Chinese Medicine Archives - Acupuncture in the Park

Energy Crisis

Do you struggle with fatigue? If so, you’re not alone. In a study conducted by Virgin Pulse, over 75 percent of employees admitted that they show up at work tired. So much so, that sleepy workers cost companies over $400 billion each year from costly mistakes and accidents.

Whether you’re working, a stay at home parent, or retired, fatigue that lasts more than a couple of weeks is your body’s way of letting your know something’s up. What’s going on is that your energy, or Qi, is depleted. And fatigue can manifest in a number of ways; you may wake up after a good night’s sleep still feeling tired, you may poop out as the day goes on, be too tired for exercise or other activities, or feel completely exhausted after eating a meal.

In Chinese medicine, fatigue is actually called a Qi Depletion, and there are a number of reasons that it may be happening:

-Lack of sleep. This may seem obvious, but you need at least seven hours a night. Regularly getting much less than that, and you’re going to feel tired.

-Long-term stress, emotional upset, or depression. Poor mental health can be exhausting. In Chinese medicine, chronic stress or depression causes your energy to become to become diverted, making it inaccessible to your body and unable to support your health.

-Your diet. Your energy is made primarily from the food you eat. When you eat good food, your body has the ingredients—the building blocks—it needs to produce energy. However, if you’re getting your meals from the drive through window or a box of food that’s been chemically engineered to last decades, your energy is going to suffer.

-How you digest your food. The reality is that even when you eat really nutritious food, if you’re digestion is funky, your energy is still likely to suffer. Digestive problems, such as stomachaches, gas, bloating, diarrhea, or constipation are all a sign that your digestion may not be ideal.

-Medical issues. There are a number of health conditions that can affect your energy levels. A thyroid imbalance, infections, anemia, heart disease, and diabetes are all examples of problems that can tank your energy.

-Lack of exercise. While this may feel counter intuitive if you’re already feeling fatigued, most people report feeling energized after as little as ten or fifteen minutes of activity. You don’t have to run a marathon; taking a walk or working in the garden qualify as exercise.

-Pain. Similar to being chronically stressed or depressed, being in chronic pain also blocks your energy, making it unavailable to power the rest of your body.

-Loss of blood. A recent surgery, labor and delivery, heavy menstrual periods, trauma, and even a very large bruise all represent a significant loss of blood. Decreased blood volume translates into diminished nutrients, as well as hemoglobin, which carries oxygen throughout your body.

-Working too hard. The Chinese have a term, overwork, which describes extremes in work. Anything from too many hours at the office to overdoing the late night cram sessions for tomorrow’s exam would qualify as overworking. The bottom line is that if you’re overdoing it, you’re depleting your energy faster than you can rebuild it, which is a recipe for exhaustion.

So what can you do if fatigue is ruling your life? You can rest, recover, and rebuild your energy through getting enough sleep. You can eat well, get a little bit of exercise (but not too much), and make a commitment to stress relief and better mental health.

However, if despite all your best efforts, you’re still exhausted, Chinese medicine may be able to offer some relief. An acupuncturist or practitioner of Chinese medicine can help uncover the source of your fatigue and create a treatment strategy unique to your specific needs. Through the use of acupuncture, combined with Chinese herbs, diet and nutrition, lifestyle counseling, and education, your practitioner can help you recover your energy.

Treating Skin Conditions with Chinese Medicine

Most of the time, skin conditions aren’t life-threatening, but they can be hard to diagnose, challenging to treat, and frustrating overall. Enter acupuncture and Chinese medicine. When it comes to skin conditions, there are many instances when Chinese medicine can be an effective treatment. Here are some things you may not know:

1) When it comes to Chinese medicine, dermatology has been around a long time. Ancient texts suggest that practitioners have been treating skin conditions with acupuncture and herbs for about 3,000 years.

2) Chinese medicine involves understanding the underlying cause of your condition and treating it systemically—and dermatology is no exception. If you seek out an acupuncturist for a skin condition, they will likely ask you about your diet, digestion, sleep patterns, and emotional health in determining a diagnosis and how best to treat you.

