National Headache Awareness Week 06/08/2010
 This week is National Headache Awareness Week. Acupuncture can be used to both ease the pain of a current headache as well as prevent future headaches. It doesn't matter what type of headache you experience, either. Be it your run of the mill headache, tension headaches, migraines or cluster headaches. They can be related to stress or hormones. No matter the cause or type of headache, Chinese medicine has a way of getting them out of your life! Below are some acupressure points that you can massage in order to ease your headache. For best results, find a licensed acupuncturist who you can work with to determine your Chinese medical diagnosis and get to the bottom of your pain.  Large Intestine 4 (LI4) is a point that strongly moves Qi in the body. This point can also be used to specifically treat disorders of the head - perfect for headaches! Do not massage this point if you are pregnant.  Du 20 is a great point for treating many disorders of the head, based on its location. This point will be especially effective if your headache is near the acupuncture point!  Heart 7 (Ht7), as well as all of the rest of the points along the crease-lines of your wrist, are great for treating headaches that are located in the base of your neck. There are several acupuncture micro-systems that portray the hand as your head, with the wrist crease representing the back of the neck where it meets your head.  If your headaches are located at your temples, massage them! Tai Yang is an acupuncture point located in your temples! And, like massaging your temples, feel free to massage the areas where you experience pain. We have many many acupuncture points on our heads, (which would make for a very long blog post!) so chances are you'll be massaging one or more! Portland Top Dog 06/07/2010
 Portland is one of the pet-friendliest cities in the US and Spot Magazine's Top Dog Competition helps highlight Portland's best pet-friendly businesses! The competition is by popular vote, one vote per person, please. You can do your part to help - vote Thrive Acupuncture as one of Portland's Top Dogs! It's pretty easy, here's what you do:
Dogs Love it! 05/14/2010
This is video of Benny getting his bi-weekly acupuncture treatment. Benny had knee surgery to repair a torn ACL. Unfortunately for Benny, this isn't the first time he's required this surgery. LAST spring he had the same injury and same surgery on his OTHER knee! With Acupuncture and Chinese herbs, Benny healed extremely quickly from his surgery last year. He was walking on it with very little limping after only about a month. The usual recovery time is around 3 months! Here's what Bridget, Benny's treat-hander-outer, had to say about Benny's surgery recovery last year: "Two of my dogs are prone to orthopedic injuries, and both of them have had to have major surgeries to their knees. I took them to Thrive acupuncture because my human family has had great outcomes from Becca Seitz's acupuncture prowess. I was concerned that my husky mix and my pit bull would both be weird about the acupuncture needles. Becca was able to put them at ease, and needle them without stressing them out. Imagine my surprise to watch my big dog just fall asleep right after the needles went in. Both Benny (the husky mix) and Olive (the pit bull) experienced faster healing times and much less post-surgical pain than is typical. They were able to go off of their pain medications very quickly. I was expecting them to have long recoveries, and both of them were walking normally within a month of their surgeries. This is just unheard of. Big thanks to Becca Seitz and Thrive Acupuncture for making my dogs' post-surgery experience much less painful for them. You saved our summer!" Hope you enjoy this video of Benny's latest treatment! (Provided by Bridget Pilloud, Benny's treat-hander-outer) PS I hope you don't fall asleep watching it - I promise you, there are no dog attack scenes! ;) Dog Acupuncture 05/14/2010
 This is Toby. He's coming to see me for arthritis. He's 16 years old - he looks GREAT for his age, right? People ask me, all the time, HOW I do acupuncture on pets. Don't they move around? Do they bite you? Do you have to anesthetize them? Nope! Just look at Toby! He hardly even notices that the needles are in! Some dogs will lay down and fall asleep. Some do move around (and this is fine!). My main goal (aside from making them feel better via acupuncture and herbs, of course) is to make sure that they're comfortable and unstressed when they come visit me. A stressed animal is preventing the acupuncture from working to its full potential, so keeping a relaxed environment is KEY to speedy healing. Stay tuned for video of my buddy Benny who's being treated for post-surgical pain in his knee, and you'll see just how relaxed most dogs are during their treatments!  It's about time that there's finally proof of what we acupuncturists already know - This medicine is a fine art, not one that can be learned in a mere 300 hours, and those attempting to practice acupuncture with so little working-knowledge of the system create dangerous situations for their patients. Anyone practicing acupuncture should be required to complete a minimum number of hours of hands-on training as well as pass the same rigorous testing that licensed acupuncturists complete. This is a matter of patient safety. Press-Release - Wednesday, May 5, 2010- Acupuncture patients may suffer from unwanted side effects in the hands of non-licensed acupuncturists, according to a comprehensive study conducted by the Institute of Community Medicine in Norway. Acupuncture has been proven to be an effective form of therapy. Numerous scientific studies have proven the efficacy of acupuncture on treating various ailments. As a testament to the now scientifically recognized value of acupuncture, the Department of Essential Drugs and Medicine Policy of the World Health Organization (WHO) has published a list of diseases, symptoms, and conditions that acupuncture can treat. Headaches, depression, sprains, strokes, sciatica, and rheumatoid arthritis are among the conditions included in WHO’s 2003 publication. However, practitioners with minimal acupuncture training, such as Chiropractors and Medical Doctors who have logged about 300 hours of practice while attending several weekend acupuncture seminars, may pose a risk to patients seeking acupuncture therapy. A comprehensive decade long study of Norway’s Institute of Community Medicine validates the fact that acupuncture is not safe at the hands of untrained individuals. During the 14-year study, the institute have discovered that 193 patients have suffered from adverse side-effects. The bulk of the said patients