Coronavirus and acupuncture: What you need to know

You’ve no doubt heard: it seems to be a matter of when, not if, COVID-19—better known at the Coronavirus—will spread here in the United States. The breakout of the viral infection began in Wuhan, China, and has spread across the world, increasing in numbers particularly in Italy and Iran. But with the virus’s gestation period and the difficulty of properly testing and quarantining those who may have been exposed, the virus is expected to make its way around the world, and spread from there…to our shores too.

First a few important things. For now, people should practice proper hygiene, and if they think they may be sick at all—especially with any flu-like symptoms—should see a doctor immediately. Anyone who is feeling ill should not come in for acupuncture services.  

 Secondly, acupuncture will not cure or prevent the Coronavirus.

However, having a properly functioning immune system can only help in case of any viral infection. And if the virus does indeed spread, many people will be scrambling to try and do everything they can to boost their immune systems. At that point, however, it may be too late.

This is one of the reasons why, as we’ve described before, it’s smart to make acupuncture a consistent part of your wellness routine. Acupuncture helps regulate the body’s energy, or qi, increasing bloodflow which helps the body’s general immune system health, and ability to ultimately fight infections. Acupuncture also helps strengthen the body’s most important organs, like the liver and kidneys, which must be functioning properly in order for our immune systems to be at their best.

Having regular acupuncture sessions built into your wellness routine will help your immune system operate at its peak. This cold and flu season may almost be over, but as we know from the news, unexpected things happen all the time. It’s best to be prepared, and to keep your body prepared. Acupuncture is one of the best ways to do so.

Beat Spring Allergies by Getting Acupuncture Now

Who doesn't love spring? The weather is warmer, the colors pop, birds are chirping and days are longer.

But with that, especially for allergy sufferers, comes an increase in pollen and other allergies causing sneezing, sniffling, itchy eyes, headaches, and an overall sense of feeling not-so-great. Right? 

If you're tired of the same allergy-fighting routine and are looking for a more holistic approach, be sure to give acupuncture a try. As CNN reports, acupuncture treatment just might be an antidote for allergies. 

The article cites a study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, where researchers examined 422 people who tested positive for pollen allergies and had allergic nasal symptoms such as a runny nose. They were then divided into three subgroups, one which  received 12 acupuncture treatments and took antihistamines as needed, a second group which received 12 fake acupuncture treatments  and took antihistamines as needed, while the third who only took antihistamines for symptoms.

After two months, patients were asked to report their symptoms as well as how much medication they used. The results? The participants who received the real acupuncture treatments with their antihistamines showed a greater improvement in their allergy symptoms and less use of antihistamines compared to the other groups.

It's long been known that acupuncture can help with pain and inflammation, which are two symptoms of allergies. The ancient procedure can also help repair the flow of qi throughout the body,  along the meridian pathways. In session, be sure describe the symptoms to your practitioner so they can strategically place the acuneedles at targeted points. 

If you find yourself suffering from seasonal allergy symptoms, come on in and give treatment a try. You have nothing to lose (except your stuffy nose, that is!) 

Sleep Next to a Snorer? How Acupuncture Can Save Your Nights...and Help Your Partner

There’s nothing better than a good night’s sleep. And there’s nothing worse than a bad night’s sleep. And it can be particularly frustrating when the only thing keeping you from a nice a restful slumber is the person next to you—the one you love enough to share a bed with—won’t stop snoring.

But here’s the thing about sleep apnea. While it can be really irritating for the person who is being kept up by loud snoring, the person experiencing it can see everything from their own sleep and energy levels being affected, to worse medical conditions developing down the road. Sleep apnea can lead to depression, reduced concentration and memory, and even come cardiac and metabolic conditions. That’s because sleep apnea results in the body taking in less oxygen, which the blood needs for our body’s most important processes to function properly.

Many people who are diagnosed with sleep apnea try a CPAP (Continuous Positive Air Pressure) machine, which has proven to be helpful for some people with certain levels of sleep apnea. But whether one suffers from minor or major sleep apnea, research shows that acupuncture is more effective than a CPAP machine at helping eliminate sleep apnea.

We know that acupuncture helps improve blood circulation, and it also helps to improve blood oxygen levels. Acupuncture can also help reduce stress, anxiety and depression, and other conditions that affect sleep generally. It stands to reason than acupuncture would be an effective treatment for sleep apnea, and the research confirms: “In the studies included in this analysis, acupuncture consistently improved all measures used to assess the effectiveness of treatment [of sleep apnea],” it says.

So don’t spend another night on the couch because your partner is snoring up a storm. Tell them to come on in and receive acupuncture treatment. You’ll be doing both of you a big favor!

Acupuncture and Alzheimers: How Acupuncture Can Help the Brain

Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most difficult conditions for anyone to live with, because not only does it affect the person inflicted with it, but the effect on family and loved ones can be profound. An estimated 5.5 million people in the United States suffer from Alzheimer’s, with most of them being over the age of 65. 