3) The appearance of a rash or skin condition tells your practitioner a lot about the source of your overall health. When it comes to rashes, most will be diagnosed as either heat, dampness, or wind or a combination of those. Heat rashes are red, and may be the result of overactive hormones (think acne), strong emotions, or inflammation. Damp skin conditions tend to have blisters or look weepy and moist. They come from poor elimination of wastes and toxins from your body, water retention, and spending a lot of time in a humid or moist environment. Wind conditions tend to be dry, itchy, come and go, and move around from place to place on your body (like hives).

4) Very dry skin signals an overall dryness throughout your body, and isn’t necessarily related to how much water you drink. Dryness may result from not getting enough healthy fats in your diet, or something called blood depletion, in which the nourishing quality of your blood is poor and affecting your skin.

5) In Chinese medicine the health of your skin is most closely related to your Lung system, because your Lungs govern the exterior of your body. In fact, in Chinese medicine, eczema is called skin asthma because people with eczema, especially children, also tend to have or develop asthma. As a result, a treatment plan for a chronic skin condition usually means strengthening your Lungs as well.

6) Beyond acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine can also be very effective for skin conditions. While more research is needed, some studies have concluded that Chinese herbs can be a valuable treatment for conditions such as eczema and plaque psoriasis. In treating a skin condition, your acupuncturist will often combine acupuncture, oral or topical herbs, and dietary guidelines for the best results.

7) One explanation for the effectiveness of acupuncture for skin conditions is that acupuncture increases circulation and decreases inflammation in the areas where needles are placed. This decreases irritation and speeds up the healing process.

8) Acupuncture can also be used on your skin for its anti-aging effects. Cosmetic acupuncture involves specific protocols in which tiny needles are placed in your face for the purpose of increasing circulation and rebuilding collagen and elastin that decreases as you age. Collagen is the net-like structure that gives your skin its firmness, and elastin allows your skin to resume its shape after being stretched. The theory behind cosmetic acupuncture is that the needles create tiny wounds, or micro-traumas, which as they heal, bring collagen, elastin, and other nutrients to the area.

The bottom line is that skin conditions can be perplexing and hard to treat. When it comes to dermatology, it might be time to think about Chinese medicine for that stubborn rash or skin condition.

Natural Help for Night Sweats

Night sweats can be very frustrating because they’re uncomfortable, can interrupt your sleep, and may occur several times during the course of a night. They’re described as profuse sweating while you’re sleeping or hot flashes that occur at night and that happen repeatedly. Night sweats can leave you, your nightclothes, and sheets soaking wet, and can be a major contributor to loss of sleep. A single occurrence doesn’t qualify as night sweats, nor does a room that’s too hot or sleeping with too many blankets that cause you to wake up hot.

If you’re experiencing night sweats, there are a number of reasons why this may be happening. One of the most common causes is hormonal changes that occur with the onset of menopause. However there are other conditions that can cause night sweats, and they can occur in men as well. Night sweats can also be caused by infection, illness, and the side effects of some medications. If you’re experiencing night sweats accompanied by other symptoms, such as fevers, weight loss, heart palpitations, or overwhelming fatigue, it’s time to get checked out by your doctor.

Chinese Medicine on Night Sweats

In Chinese medicine, there are also a number of reasons behind night sweats, but the most common is an imbalance between your body’s Yin and Yang. Like the Chinese character for the sunny side of the hill, Yang is warm, bright, energizing, and transformative. In your body it acts a little like a pilot light that keeps you warm and fuels metabolism, digestion, and other transformative processes. In contrast, Yin is represented by the character of the shady side of the hill. Yin is cooling, calming, moistening, and nourishing. While Yang is warming and transforming, the actual substance of all your organs, tissues, and fluids are considered to be Yin. Yin acts like a nutritious coolant in your body that balances warm and active Yang.

When Yin becomes depleted, it’s like being low on the coolant that keeps Yang’s warmth in check. As a result, Yang burns freely and can cause symptoms of heat—most notably in the form of night sweats. In addition, the heat from depleted Yin/excess of Yang occurs during the backdrop of night, which is the most cool, restorative, Yin time of day. Depleted Yin is also associated with a certain amount of dryness, and may also cause you to wake up with a dry and sore throat, have dry skin or hair, or feel thirsty.