may have consulted non-licensed acupuncturists. The study also found out that Medical Acupuncture treatment performed by doctors with minimal acupuncture training was the reason for the death of three patients as also reported by http://www.medicalacupuncturefacts.com. The most serious side-effect that may stem from consulting non-licensed acupuncturists is pneumothorax or the influx of unwanted air in the chest due to perforation of the lungs by incorrect needle insertion. One case involved a patient who died 90 minutes after suffering chest pains and dyspnea after medical acupuncture treatment, according to MEDLINE. Like other fields of conventional Western Medicine, acupuncture should be performed by a Licensed Acupuncturist (L.Ac.) only. Qualification for an acupuncture license is rigid. It is required that graduate acupuncture students should have more than 3,000 credit hours of study and training before gaining a license. During training, students are required to master the human body and the various acupuncture points. Such extensive training would ensure the absolute safety of patients who seek the services of an L.Ac. Unwanted accidents, such as perforation of the lungs by an acupuncture needle, would not happen at the hands of an L.Ac. who knows by heart all insertion points in the body. When it comes to seeking treatment, your well-being should be your top priority. To ensure your safety, it is advisable to only consult an L.Ac. who has graduated from accredited acupuncture schools from The Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicinehttp://www.acaom.org/accprgs.asp. About Medical Acupuncture Facts: Medical acupuncture facts discusses the importance of seeking out a licensed acupuncturist over a doctor or chiropractor with minimal medical acupuncture training. For over 2 years Medical Acupuncture Facts has been informing the public of the dangers of going to non-licensed acupuncturists and shows common sense reasons of why to stick with licensed acupuncturists to ensure public safety. Visit http://www.medicalacupuncturefacts.com to learn more. # # # Company Name: Medical Acupucture facts  In a small study (200 women) it was found that acupuncture can be a great adjunctive therapy in place of some or all oxytocin used to help the uterus contract following a c-section. But this isn't the exciting part of this story, believe it or not. The exciting part is that this was "discovered" because of a shortage of drugs getting to the hospitals. Adequate supplies aren't getting to the hospitals because of the war that has been raging for so many years now. Doctors are opening their minds to other therapies in times of shortage and are finding great uses in them! While I would rather that the doctors be open-minded in times of plenty as well, this sure is something! Doctors and hospitals of the world, please take a look at what the Iraqis have done. Please take note that you could decrease expenditures, decrease side effects and discover many more treatment options by accepting acupuncture as a powerful healing modality. Dog Saved from Paralysis with Acupuncture 05/04/2010
 So by now, you've heard a ton about how great acupuncture is for humans. Here's a story of how well it has worked in man's best friend! I've treated several pets with various types and stages of paralysis and in every case the pet has experienced at least some amount of relief from their symptoms. Acupuncture is often used to treat chronic, long-standing conditions, but there are many cases where it can be used to treat emergency-type conditions with great success! Health Hole 04/01/2010
 People often ask me how long it will take to treat their current health problem. And my answer is always this: It depends. On many things.
There are two basic types of health complaints - acute and chronic. Acute health complaints are something that has shown up quickly, won't last that long if left to its own healing, but you'd really like to get through as quickly as possible. That sprained ankle, or recovering from surgery, or a cold or flu. Chronic complaints are those that have taken time to build up. Yeah, you had allergies as a kid, but as you've aged they just seem worse year after year. Or you used to only have 2 headaches a month, but over the last couple of years you're up to 10! Chronic complaints are usually due to this "Health Hole." We've spent time not addressing the cause of the health concern, and it just seems to keep getting worse. And I'm not saying that we haven't addressed the problem at all. If we're talking about allergies, sure we've taken antihistamines, we vacuum our house rather than sweep to keep the dust amounts down, etc. But these don't address the underlying cause of the disease process, and so year after year, that hole keeps getting bigger and bigger, deeper and deeper until we're absolutely miserable. Acupuncture and Chinese herbs are a great way to start filling in your health hole, and depending on how deep your health hole is, is how long it'll take for you to be truly healthy. The deeper the hole, the more time it'll take. So, be patient with yourself and your practitioner if your healing seems to be going a little slower than you'd like. As long as your general trend is toward health, you're going in the right direction. It takes time to regain our health after leaving that health hole to its own devices! Cautions Regarding Medical Acupuncture 03/25/2010
 I just finished reading this article on medical acupuncture and proper training. I 100% agree with the statements of this Medical Doctor who has decided to go to acupuncture school. Acupuncture should only be performed by those who can pass the standards set forth by the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM). It's important for the safety of anyone receiving acupuncture that their practitioner meet a minimum set of standards! It will be Chakralicious! 03/19/2010
 I've signed up for this class. It's going to Chakralicious. How do I know? It's taught by my buddy Bridget Pilloud. She is a woo-woo BADASS (it even says so on her business card!) Bridget is going to help us unblock our 2nd and 6th chakras to stimulate creativity and boost our own intuitive abilities. Yeah, we all have intuitive abilities! Some of us just don't have big intuition biceps yet. The Chakralicious class will be like going to the intuition gym! The class will be a phone conference, so no matter where you're located you can join us in getting the energy flowing! I'm super excited for this class because it's always fun basking in the woo-woo light that is Bridget (and I'm pretty sure we won't need sunscreen!). Join me! | ArchivesJune 2010 CategoriesAll |
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