It is fascinating to learn how the medical system in ancient China operated. It is so vastly opposite from our current system, where doctor’s compensation increases directly proportional to how sick the population is, that I think just understanding the difference can help us gain a perspective that might help us to improve our health.

Many acupuncture books tell the story of how, before modern times, doctors (acupuncturists and herbalists) were paid to keep their patients well.  In other words, if a patient got sick while under a doctor’s care, the doctor would have to treat them for free until they recovered. The theory was, that using pulse and tongue diagnosis, if the doctor had been practicing their skill well, they should have been able to diagnose chronic problems long before they occurred, and reverse the imbalance before it turned into symptoms.  (I’m guessing this probably did not include common colds and infections, which would often sweep through as epidemics beyond anyone’s control).

I even read recently in another medical text that the more of a reputation a doctor had for their patients staying well, the higher their salary was.  In other words, people wanted to be under the care of the most popular doctors–those with the reputation for their patients not having medical problems–so they were willing to pay more money to be their patients.

Imagine the implications of this! There are some things about this that are amazing to consider, and I will point out a few.

1) Medicine must have been seen enormously as preventative, rather than curative: The general population must have at all times been under the ongoing care of a doctor, regularly getting nutrition advice, acupuncture, and taking herbs based on whatever their pulse and tongue diagnosis revealed. This means patients understood that if you keep yourself well and balanced in the first place, you should not have ailments.

2) This gave huge incentive for doctors to educate their patients on the number one causes of illness and dis-ease, so that they wouldn’t get sick: In fact, in many of our “Classics” of Chinese medicine, which were written by the most famous doctors in the history of the medicine, one can often see it written that in order to keep or restore health, you should use dietetics first before attempting the use of any other treatment modality.  So they understood that if a patient is eating the right foods to maintain balance, medicines should be often unnecessary. THINK OF THIS! Can you imagine if, when you went to the doctor, rather than handing you a pharmaceutical prescription, they handed you specific food prescriptions that you were to go home and ingest over the next few weeks, to restore wellness in your body?

3)  Medicine must not have been about making money off of society’s suffering: Modern medicine admits that the number one cause of chronic illness is lifestyle, and namely related to food.  And yet MDs are still not required to take even one nutrition course.  Does anyone else feel like they entered the Twilight Zone? Hmmmm….  Perhaps this has something tiny to do with the fact that if patients start eating well, they’ll need less meds and tests, meaning, less money for all the companies marketing these products and dictating what is taught as orthodoxy in medical schools…something tiny?  Maybe. 

4)  Patients must have understood their own role in their wellness: Now I don’t know exactly how the system was set up, but I would imagine that patients understood that if they did not follow the recommendations necessary for staying well, that they would be…un-well. But, I also know that it was much easier to follow the recommendations before modern times.  Today, we are inundated with junk and stress everywhere we go…housewives cooking nutritious foods at home are virtually a thing of the past; and yet, our need for someone at home providing those stabilizing, health producing foods, did not go away just because housewives did.

I recently hired a “kitchen angel”…she’s a young college nutrition student who just loves to cook, and she comes in once per week for a couple hours and whips through as many of the planned recipes that I’ve put out for her. Now I LOVE to cook, and even I need support with eating well due to time issues.  But it’s easy to rationalize “I can’t afford to eat healthy!”, yet somehow, we manage to afford the copays for doctors visits and prescriptions…visits that in many cases we would not need if we had invested that money upfront for real food.  But it’s just not how we see things nowadays…today we take is as a given that we need to allot enormous sums towards medical bills…we do not reverse the logic and see that we can invest a fraction of that in vibrant, real (and yes, more expensive food), and avoid a lot of suffering and medical bills in the future.

Of course, it isn’t just food that prevents illness.  It’s exercise.  We can think of that “yoga pass” or gym membership that we “can’t afford” as health insurance also, just as much as we can our higher food bill for choosing real food over processed or poor quality. Or those bi-weekly massages that we “can’t afford” that completely de-stress us and help us sleep better, decreasing our need for sleep meds.  Maybe those Tai-Qi classes that we “don’t have time for” because we have too much work, will actually keep us so balanced that we will miss way less work due to illness or fatigue. And of course, I use Chinese medicine all the time to keep myself balanced and well, just as was done in ancient China.