While depleted Yin is the most frequent cause of night sweats in Chinese medicine, there are other patterns that may also cause them to occur. Blood depletion, which is a little like anemia in which the nourishing quality of your blood is low can also cause night sweats. Also, excess heat triggered by blockages can also be an underlying reason for sweating at night.

Many women experience night sweats and the resulting loss of sleep during menopause. That’s because many of the hormones that are decreasing during menopause are Yin in nature—they’re nourishing and moistening. The drop in these hormones are considered to be a drop in Yin substances, which causes the imbalance between Yin and Yang. Other factors that can cause depleted Yin include your diet, body constitution, stress, working too hard, or becoming run down.

For many people, Chinese medicine can be an effective way to treat night sweats. If you should choose to go that route, your practitioner will likely use acupuncture, but may also supplement your treatment with Chinese herbs. There are a number of formulas that contain specific herbs to nourish Yin, cool heat, and calm your spirit to ensure a better night’s sleep. Food therapy may also be a helpful strategy if you’re experiencing night sweats due to depleted Yin. Your practitioner can help you choose foods that are nourishing, moistening, and cooling in order to supplement Yin. The bottom line is that while night sweats can be uncomfortable and mess with your sleep, they can occur for a variety of reasons, and Chinese medicine can be an effective and natural way to get them under control.

Honoring Spring with Chinese Medicine

Spring is here, and Chinese medicine has a lot to say about it! I know that it seems like this past winter would never end, with the bitter cold and the endless snow. But spring is inevitable, and there are ways to embrace this season beyond moving your winter clothes out of the closet. Embracing the personality of each season is a path to physical and mental health, as well as balance. Here are a few things to know about this amazing time of year:

-The nature of spring is that of expansiveness. The days become warmer, the sun is shining longer, and it compels to go outdoors. Gone are the dark winter days of hunkering down beside the fireplace; spring lures you outdoors. Like a seed that’s been planted in the dark earth that moves upward toward the sun, you are also coming alive from long months of cold and inactivity and being drawn out by the light. The theme for spring is growth; it’s a great time to start something new!

-Spring is also a time of going from inertia to movement. You’ve been pinned down indoors by the cold days of winter, but the weather is calling for you to come outdoors and play. Take a walk, get on your bike, or take a hike in a nearby park.

-It’s incredibly healthy for you to watch nature’s shift from frozen to green. Marking the return of the red-winged blackbirds, watching the trees bud, and finding tiny wildflowers poking up through the ground all put you in touch with nature, and that’s a good thing for your health. Spending time in nature or walking in the woods can lower your blood pressure, decrease your stress, and improve your immunity. There’s a great deal of research that has documented these effects. Being out in nature is calming and puts you in touch with something larger than yourself.

-Spring is associated with the element of wood—not only the hardwood of grown trees, but also the small shoots of plants sprouting up through the earth. Hardwood trees are strong but flexible. If one becomes dry, brittle, or rigid, it will bend and break. Also, while wood seems to be stationary, it is actually in a state of constant flow and growth. Sap is flowing, plants are growing, flowers are blooming, and trees are bearing fruit. Likewise, in Chinese medicine maintaining flow, flexibility, and the ability to take changes in stride all help you maintain your physical and emotional health.

-Not surprisingly, the color associated with wood and the season of spring is green. In Chinese food therapy, eating foods that are local and seasonal are also a pathway to good health, and this time of year, they’re green. This means that eating sprouts, shoots, baby greens, and lettuces that are the first vegetables ready to harvest are a good way to honor both your health and the season.

-Where growth and expansion and the color green come together is in your garden. Whether you grow vegetables in a garden plot or pots of vegetables and flowers out your back door, now is the time to think about getting some plants into the soil. From ideas and planning to harvesting vegetables or cutting flowers, gardening is another manifestation on the spring’s theme of expansiveness and growth.

-I think about spring as a time of new starts, activity, going outside, and getting in touch with nature. It’s a time to get your internal sap flowing, welcoming change, and broadening your ideas. Spring is a reminder that we’re all a part of nature, and embracing nature is good for your health.

Secrets to Aging Well

I know a number of patients, friends, neighbors, and parents who have lived a long time; some well into their nineties. Many are healthy, engaged, and vibrant, while others are struggling with mobility, cognitive issues, or ill-health. I have always wondered why some people seem to remain healthy and functional even as they approach 100, while others don’t. Certainly, I want to live a long life, but with it I want to be able to enjoy a level of cognitive awareness and activity. So is there a secret to healthy longevity, and if so, what is it?

