Quite frequently, people come to Eastern Medical Center looking for help with getting off “lifelong” Western medications. Often I hear about symptoms such as sluggishness and tingling in the fingers and toes, which are common side effects of many drugs. Fortunately, acupuncture is a powerful tool for getting off of medications while balancing the body so that it doesn’t “need” the pills to sustain stable health. We can use acupuncture to taper off medications in a safe, gradual way and balance the chemicals in the brain so that the patient doesn’t suffer withdrawl symptoms.

It doesn’t matter if the patient has just been diagnosed and still has a prescription slip in hand or has been taking the same medication for a decade. In either case, there’s almost always an alternative to a lifetime of medication use.

It’s also important to reiterate that someone can appreciate the benefits of Western medications while still desiring to get off of them. Western treatment and drugs play a critical role in medical care — especially in acute, short-term situations. But that doesn’t mean we want to be at the mercy of medications for a lifetime! I often say that pills can create temporary stability, but acupuncture can achieve sustainable natural health.

In the next post, I’ll discuss how acupuncture can help the body detoxify from drugs (recreational or medical) and alcohol. This is a key piece of the puzzle because after the body has been subjected to external influences over an extended period of time, it needs to flush out all those toxins before truly being well again. So please stay tuned for that!

I recently treated a patient who had been diagnosed with Wegner’s granulomatosis (inflammation of the blood vessels affecting the kidneys, lungs and other organs).  He was on immunosuppressants, steroids and in horrifying joint pain. Everything was inflamed, from his knees to his arms to his wrists to his ankles. He had been told that he’d be dealing with this forever, and this person who you could tell had once been bursting with energy and zest for life was now a shell of himself. He loved to travel and felt that part of his life was over. He loved an active lifestyle and thought that part of his life was over. All this, based on the idea that he’ll never change. I would argue that there is change from day to day, hour to hour, albeit subtle and small. There is always change.

He only ended up in my office because his daughter had been coming for acupuncture and persuaded him to give it a try when he lost hope. After weekly visits for a month, he began to notice little changes. He was sleeping better and some body functions were normalizing. By two months, he was riding his bike again (a favorite activity). By the time we finished the critical phase of his treatment, he was flying internationally again. This person thought his life was over. In just a few months of acupuncture and complementary nutrition, he had his life back.

A body is not a car. It will get worse if left untreated and will improve when healing is stimulated. Nothing in the body stays the same forever. Anytime someone tells you or someone you love that “no change is possible,” they may honestly believe that … but you don’t have to.

We can positively affect our health regardless of diagnosis. We can move — step by step — from where we are closer to where we want to be.

Part of the issue is that Western diagnoses take a snapshot of your health and project out the rest of your life based upon how you’re doing in that moment. That would be fine if you were a broken down car in need of new parts: A car isn’t going to improve on it’s own. A car doesn’t have natural healing mechanisms where if you park it on the lawn for a month with a cover on it, after that month is up it’ll run like new again. With a car, you fix the parts or you trade it in or you junk it. Well, people do sometimes “junk” their bodies in terms of the food they put in it, but generally speaking we are not cars; we are people.

Our bodies know how to heal themselves. Cut your finger and it will heal … without you focusing on it or trying to make it heal. It just will. Balance the body’s energy systems and it can heal and improve. Just because you’re in one state of health on Tuesday doesn’t even mean you’ll feel the same way on Thursday — must less for the rest of your life. That’s why Traditional Chinese Medicine focuses on the body’s “engine” rather than just its parts. The engine is what keeps the car going. The engine is what keeps us going.

Please read Part II for a patient story that illustrates how The Body Can Change – Despite a Diagnosis.

Purchases of cholesterol and diabetes prescription drugs by elderly Medicare beneficiaries reached nearly $19 billion in 2007 — about one-fourth of the approximately $82 billion spent for medications for the elderly, according to the latest News and Numbers report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). And according to a recent AARP study, the average prices of many brand-name prescription drugs widely used by elderly Americans rose more than twice as fast as general inflation during a three-year span. Moreover, we have all seen news reports about elderly Americans having to choose between paying for food or paying to fill their prescriptions — and the difficult side effects they have to try to live with.