So think of prevention as your own private health insurance, like they did in China. With health insurance, you pay money upfront to avoid major bills later.  With this Chinese style health insurance, you pay money upfront towards whatever you need to stay healthy in the first place.

Sounds like a great plan to me!

I usually don’t send out even quasi-political emails to my patients, because I feel in many cases it’s not appropriate.  However, the situation that is before us plays such a huge role in the issue of our health and our children’s health forever into the future that I couldn’t NOT alert you all to this, and share info on how you can make a difference.

The issue before us is the ongoing problem with Genetically Modified (GM) foods. (Or, GMO) Many countries in Europe have strictly banned them from entering, due to the irrefutable scientific evidence proving their harm to our health.  Some states in the US are pushing legislation that would require labeling of GM foods–they’re not even asking for banning, they simply want them labeled. But the biotech companies that are producing them are so threatened by labeling, because they know people don’t want them, that their lobbyists are effectively squashing any such bill for labeling. Just this week, a Connecticut bill was squashed that would allow voters to vote on mandatory labeling.  With 90% of Connecticut in favor of GM labeling, on the eve of this historic vote the governor killed the bill, after threats of the state being sued by the biotech industry. California is also trying to bringing such a bill to the vote, and being the 8th largest economy in the world, if California succeeds, that will pave the way for the rest of the country to have fair labeling.  You deserve the right to know what you’re eating, and to NOT eat GM foods if you don’t want to.

Why are people so opposed to GM foods…what’s the big deal?:

Read 65 health risks of GM foods

In the UK, the government asked one of its leading scientists, Albert Putsdai, to study the safety of GMOs. He found, that after 3 months of feeding GMO potatoes to laboratory animals, their brains shrank, their pancreases expanded, and their immunity collapsed. As a reward for Putsdai’s unfavorable findings and because of the government’s ties to the biotech industry, they fired him from his prestigious University position and his findings were never published.  In the US, when a study showed that GMO tomatoes caused stomach lesions in lab animals, the findings were hidden by Monsanto, who produces 85% of the GM foods across the globe.

Because Monsanto is doing their best to own as much of the seeds in the world as possible  by buying out small seed companies and then providing only their GM seeds to those market lines, if things continue as they are, it is not an “if” there comes a day when all our food is GM and potentially inedible and toxic, but “when”.

If they are so bad, our USDA and FDA would be banning them, right?:

• Michael Taylor, Senior Adviser to the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner on Food Safety: former Monsanto lobbyist

• Roger Beachy, Director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture: long time Monsanto collaborator : Heads an institute which was established by Monsanto and academic partners with a $70-million pledge from the corporation. It’s effectively a Monsanto front.

But I’ve heard that GM foods are identical to their non-GMO counterparts?

Of course you have…that’s because any evidence that proves otherwise is swept under the rug and prohibited from being published in journals. Monsanto has irrefutably hidden the study results that show how toxic the GM foods are, but if you look at their reports that made it to Japan before they were covered up, you see right there in their own documents.

What can I do about this now?

• Well, the best thing is to do what I’m doing…I’m on the mailing list of consumer’s organizations that are working with this issue.  They alert us to things like what just happened this week in Connecticut.  Connecticut needs to know that they’ve got our support! Many times, all it takes is the click of a petition and you’ve let your legislators not only know where you stand on this issue, but that you’re aware and you’re watching.

Get onto the Institute for Responsible Technology‘s website and sing up for their newsletter.

• Talk to the managers at your local grocery stores, whether they be health food stores or otherwise.  Tell them you are considering not shopping there if they will not take a stand on prohibiting GM foods from being sold in their stores.  Many health food stores have already publicly declared themselves non GM stores.

• Get your friends together, grab some popcorn, and watch The World According to Monsanto.

• Shop and eat as local as possible!  Frequenting your organic farmers at your local farmers market is a guaranteed way to avoid GM foods and support the sustainability and feasibility of safe, regional foods.

Now as I said, I don’t like to send out emails that can be perceived as political, because I want my office to be a comfortable place for everyone, regardless of political persuasion, to come.  However, health is EXTREMELY political because of the money involved.  And we all need to eat, regardless of which side of the spectrum we fall on.