In the framework of Chinese medicine there are a number of factors that contribute to how you age, but one of the most important is the idea of Essence. Believed to be one of your body’s vital substances, Essence is a little like your body constitution and DNA all wrapped into one. You’re born with something called Pre-Natal Essence, which like DNA, is passed down to you from your ancestors. It determines how healthy you will be during your lifetime, as well as how you grow, mature, your fertility, and how quickly and healthfully you will age. As you get older, this kind of Essence becomes depleted, and when it’s completely used up, your life is over.

That’s not the end of the story, however. There’s a second kind of Essence called Post-Natal Essence, which can augment the Pre-Natal Essence that you were born with. The strength of this second kind of Essence is determined by what you do during your lifetime to support your health. It sounds a little confusing, but simply put the Pre-Natal Essence you were born with gets depleted over the course of your life, but Post-Natal Essence can safeguard it, effectively extending your life and protecting your health. Kind of like a Post-Natal checking account to preserve your Pre-Natal savings.

The key to guarding your Essence in order to extend your healthy lifespan is through living well and healthfully. This translates into eating good food, balancing work with rest, moderate sexual practices, keeping stress and strong emotions under control, and living moderately in general. Overwhelming stress, working exceedingly long hours, partying too hard, and eating too often from the drive-through window only serve to deplete your Essence.

While I have learned from studying Chinese medicine that moderation is key to aging well, I try to learn from the healthy older folks I know to find out if there actually is a secret—a trait or habit—they all have in common that can account for their vibrancy, even as some approach the century mark. While it seems that there is no magic secret, spending time with these elders point to a number of factors that are in play:

-Their spirit is strong. In Chinese medicine there is a saying that if the spirit is strong in a sick patient they are likely to survive. If their spirit is weak, even if the illness isn’t serious the prognosis is poor. The healthy older folks I know have a sparkle in their eyes showing that their spirit is strong, they’re present, and engaged.

-A sense of humor is important. In speaking with older people, the ability to laugh, not take themselves very seriously, and being able to poke fun at life’s absurdities are a key to good mental health and healthy emotions. Stress and strong negative emotions can impact your health in a number of ways from decreased immunity to poor digestion. In contrast, a positive mental outlook is actually protective when it comes to your health and longevity.

-All of the healthy oldsters that I know are engaged with other people. They spend time with family members and mutual acquaintances, and many continue to volunteer in their community. Most are happy to stop, talk, share a few stories, and connect. In Chinese medicine, this engagement and connectedness speaks to a strong Heart—the source of Shen, the spirit, and emotions. This willingness to engage only enhances mental and physical health.

-Staying active is also a key to longevity. The saying “Use it or lose it” is even more applicable when it comes to aging. Whether they’re taking daily walks, attending an exercise program, or just covering some ground with the use of a walker, active older people stay functional because they just don’t quit moving.

-Most people in their eighth or ninth decade will tell you that there is no secret to aging well. They don’t necessarily do anything to extend their lifespan. They don’t have special diets, miracle foods, wonder supplements, or a special exercise regimen. They just live their life and 85, 90, or even 100 just seems to happen.

While I realize living healthfully into old age is a crap shoot for each of us, I believe that there are factors that can increase your chances. If you stop and spend some time with healthy older folks, you will find that they live moderately, keep their sense of humor, keep moving, and don’t worry too much about the fountain of youth.

Acupuncture, Cold Weather, and Your Health

It’s winter in Minnesota, and let’s face it, the sub-zero temperatures are getting old. We’ve had enough of wearing layers, trying to heal cracked fingertips, wearing earmuffs, and hunkering down.

Don’t get me wrong—I love winter. I can appreciate the beauty of the first snowfall, tramping through the winter woods on snowshoes, and actually needing hot chocolate to warm up. It’s just that it’s so…cold. In the southern climes, you don’t have words in your vocabulary like wind chill, subzero, black ice, and polar vortex, so you can’t quite relate.