There is no cure for Alzhiemer’s. But acupuncture can help both treat those who are suffering from Alzheimer’s—and can potentially help in prevention of the disease developing. 

As we learn more about what causes Alzheimer’s we’re learning how acupuncture earlier in life, before symptoms appear, might be able to help prevent Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia from forming. “The two main etymologies of Alzheimer’s are phlegm stasis and kidney deficiency.,” writes Kari Cobb, LAc, in Acupuncture Today.  Protein buildups outside and inside the neurons in the brain cause damage and the eventual death of neurons, which causes the memory loss that fuels dementia and Alzheimer’s. 

But we know that our body is interconnected, and that when one part of the body is not properly functioning, it can be due to issues in other areas of the body that are important to our overall health. One of those areas is the kidneys—as Cobb writes, “The kidneys store essence to generate marrow and the brain is the sea of marrow.” That means that maintaining healthy kidneys can go a long way towards potentially preventing later issues to the brain down the line, including Alzheimer’s. In terms of treatment, again, acupuncture cannot cure Alzheimer’s. But acupuncture has shown to improve “calculation ability and short-term memory.”

Hopefully one day there will be a cure or proven prevention for Alzheimer’s disease. Until then, maintaining a healthy core function of our body through acupuncture is an effective, holistic potential prevention method. 

Acupuncture Can Aid in Uterine Fibroid Reduction

Uterine Fibroids are incredibly common, but that doesn’t mean that they are harmless. Far from it.

Fibroids are noncancerous growths of the uterus that occur in women generally during childbearing years. They can vary in size and exact location, and there can be one growth or many; a good number of women do not even realize they have fibroids, because they may have one a single one or they are not large in size. In those cases, fibroids can go undetected because they cause no symptoms.

In other cases, however? Fibroids can be a serious detriment to quality of life. Among the symptoms of fibroids are increased menstrual bleeding, elongated menstruation cycles, back and/or leg pain, pain and pressure in the pelvic area, constipation, and more.

Fibroids causing fertility issues isn’t common, but they can up the risk of certain pregnancy complications, such as placental abruption, fetal growth restriction and preterm delivery.

There is no cure for fibroids, and any medications will only help the symptoms. Acupuncture, on the other hand, may be able to help the root cause. While there is no way acupuncture can fully remove fibroids, a study has shown that it can help reduce their volume, which lowers the risk that the fibroids will result in the worst of the possible symptoms.

Along with an herbal treatment, participants in the study were administered acupuncture at 9 specific points. for a total of 30 minutes a day for three months (aside from when the patient was menstruating). The results showed that fibroid volume was significantly reduced in the group that was administered acupuncture.

Fibroids can’t be prevented, but they don’t have to ruin your life, either. If you or someone you know is suffering from uterine fibroids, we’re here to help.

How Cupping Can Help Ease Your Lower Back Pain

Pain in the lower back can be debilitating or it can be nagging, but regardless of its severity it results in a lowering of quality of life. Anytime your lower back is bothering us, so many of our daily routines are affected. Walking, reaching, even just sitting or laying down are made more difficult.

There are many different ways to treat lower back pain, depending on the severity of the problem, but almost always the best way to go is holistically— helping the body heal itself. We here can treat back pain multiple ways, and one of the preferred methods is the ancient Chinese practice of cupping.

You may have seen dark circles on the backs, arms and shoulders of athletes on TV. While they might not be the most attractive marks, they are not permanent…and most importantly, they are signs that the body is in a much more restorative state than it was before.

Cupping is the act of using suction on the skin to help pull muscles and tissue upwards to heal. Like acupuncture, it doesn’t hurt, so there’s no reason to be apprehensive about it. Dr. Kelsey Tangel tells Popsugar, “By gently pulling up the muscles and fascia upwards, it draws toxins to the surface of the skin where the immune system is better able to eliminate them.”

But cupping isn’t able to heal a major issue like lower back pain simply by helping the body better eliminate toxins—though that’s part of it. Cupping causes the body to increase bloodflow and white blood cells to the affected areas, which improved blood circulation and reduces inflammation.

Lower back pain cannot be cured by either cupping and/or acupuncture, but they both remain among the most effective and safe ways to treat the resulting pain and inflammation. Cupping can help improve your quality of life and get you moving freely again.

How Acupuncture Can Help Those With Lupus

Though it is notoriously very difficult to properly diagnose, over 1.5 million people in the United States suffer from lupus, an auto-immune disorder which causes the body’s immune system to attack normal, healthy tissue. The result? Unpredictable bouts of painful Inflammation, swelling, and eventual causing of damage to the joints, skin, kidneys, blood, heart, and lungs.