I do hope that more and more of us will learn about this issue, so that when the day comes, and hopefully soon, that we in Colorado get to vote for GM labeling, we will know where we stand.

Common Fibromyalgia Pain Points

Last week, I wrote about the connection between random pains that we get throughout our body, and the potential connection with our liver.

This week, I will focus on fibromyalgia, which unfortunately is becoming more and more common. Fortunately though, acupuncture and Chinese medicine in general excel at treating this condition. While there is not much that western medicine can do for fibromyalgia, using acupuncture, I see complete turnarounds in the condition time and again.

But lets continue with the theme of last week and talk about what all of this has to do with the liver. If you’ve been my patient or have been receiving my emails or reading my blog for any length of time, then you’re familiar by now with the liver’s role in creating and regulating stress. This is a unique function of the liver only recognized by Chinese medicine, and when we treat it successfully and manage to balance the liver, dramatic shifts begin to occur in emotional symptoms. When we get stressed, our liver gets overwhelmed and can’t do its job of moving qi. As I said last week, stagnant qi is our definition of pain. When this goes on long enough, things get so stagnant and the function of qi movement is so impaired that certain areas of the body begin to have chronic pain, absent from any “measurable” problem (such as would show up on an Xray or MRI). This is when patients are commonly diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I don’t think I’ve ever treated a patient with fibromyalgia that did not have a concurrent emotional aspect to the issue. Typically, these are people who are also on anti-depressants or anti-anxieties, and often are people who have dealt with some kind of emotional trauma in their lives.

If we only work with the pain on a physical level, we will always be chasing symptoms, never getting to the root of the issue. Chinese medicine’s ability to look deeper, to the root of the imbalance, is the key to resolving this from the inside out. By doing a “pulse and tongue” analysis, we are able to detect if indeed the liver is out of balance, and what other organs have been affected, and start to treat the fibromyalgia from its source. The greatest thing is, when we treat the body holistically like this, not only do the physical symptoms start to resolve, but patients end up feeling emotional relief as well.

When I hear of people suffering from fibromyalgia, I always feel sad when the only option they know is western medicine…because I have never heard of anyone feeling much better with anything modern medicine has to offer for this condition. However, in my experience, I see patients getting their lives back, resuming old activities, even returning to work after years of being on disability.

If you know you have fibromyalgia or think you might, assess your emotions and see how they’re doing. If you’re constantly stressed or anxious, employing relaxation techniques to relax and balance your liver could be the best at-home remedy you could apply. Eating foods that will balance your liver, and getting exercise to move your qi, will also help your keep your qi moving.

Do you know someone with fibromyalgia who could stand a holistic approach to their healing?

Does this sound like you?

“One day my right shoulder hurts, then the next my left hip.  Then suddenly, my wrist will hurt for no reason.  I’ve had X-rays done at various times and nothing is ever ‘wrong’”.

To an acupuncturist, this is a classic case of Liver Qi Stagnation.

While western medicine doesn’t recognize the connection between pain and our liver, (or stress and the liver, for that matter) it is well documented in Chinese Medicine.

One of the most important jobs of the liver, from an acupuncture perspective, is keeping our Qi flowing smoothly. As a refresher, or for those new to my emails, our entire body is made up of Qi.  Another way of saying this which is very acceptable to modern science, is simply that our whole body is made up of molecules, which contain protons, neutrons, and electrons…in other words, energy, or Qi.  That Qi is in constant motion, and it needs to be—for when it stops flowing well, that is when we have pain.

In fact, our entire definition of pain, from an acupuncture perspective, is simply “blocked Qi”. There is a pithy expression in Chinese medicine that says “where there is pain, there is no free flow (of Qi)–where there is free flow, there is no pain”. In the case of blocked liver Qi, because there’s not something actually injured in our tissues, the pain doesn’t stay in one spot but rather moves around depending on where the Qi happens to be getting backed up in our system that day.

But what blocks our Qi, and how do we stop it from happening so we can be out of pain?!  That is the million dollar question.

Some things are unavoidable.  For example, injuries block our Qi.  And no one intentionally sets out to get an injury, so the best we can do once it happens is to try to get that energy flowing again by reducing the inflammation, bringing Qi back to the area with acupuncture and other forms of body work, etc.