In Chinese medicine, cold has an additional meaning, as it’s considered to be a pathogen—a way to describe an illness or a pattern of disharmony. You can be cold, damp, hot, or windy—any of which are a bit like bad weather in your body. However, cold is a pathogen that doesn’t get much airtime.

There are a number of different ways cold can show up in your body. You can have external cold, which is the stuff of colds and flu. It begins with a light fever (or none at all) and lots of chills, aches and pains, and upper respiratory symptoms. It’s considered to be an external problem, because in most cases your body shrugs it off fairly quickly. Treating external cold in Chinese medicine involves acupuncture and herbs that relieve your symptoms, strengthen your immunity, and help you fight off the virus or bacteria at hand.

Internal cold is a different story. Your body has something akin to an internal pilot light, which we practitioners call Yang. It keeps your body warm, fuels digestive fire, and keeps your metabolism running smoothly. When you have an imbalance described as Yang depletion, you’re likely to feel cold to your core that no amount of warm clothing can change. You may retain water, have problems with your digestion, struggle with an underactive thyroid, and feel sluggish or tired most of the time.

There are a number of reasons why your Yang pilot light can become diminished. Becoming run down, burning the candle at both ends, stress, eating foods that make your body cold, and even stress can play a role in chronic Yang-depleted cold.

Treating a pattern of internal cold is a significant undertaking and takes more time than dealing with an external pattern of the flu or an upper respiratory infection. If your Yang has become depleted, treatment would likely involve a combination of acupuncture, warming herbs, food therapy, and even warming your body from the outside. It takes longer to treat, because in most cases your pattern of internal cold was a long time in the making

A third kind of cold pathogen in Chinese medicine is called a cold strike. This is when cold affects your body directly in the form of muscle pain, muscle cramps, joint pain, or even a hernia. I experienced a cold strike several years ago when I was on a kayaking trip. Sitting in a wet kayak for hours on end caused a muscle in my butt to seize up to the point that I couldn’t walk. It took several weeks of acupuncture and physical therapy to recover.

Cold strike usually comes from being out in the cold, and often manifests as a spastic muscle or a very cold and achy joint. Think about it: cold causes everything to contract, including your muscles and joints. Treatment for cold strike is pretty straight-forward and involves a combination of acupuncture and heat.

In Chinese medicine, we practitioners are big fans of keeping warm. If you run cold, there are a number of things you can do at home to help stoke your internal pilot light. Among them:

-Warm your core from the outside. You can do this by using a heating pad, hot water bottle, or heated rice bag applied to the small of your back or your abdomen right below your navel. Do this for 15 or 20 minutes several times a day until your body begins to feel warmer.

-Add some warming herbs to your meals. Ginger, garlic, mustard, cayenne, pepper, and cinnamon are easy to add to your diet and are very warming in nature.

-If you have muscle or joint pain that is worse with the cold weather, applying heat can help relieve the pain and loosen it up.

-Dress appropriately when you’re spending time outdoors in the cold (and the wind). Cover your head and ears, and wear a jacket that is long enough to cover your lower back and butt.

-And finally, if you are constantly cold to your core, struggle with pain that’s worse in the cold, or seem to catch every cold or flu that’s going around, enlist the help of a practitioner of Chinese medicine. They have a number of tools that can help warm you up and strengthen your immunity.

Work, Rest, and Chinese Medicine

Is it possible to work so hard that it affects your health? According to Chinese medicine, it definitely is. When I was in graduate school studying acupuncture and Chinese medicine, I spent my days in class, came home and took care of my family, and then studied late into the evening. When I finished school, it took me several months to recover my physical and mental energy to the point where I could actually open and maintain an acupuncture practice. The bottom line is that I was working too much and not resting enough.

This balance between work and rest is simple to understand but often tricky to navigate. When you work or exercise you are using energy; when you’re resting you are restoring it. Using too much energy is depleting, and over many months or even years this depletion can dramatically affect your health. In Chinese medicine, this kind of depletion is called overwork, and is considered to be a common cause of symptoms and ill health. There are a couple of different kinds of overwork:

-Physical overwork in the form of manual labor is often what springs to mind when we talk about working too hard. Physical overwork depletes your Chinese Spleen, which is responsible for generating new energy in the form of Qi. In addition, it can damage your muscles, tendons, and the nourishing quality of your blood—something akin to anemia. It is also possible to overwork one part of your body, such as your lower back when you’re doing a lot of gardening or your arms is you’re painting.