Lupus predominantly occurs in women, and mostly women of color—unfortunately, it is a disorder that many people don’t know that they have. And when they do have it, treatment options are limited to improving quality of life through managing symptoms, pain and discomfort.

“"Awareness of lupus in Chinese medicine goes back at least to the Qing Dynasty, according to traditional texts,” according to Pacific College. “The knowledge gained during that period points to a blood-based heat toxin that, when aggravated by summertime heat or sunlight, results in the distinctive red patches associated with the disease.”

Acupuncture does not cure lupus, but we do know that acupuncture addresses the root causes of disease and disorder in the body by balancing the body’s yin and yang. That makes acupuncture, along with herbal treatments, a uniquely effective treatment for the many problems caused by lupus.

Due to the yin-yang imbalance, sufferers of lupus experience everything from aches, intolerance to cold temperatures, loss of appetite, swelling, pain in the joints, and numbness in the arms and legs. Acupuncture and herbal treatments can be specifically tailored to restoring the ying-yang balance, helping specifically with those various symptoms.

Nearly 1 in 250 people have or will develop lupus in their lifetimes. If you or someone you know suffers fro m this frustrating and elusive disorder, acupuncture and traditional Chinese medical treatments might be just what you need to start restoring quality of life.

Why Acupuncture Can Help You Through The Most Wonderful (And Stressful!) Time of the Year

It seems like each year the decorations go up earlier, the sales get pushed up a bit, and the radio stations start pumping out the same 8 songs over and over again before everyone’s even ready. But now there’s no escaping it—we’re officially in the throes that is the Holiday Season.

Even for those of us whom this is the best time of the year, the holidays are never not stressful. There’s lots of running around to see family and friends, work to get done before the calendar turns over, turkeys and desserts to be made, gifts to be bought. And for some out there, the hustle and bustle of the holidays can exacerbate our anxieties and lead to high stress.

It’s as good a time of year as ever to take advantage of acupuncture’s unique ability to help the body and mind relax, reduce anxiety, and operate at its peak. Acupuncture improves myriad bodily functions, particularly the nervous system which controls so much of how our mind feels and what response it creates in the body,

“Depending on where the needles go, acupuncture can cause the nervous system to produce painkilling chemicals, jump-start the body’s natural ability to heal itself, or stimulate the part of the brain that controls emotions, including anxiety,” writes Everyday Health.

The holidays are a time that can feel very go go go, where we don’t have as much time as we normally do to ourselves to recharge and relax. Acupuncture isn’t going to make your life less busy, but by regulating the body’s energy (or qi), consistent treatments can help you make the most of the time your body and mind is supposed to be is relaxing, like when you’re sleeping.

In a personal testimonial at You Beauty, writer Avital Norman Nathman shared, “I would always have the best sleep of the week the night after my acupuncture appointment. And I would also feel lighter. My chest wouldn’t be clenched as tightly and the raw current of anxiety that seems to continuously float just beneath the surface of my skin was dissipate for a while, allowing me to experience a semblance of normalcy, if only for a little while.

This year, let the holidays the special time of year they’re supposed to be by making acupuncture a regular part of your mental, physical, and emotional wellness routine.

That Ringing In Your Ear? Acupuncture Can Help it Go Away

As we approach the time where we ring in the new year, you may have tried many things to get rid of that ring in your ear.

Wordplay aside, many people suffer from tinnitus, the hallmark of which is a constant or coming-and-going ringing or buzzing sound in one or both ears. Tinnitus can accompanied by hearing loss or it can be standalone, and can also be a sign of other health issues. It’s important to consult a doctor about the ringing or buzzing in your ears.

But regardless of whether or not your tinnitus is part of a larger problem or not, it can be an incredibly frustrating thing to deal with. Tinnitus isn’t white noise—you don’t simply get used to it. And always struggling to hear what others are saying because of the constant noise in your head can negatively affect your quality of life.

Targeted acupuncture helps by releasing serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins in the central nervous system, as well as changing the blood flow in the different parts of the brain. Tinnitus has always been very difficult to treat—but then again, not many people think to seek out acupuncture treatment for it. Acupuncture won’t necessarily cure one’s tinnitus, but studies have shown that its benefits can greatly reduce the volume and severity of the noise, and also help patients improve their sleep and stress levels that so often are negatively impacted by the constant noise.

Tinnitus affects nearly 12 million people in the US each year. And many people go on living through its worst effects without knowing that acupuncture can help. If you or someone you know suffers from tinnitus, acupuncture is here to help lower the beeping and buzzing and improve your quality of life.

Study Shows Benefits of Acupuncture Versus Drug Treatments

If you’re familiar with our blog, you know that we cover acupuncture’s many benefits and recent studies that show its effectiveness for treating a wide variety of conditions, diseases and discomforts. One of the common themes that pop up across much of our coverage is that acupuncture is a holistic remedy—not only does it use the body’s natural pain-relief and healing possibilities, but it doesn’t come with any major side effects.