But many things that block our Qi are completely avoidable…they just take some effort to prevent them.  Since our liver is the #1 organ whose job it is to keep our Qi flowing smoothly, it makes sense that keeping our liver healthy will play a huge part in avoiding aches and pains.

That begs the question: What makes our liver unhealthy?  Well, in our modern culture, stress is the number one reason that our liver gets out of balance. I’ve been writing a lot about this in my other emails recently, since we’re in the season related to the liver right now. (If you missed those, you can just check out the rest of my recent blogs) This is also the number one imbalance that I treat in my acupuncture clinic, along with many other symptoms related to the same imbalance, like migraines, IBS, menstrual irregularities, and insomnia.

Many times, by simply getting the liver to start moving Qi with acupuncture, we’re addressing all the various aches and pains through the entire body without ever having to put a needle directly into the place of pain.

When stress and emotional imbalance becomes chronic, it can turn into fibromyalgia.  Since I will write more about this next week I won’t say any more about that now, but suffice it to say: If you’ve got random pains moving around, chances are your liver needs some help with cutting your stress and working on relaxation.  For more tips on keeping your liver balanced, again, check out my blogs from the last couple months.

And for now, may you have happy livers and freely flowing Qi!

Acupuncture can Help Depression!

A research study has found that boosting the effect of acupuncture needles with small electric currents may be effective in treating depression.

In a study at the School of Chinese Medicine at the University of Hong Kong, researchers used electrical acupuncture to stimulate spots on the heads of 73 patients, all who had suffered from depression in the 7 years prior to the study.

The patients who reported being significantly happier after the study had received acupuncture with electro-stimulation 3 times per week for 3 weeks, or 9 treatments total.  The other half of the group, the placebo group, had only superficial needle insertion into their heads.

Roger Ng, a researcher from the group, which published their findings in the journal PLoS (Public Library of Science) ONE, said, “The drop (in depression scores) among the group receiving active treatment was more significant than the placebo group,”.

“When the acupoints are stimulated, some brain centers responsible for producing serotonin are stimulated,” explained Ng. An imbalance in serotonin levels is believed to be linked to depression.  However, acupuncture alone, even without electrical stimulation, has been shown to increase seratonin and the release of endorphins. This is good news for some, because not everyone is an appropriate candidate for electro-acupuncture. For example patients who are extremely depleted are often not great candidates, nor are people with electrical issues of the heart.

The scariest news about the report in the article I read was that the World Health Organization predicts that by 2020, depression will rival heart disease as the health disorder with the highest disease burden in the world.  Something is seriously wrong with that.

While I think it’s important that we look towards what the root of this is in society, in the meantime, luckily acupuncture can help!

It’s been unseasonably HOT! During warm weather like this, some days you just want to bite into a nice, cool, crisp salad. For many people though, because of Acupuncture theories about medicinal foods, I advise that they shouldn’t be eating raw foods. What to do then, when nourishing soups, stews, and casseroles are the last thing on your mind?

Enter a simple trick I discovered a couple years ago during the height of hot summer days.

Really, it was out of convenience and busyness that it came together. As an acupuncturist who knows my own Chinese medicine diagnosis, I tend to be a colder and depleted person, so I always need to eat foods to boost my qi, and nourish and warm my yang. Therefore, salads filled high with raw vegetables are not medicinal for me. But it was a hot day, I wanted something cooling, and I didn’t want to spend a lot of time in a hot kitchen. I opened my fridge, and there were some random leftovers: grilled zucchini and eggplant, roasted beet and winter squash squares, some garbanzos I’d cooked in my slow cooker. I only had a few minutes to put something together, so I put an inch of water on to boil and chopped up some kale. While that was steaming, I grabbed some spring mix, threw it on a plate, and just started piling it high with pre-cooked, but refrigerated, leftover items. In a couple minutes the kale was steamed and I threw it on the spring mix, and topped the whole thing with the grilled zucchini and eggplant, the roasted beets and winter squash, and the garbanzos. It was beautiful, with all the lovely caramelized colors from the grilling and roasting!

Before diving in I mixed the whole thing together with a little olive oil and vinegar, allowing the heat from the kale to take the cold edge off the refrigerated leftovers.  I then gobbled the whole thing down while the spring mix still had its satisfying snap.