-Mental overwork comes from long hours of studying, analytical work, or intense concentration. It’s usually compounded by stress, poor nutrition, and meals eaten on the run. Mental overwork depletes your energy and affects your entire body.

-Over exercising or over training also depletes your energy, and can cause symptoms such as fatigue, sleeplessness, irritability, and injuries. Over exercise in adolescent girls may also cause a delay or absence of menses. Similar to physical overwork, it is possible to over exercise one part of your body, causing stagnation, inflammation, and injury to that part. A few examples are knee and hip injuries in long distance runners, low back pain from weight lifting, and wrist or elbow problems in tennis players. A good choice of activity if you are depleted is Yoga or Tai Qi, which are gentle and don’t further damage your energy.

-Not enough exercise. No discussion on the balance between work and rest is complete without mentioning damage to your body from under exercising. While physical work and exercise use up your energy, it also enhances your circulation and keeps your internal organs healthy, especially your lungs and heart. Lack of exercise can be a source of poor circulation, stagnation, weight gain, and dampness.

The concept that work uses energy and rest restores it is simple. However putting it into practice in a way that enhances your health can be a little more complicated. Some work is good, but too much can impair your health. Rest is restorative, but too much also can negatively impact your health. Finding the right balance means working an appropriate amount, getting some exercise, getting adequate sleep and eating well in order to replenish your energy.

Can Acupuncture Treat My Gout?

People who suffer from Gout will tell you that the pain is like nothing they have ever experienced. It often wakes you up in the middle of the night, slowly getting more and more painful, until even the weight of the bed covers feel like torture. While many people think of Gout as a sore big toe, it can be excruciating, limit your mobility, and affect the quality of your life.

Long ago, Gout was considered to be the disease of kings, because it is associated with a diet of rich and fatty foods. Far more men than women suffer from Gout, and one of the most common sites to be affected is the base of your big toe. That said, women also get Gout, and any joint in your body can be affected.

The cause of Gout is a buildup of uric acid crystals, which your body is struggling to eliminate. Uric acid is a metabolite of purine, a chemical found in high concentrations in rich foods like organ meats, oily fish, shellfish, yeast and beer. Interestingly, purines found in plant-based foods don’t tend to build up and cause Gout as commonly as animal based foods.

Some people are more prone to developing Gout than others. Risk factors for this painful condition include having a family history of Gout, being overweight, being over the age of 45, and having other health conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, or renal disease. In Western biomedicine, the first line of treatment for Gout is dealing with the pain through the use of NSAID’s such as ibuprofen. However, if you suffer from frequent attacks of Gout, there are other medications available to help stabilize the levels of uric acid in your body.

In Chinese medicine, Gout is diagnosed as a Bi Syndrome, which means that there is an obstruction of some kind causing your pain and swelling. In most cases, Gout is an obstruction caused by a combination of dampness, heat, and wind. While this may sound like bad weather, heat, dampness, and wind actually describe Gout well. Most cases of Gout present with a warm, swollen, and painful joint. The warmth accounts for the diagnosis of heat. When there is swelling, it’s caused by a build-up of fluid in the area—called dampness in Chinese medicine. Gout is also characterized flares and remissions, and may move from one joint to another, which is a characteristic of wind.

While most cases of Gout are warm and damp, in some instances patients experience a pattern of wind, cold, and damp. In these cases, their symptoms are aggravated by the cold and damp weather.

The source of Gout in Chinese medicine comes from your digestion, or what we would call an imbalance in your Stomach and Spleen. Poor digestion can be a cause of Gout, but in most cases the cause is overeating the wrong foods. Rich, fatty, sweets, fast foods, and alcohol are all offenders when it comes to Gout.

As a practitioner of Chinese medicine, my plan for treating gout, especially during a flare would be to use acupuncture to move the blockage, enhance circulation in the area, and relieve the pain. However, between episodes of Gout, my strategy is to work on resolving the underlying cause by combining acupuncture with Chinese herbs, and dietary changes to address the source of your Gout and prevent any further flare ups.