We recognize that many times medication is necessary or is the preferred method of treating a disorder by some patients. Any many medications are indeed effective at their designed treatment. But too often medications are effective at one thing at the expense of the rest of our body’s health. And now a recent study illuminates the difference between acupuncture and medication for the treatment of a specific disorder, and how acupuncture is able to help out without sacrificing other wellbeing.

Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang Traditional Chinese Medicine University recently conducted a study comparing the effect of acupuncture and herbs versus medication for treating Restless Leg Syndrome. The disorder, which brings about an irresistible urge to move the legs due to an uncomfortable sensation, affects about 3 million people in the US a year; unfortunately there is no cure for it.

Many people who suffer from RLS are prescribed gabapentin, which is a nerve pain and anti-convulsant medication. The study compared what patients experienced when taking gabapentin versus receiving treatment of acupuncture plus herbs. The study concluded that both methods of treatment worked about equally as well in terms of reducing the severity of their RLS and improving their sleep. The difference, however, was in the cost of that improvement.

Nearly 40% of the group that took the gabapentin experienced major side effects, including nausea, vomiting, dizziness, and drowsiness. The acupuncture group? No such side effects.

This is true of many instances where people default to taking pharmaceutical medications. As always, please consult a medical professional on the proper treatment plan for you. But acupuncture is here to help your body heal without the cost associated with taking many medications.

Acupuncture Shown To Improve Bladder Function For Diabetics

Diabetes, which results in too much sugar in our blood, affects millions of people across the country and is one of the more well-covered diseases. But one of the more lesser-known side effects of diabetes is also it’s most frustrating, painful, life-changing, and difficult to treat.

One of the results of having too much sugar in the blood is a negative effect on our nerve fibers. Damaged nerve fibers can cause a number of problems in the body, including bladder issues. Damaged nerve fibers in the bladder can lead to either going too frequently or not feeling the urge to go often enough, the inability to fully void the bladder, leaking, loss of bladder control, and more.

Not only are these issues painful and difficult to deal with, they can great affect one’s quality of life.

While there are medications that can be taken that are designed to help restore the bladder’s functionality, research shows that the safest, most natural treatment for diabetes-driven bladder issues is acupuncture. Jiaozuo Hospital in Henan, China conducted a study which broke a group of patients into two groups, one who received acupuncture plus a B-12 vitamin supplement, and those who received only the supplement. The results clearly showed that acupuncture helped the patients: urinary frequency dipped, while urinary output rose. “Participants in the acupuncture group experienced significantly greater improvements across all measures of bladder function.,” the study concluded.

Among the acupuncture points that were administered to the patients were CV6, located on the abdomen and a key point for many digestive system and diseases of the intestines, as well as CV4, which affects chronic diseases and is a key area because it is a crossing point for the Liver, Kidney and Spleen channels.

Living with diabetes can be difficult, and adding bladder issues on top of it can be very frustrating. Anyone with bladder issues—diabetic or not—should consider acupuncture as a healthy, holistic treatment option.

Kansas City Hospital Using Acupuncture To Help Kids In the ER

The Emergency Room is a stressful place to be. The uncertainty of not knowing what’s next, and the close proximity to others in distress and pain—not to mention the pain or discomfort that brought one there in the first place—add up to create an environment in which it can be difficult to relax.

We have previously covered how acupuncture is being used in emergency rooms across the country, and why its use should become commonplace. Particularly, now that we know more about the addictive and destructive powers of opioid pain medication, it is high time that caretakers use alternative methods of reducing pain, inflammation, and discomfort.

And if we know that treatments like acupuncture are not only effective but much, much safer than taking high-powered medication, wouldn’t we want to do the same for our children if, unfortunately, they found themselves in the ER?

Thankfully, Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri appears to be on the forefront, showing how acupuncture can be used to ease pain and reduce stress for youngsters who are being treated in the hospital.

The hospital is beginning by offering children, usually aged 10 and up into the teens, a few types of acupuncture treatments—Battlefield Acupuncture, which consists of small insertions in the ear that can stay inserted for a few days, as well as “4 Gates” acupuncture which inserts a needle in each hand and foot for a period of about 20-30 minutes. Both can be effective at reducing pain and inflammation, and helping relax the body and mind and thus lowering stress.

“Parents want what’s best for their kids, and sometimes that might not always be a pill. Acupuncture is a safe and effective treatment for pain. It’s well tolerated by most children and teenagers,” said pediatrician Dr. Jennifer Dilts to KCTV News.

And acupuncture’s benefits for children don’t only exist in a hospital. Many pains or discomfort children are experiencing can be treated safely and effectively with acupuncture. Don’t make the mistake of thinking acupuncture is only for adults.