It was the perfect meal for a hot day, and felt like I was getting a raw salad– and all the refreshing qualities that go along with that–without eating anything raw except a little spring mix.

So, the next time you know you’re going to want something that will feel fresh and snappy, but you also know you shouldn’t be eating cold and raw foods, why not pre-make a variety of roasted, grilled, and stewed food, that will make the perfect cooked topping for a cool salad over the next couple days. Just put it all in the fridge, and it’s ready to be thrown together for a quick warm weather meal.

This is perfect for all you hot menopausal women out there who love your cold food but who are depleted and shouldn’t be doing raw. Or for any of you who know that raw foods are not in your arsenal of medicinal foods.

No matter how cold some of us are, there are those days when a hot soup or stew just does not sound appealing. So now you’ve got the perfect trick for eating a huge “raw” salad without ever actually eating a huge “raw” salad!

Enjoy!

People love hating beets.

I do admit, they can go either way…if not cooked right, they have a taste that can be a little, well, bad. But I just tried a new recipe this week that has me fanatical over this humble red root. Because beets are so wonderful for nourishing your “liver blood”, and according to acupuncture and Chinese medicine theory we are in Wood season which relates to the liver, this is a perfect time to get down as many of these little spherical friends as possible.

Acupuncturists believe it is especially important for women to boost their blood, as we lose blood every month and through it, much qi and nourishment. But we can all benefit from nourishing our liver right now, so I hope you all, yes even you beet haters (I know who you are!), will take a stab at this recipe this spring.

Common symptoms of liver imbalance are:

Blurry vision and dry eyes, vertigo and dizzyness, dull complexion, night blindness, numbness of extremities,tremors, spasticity, cramps, mentrual disorders, insomnia, and anxiety.

But remember, we don’t actually have to have symptoms in order to be “blood deficient”.  The whole magic of Chinese Medicine and eating for balance is in doing and eating things that constantly nourish different aspects of our health, so that we don’t end up with symptoms later, due to imbalances that are occurring under our radar now.

Roasted Two Beet Salad

From book: Cooking Close to Home

Ingredients:

½ cup red wine vinegar

¼ cup Olive Oil

1 tsp fresh garlic, minced

1 tsp fresh lemon thyme, minced (I used dry)

1 tsp salt

4 medium beets (2 red, two orange or yellow) roasted, peeled, and cut julienne

½ cup red onion, sliced

Directions:

• Prepare dressing by whisking together the vinegar, olive oil, garlic, thyme, and salt
• In a small bowl combine the beets and onions, and pour in the dressing. Mix well.
• Eat with gusto!
• Tell your acupuncturist how amazing the recipe was and how you have become a beet convert!

“And the day came, when the risk it took to stay tight in a bud, became more painful than the risk it took to blossom”

- Anaïs Nin

Looking out my window, I see mostly still just a flat watercolor blend of dull browns and grays— for most members of the plant kingdom, dormancy is still the order of the day. But over the next several weeks, tiny buds on the trees will burst forth from glossy limbs; and sparkling fields will be jumping and buzzing with lush excitement in green!

According to the Chinese medicine, each season brings its own energy, which is essential to harness for the balance of the whole, and for our health and wellbeing. Spring is associated with the Wood Element and the Liver. It’s that tiny sapling, pushing up with all its might and against all odds through the crack in the cement. It’s the powerful trunk of the tree that uproots an entire house, or the unbreakable bamboo moving upwards through the tangle of the jungle to reach its slice of sun.  It’s the energy of the Warrior–it is single focused, goal oriented, and never takes its eye off the target. It’s about growth, forward movement, and transformation. Some argue that it is the most powerful Element of all, as it is the urge of life itself to express and come out into the world.

What’s happening in nature during the springtime? Suddenly gone is the season for inward reflection and hibernation…it is now time to get out there and stake our place in the world. Haven’t we all had a dose or two of “Spring fever”, those times when, like that little sapling, we’re just bursting to get out there, explore life, and conquer whatever stands in our way!? That, right there, is the primal nature of Wood.