If you struggle with Gout, there are a few things that you can do for yourself to help prevent future episodes, including:

-Stay hydrated, as it helps flush the uric acid out of your system.

-Avoid alcohol. Not only does it make you dehydrated, but it also aggravates your Gout.

-Educate yourself on which foods contain high levels of purines, and do your best to avoid eating those foods in large quantities.

-Avoid rich and fatty foods.

-Stay clear of high fructose corn syrup.

-Some people report that drinking tart cherry juice daily helps to keep Gout symptoms under control. It’s worth a try to see if it works for you.

Treating Asthma with Chinese Medicine

Over thirty years ago I moved to Minnesota from Hawaii. My husband and I had spent a couple of years in the islands swimming in the ocean, biking endlessly, running in the humidity, and spending Saturday afternoons sitting on the beach near our house.

Needless to say, moving to Minnesota was a shock on so many levels, but I was determined at the very least to continue running throughout the winter. In those early years, my lowest temperature limit was fifteen below. I would bundle up, cover my face and go run a couple of miles. Somehow it made me feel a little self-righteous and invincible to be running outdoors when it was so cold.

A couple of years into my cold weather running craziness, I began to struggle with shortness of breath. Whenever I was physically active, regardless of the temperature outside, I felt like I had an elephant sitting on my chest. To make a long story short I had developed exercise-induced asthma. It was my body’s way of telling me to lighten up on my lungs and ditch the icy workouts.

About 25 million people in the US have asthma, or about eight percent of the population. Symptoms can range from mild to severe, with about half of sufferers experiencing an asthma attack in the past year. Asthma may present as shortness of breath, coughing, or wheezing. However, during an attack, the muscles surrounding the airways tighten (bronchospasm) and breathing becomes difficult. For some, an asthma attack can be severe enough to be life threatening. Treatments for asthma from a Western biomedical perspective include rescue inhalers for acute attacks, and long term medications, such as inhaled steroids, beta agonists, and leukotriene modifiers.

In Chinese medicine, the cause of asthma is something called “enduring phlegm”, which means that there is always an element of phlegm obstructing the lungs in people who have asthma. However, digging a little deeper, the underlying cause of any kind of phlegm in your body comes from issues with poor water metabolism.

In simple terms, water is metabolized at three levels in your body. In your Lungs, water is processed through respiration. If you breathe onto a mirror, you will see that the moisture from your lungs will make the mirror mist up. At the mid-level, your Chinese Spleen is responsible for metabolizing water through the digestive process. And at the lower level your Kidneys are responsible for the balance of fluids in your body, but also for elimination of water that’s not needed.

An imbalance in any of these three organ systems can lead to a buildup of water, which over time stagnates and thickens and becomes phlegm. The most common culprit is poor diet or digestion, in which eating too many rich foods, sweets, or dairy foods can bog down your digestion, to the point of generating phlegm.

Because problems with water metabolism can come from your Lungs, Spleen, or Kidneys, there are a number of patterns in Chinese medicine describing the source of your asthma. For example, you can have a Lung depletion, phlegm and heat in your Lungs, internal cold, a Spleen depletion (poor digestion), or a Kidney depletion. In addition, the pattern describing your asthma may change dramatically during an acute attack compared to when your asthma symptoms are relatively calm.

There are a number of triggers for your asthma symptoms, again depending on the underlying cause of your asthma. One of the most common triggers is inhaling cold air or being in the cold, and less frequently breathing warm, humid air. In addition, changes in the weather, pollen, smoke, and pollution may also act as triggers for asthma attacks. Internal factors that can trigger symptoms include having a cold or the flu and even stress.

Treatment for asthma in Chinese medicine involves determining the source of the problem. Where is there a water metabolism problem? What are your triggers for an asthma attack? What is your overall body constitution like? Your practitioner would incorporate acupuncture and most likely a Chinese herbal formula to treat your asthma. However, if you are having an acute attack with difficulty breathing, it’s imperative that you are under the care of a Western doctor, too. Chinese medicine can be a powerful tool in treating chronic asthma, preventing attacks and bringing your water metabolism back into balance, but Chinese medicine and Western medicine are not mutually exclusive when it comes to treating asthma.

