinogens. One cartridge also contained 1% ethylene glycol, a toxic chemical. Additionally, the researchers found varying levels of nicotine, even in products sold under the same label

Again, overall I am happy that e-cigarettes are probably safer than r-cigarettes but IMHO NO cigarettes are better than either and there are lots of proven ways of giving up smoking and acupuncture can help in conjunction with other interventions but there is not much high quality evidence that it can help on its own but everyone is different and I know plenty of my clients site acupuncture as the thing that helped them kick the habit.

And I will finish with that old staple from many a written article, more research is necessary and desirable on this subject which I am sure will remain a hot topic for non-smokers and smokers.

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