The Wood Element reminds us that growth and movement are vital. Without growth, we stagnate, and with stagnation comes a host of problems. If we are stagnating in any area in life, it is precisely in the spring more than any other time that these issues come to the forefront.  If we are held back or blocked, anger soon follows. A classic example of this is the Type A person who gets extremely and easily agitated whenever their goal or path is blocked.

Along with anger, stagnant Wood energy can bring headaches, high blood pressure, pain, muscle tension, and PMS and/or irregular and painful menses in women. It can cause insomnia, depression, and lead to severe digestive issues and asthma.

To balance your Wood Element:

• Examine if there are major areas in which you are stagnating: Is there a creative project you keep meaning to start? Is there a major transition you’ve been too afraid to make? Begin taking the steps NOW to put into place all that you need to make that transition over the next few months.
• As opposed to winter when warming foods were in order, you can now start adding more cooling foods: Particularly good are mung beans and their sprouts, celery, seaweeds (kelp is very helpful for liver stagnation), lettuce, cucumber, watercress, tofu, millet, plum, chlorophyll-rich foods (superfoods like spirulina), mushrooms, rhubarb root or stem, radish, and daikon radish. Green is the color associated with Wood, so focusing on dark, leafy greens is very beneficial.
• Do a cleanse: In Chinese Medicine, we rarely recommend intense”cleanses”, as they are composed of harsh herbs which are very depleting. But since the liver processes all toxins, a gentle cleanse can be beneficial. Several days of a simple brown rice or homemade chicken vegetable soup cleanse can suffice for those with low energy or who get cold easily, while a salad cleanse would be appropriate for those who are always hot. *Since everyone is different, being diagnosed first is the best way to know if these any of the above mentioned foods are indeed indicated for you.
• Practice relaxation techniques and get enough exercise. The liver can be a very stressed out organ! It wants to be the boss, to have its way, and like a stubborn child when something impedes its course, it can become enraged! The more tools you have for relaxation, the more effectively directed your energy will be.
• How do you cope when angry or irritable?: Move the energy somehow! Use exercise, dance therapy, communication if something has been left unsaid, or noise (screaming at the top of my lungs in my car is my personal favorite for moving some big energy!).
• See an acupuncturist: Often just a short series of treatments can correct lifelong symptoms.

We all know it’s important to “stop and smell the roses”, but now is the time to put the effort into planting the garden that will yield the flowers of many years to come.

As I wrote about in my “chive” blog, it is common as an acupuncturist to see an increase in each season of symptoms related to the organ that is associated with the current season.  According to Chinese Medicine, Spring is associated with the Wood Season.  Therefore, many patients begin seeking acupuncture in the spring for increased or exacerbated symptoms related to Wood imbalances.

The Wood Element is related to the liver, and because the liver is an organ that wants to “move”, I find acupuncture to be extremely effective for any symptoms related to the liver. One area where acupuncture excels is “moving” Qi, or life force energy.  Western medicine would translate this into “increasing circulation”; or “activating the nervous system”, which is simply a series of electrical pathways in our body along which electricity, or energy, flows.  Because it is the liver’s nature to move rapidly, and in fact that is one of the “jobs” associated with the liver in Chinese Medicine; using acupuncture, which helps the energy move, immediately affects the liver.

One of the most common sources of liver related symptoms that I see in the acupuncture clinic is that associated with blocked Qi.  This most commonly manifests in my clinic as headaches or migraines, menstrual irregularities or pain, high blood pressure, insomnia, anxiety or unmanageable stress and depression, and digestive issues such as irritable bowel syndrome.  Often, someone with blocked liver energy will have many or all of the above symptoms.  The great news is, by simply getting the liver energy moving, all the symptoms are getting treated at the same time.

Once we get the liver energy moving, we need to think about and delve deeper into why the person’s liver energy is getting blocked in the first place.  That is where we address prevention. I will often work with my patients on dietary and lifestyle factors that are contributing, and give them practices or “homework” that they can do outside the treatment room to enhance the effects and prevent further issues.  We don’t just want to put a bandaid on the issue like western medicine does, and so I work strongly with my patients to get them onboard with the plan, so that we are not just “chasing symptoms” but actually resolving them.

If you have any or all of the above symptoms, it may be worth scheduling an appointment to find out if they’re related to your liver…if they are, you could over the course of treatment have a quick resolution to symptoms that have been plaguing you for years.