Looking back, I realize that my running in the very cold weather was irritating to the point of disrupting the water metabolism in my Lungs. However, my asthma story has a happy ending. First, I quit running when it was so cold out. My lower limit today is about ten degrees above zero, and even then my face is covered. I also had to use a rescue inhaler for a year or two when it became difficult for me to breathe. I also incorporated some acupuncture, Chinese herbs, and breathing exercises into the healing process. Today, I don’t think about asthma and haven’t had that elephant sitting on my chest in years.

When to Use Acupuncture and When to Go to Your Doctor

When it comes to trying acupuncture, either for the first time or for treating a new condition, patients are faced with a number of questions and concerns. In the past, alternative healing came with stereotypes, and even today some of my patients are surprised to find us in a clinic—they were expecting incense, beaded curtains, mood rings and earth shoes. The reality, however, is that more and more patients are receiving acupuncture for a variety of illnesses and health conditions, many patients are referred to acupuncture by their doctors, and many US hospitals offer acupuncture to their patients.

Despite the increased acceptance of acupuncture and Chinese medicine throughout the US, many patients are still stymied as to when it’s appropriate to go the acupuncture route and when they should be checking things out with their doctor. While there’s no simple answer, here are a few considerations:

-Is acupuncture an effective treatment for your condition? Hundreds of years ago, Chinese medicine was the only healing game in town—at least in China. Therefore it was used to treat everything, whether it was effective or not. Today, there are literally thousands of research studies exploring the effectiveness of acupuncture for various health conditions. My advice: Do some homework. A good place to start is with the World Health Organization, (WHO). They have an updated list on health conditions that, based on the research, acupuncture can effectively treat. Also, spend some time checking out the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), which is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). There’s plenty of information out there, and it’s worth your time to check it out.

-Understand that Chinese medicine and Western medicine aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, while acupuncture used to be called alternative medicine, it is now more appropriately called complementary or integrative medicine, because it can be used in tandem with Western medical treatments.

-Do you need a referral from your doctor to try acupuncture? Not really, but some people feel better checking in with their doc before trying a new therapy. That said, there are many doctors who will wholeheartedly recommend acupuncture (remember it’s now offered in many hospitals) and others who may not. Their decision may depend on their own exposure to acupuncture and Chinese medicine.

-Be sure to check your practitioner’s cred. There are many chiropractors, physical therapists, and other practitioners who offer acupuncture as an aside. They may be fabulous at what they are trained to do, but frequently that don’t have adequate training in acupuncture; some with only about 30 hours of training before they start needling patients. Licensed acupuncturists have about 3,000 hours of training, with over 600 of those hours spent hands-on in a teaching clinic. In addition, beware of terms like “certified acupuncturist” and “dry needling”, which are ways of getting around the fact that a practitioner is not licensed (by their State Board of Medical Examiners) in acupuncture and Chinese medicine. When it comes to acupuncture or any kind of needling, it’s really important to ask about the practitioner’s training.

-If you are taking prescription medications and are thinking about adding an herbal formula to your treatment plan, be sure to ask about herb/drug interactions. While there is a body of information about herb/drug interactions, there is still a lot to be known. As a practitioner, my rule of thumb is that if you are taking a number of prescription medications, I would forego the herbs. In addition, I tend to prescribe herbs for a limited amount of time.

-When to go the acupuncture route: Many people turn to acupuncture to treat conditions in which Western medicine has not been helpful, such as chronic pain, digestive problems, fatigue, and fibromyalgia. In addition, many patients turn to acupuncture because they want to avoid taking a prescription medication for the long term. In this instance, acupuncture can be helpful in treating such conditions as depression, anxiety, heartburn, allergies, and insomnia.

-Some things are non-negotiable. If you have any kind of heart condition, a broken bone or joint dislocation, acute abdominal pain, a systemic infection, persistent bleeding, sudden weight loss, or undiagnosed neurological issues, get yourself to a doctor, because if you show up in my office with any of those things, that’s where I’m sending you. If you’ve already been checked out by your doc, then we’re good to go.

While it can be a little complicated to know when acupuncture is a good choice and when you should go the Western medical route, keep a few things in mind. First, if it’s serious or you’re unsure, get it checked out. Second, do a little homework; and third, don’t be afraid to ask a lot of questions.

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Chinese Medicine on Night Sweats

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