On top of the skyrocketing costs and side effects, most of these drugs are designed to treat (or cover up) symptoms rather than address root causes of illness and pain. That approach ensures elderly patients will be taking — and paying for — these medications for the rest of their lives and may never truly feel they way they did before the illness presented itself.

This isn’t a pretty picture, which is why it’s so essential that we all play a part in educating the senior part of our population about the benefits and possibilities of acupuncture and other forms of Traditional Chinese Medicine. In California and many other parts of American today, acupuncture is well known, accepted and celebrated for its natural and lasting health benefits. But for our American seniors, acupuncture isn’t so “mainstream.” Many elderly Americans have never experienced an acupuncture treatment or even heard a thorough explanation of how acupuncture works and helps people heal.

For all Americans, acupuncture holds the promise of treating the root cause of illness by balancing the whole body, so it can heal itself. Every case and every person is different, but for many, acupuncture treatments can gradually remove the need for taking prescription medications at all — even those prescribed “for a lifetime.” For some seniors, acupuncture may give them a feeling of health and vitality and energy that they sacrificed long ago and never thought they’d get back.

Our commitment at Eastern Medical Center is to do everything we can to help our patients find relief, comfort and healing, regardless of age or circumstance. If you or someone you know is a senior suffering from an illness or the cost and side effects of drugs associated with illness, please call us to set up a consultation where we can discuss what’s possible with acupuncture. It may be something “different,” but it also may be something positively life-changing.

I can safely say that patients are delighted when they come in for one thing  — and find improvement in another area.

So when people ask me if acupuncture has side effects, I say yes! But it’s not the kind of side effects you find on the label of a prescription drug bottle. Instead, these are positive side effects, the result of balancing out your body. And when you balance out the body, good things happen.

Here’s how it works: The body’s systems and organs are connected. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, we have five elements — water, wood, earth, fire and metal. Each corresponds to an organ: The bladder and kidney represent water; the gallbladder and liver represent wood; the spleen and stomach represent earth; the small intestines and heart represent fire; and the lungs and large intestines represent metal.

These elements rely on each other for balance. For instance, you can’t just have water because you would be cold, heavy and stagnant. If you only had fire, on the other hand, you’d be bouncing off the walls. When we treat a symptom, we balance the elements. So it’s no surprise that other symptoms go away.

There are a few minor things to look out for after a treatment: Some people report soreness. This isn’t a bad thing. Acupuncture stimulates the body, which can release toxins and create the same kind of effect that vigorous exercise can have.

Others report that they feel tired after a session. One of my patients told me that he went home and slept the rest of the day! This just means that you really needed the treatment. Or it could indicate that you didn’t give yourself enough time after the session to transition back into the world. So remember to take it slow. Don’t try to run a marathon! You are trying to heal, and if you use all your energy and direct it somewhere else, it’s just not wise.

The effects of a treatment are very individual. It really depends on how much you want the change, what other things you are doing in conjunction with acupuncture and how long you’ve been dealing with a certain issue. Acupuncture can work for new conditions or those you’ve had for years. Everyone is different. But in general the sooner you take care of it, the better.

I look forward to seeing you soon so you can benefit from acupuncture’s positive side effects.

But there’s another related topic that could almost be considered Part II of what women need to know: Prescribing birth control pills to regulate your cycle is NOT normal, either! It happens all the time. In fact, it happened to me.

During my college years, I went through a two-year period where I just didn’t have a period. Something was clearly out of balance. My mother was very concerned and wanted to be as thorough as possible, so she took me to a Western specialist for an examination. That doctor’s solution to my menstruation problem was birth control. I immediately resisted the idea and asked how long I’d need to take the pills. The doctor said, “For the rest of your life.

That wasn’t an option for me, but acupuncture treatment from my father, Dr. Mason Shen, certainly was. After two weeks of my father’s expert acupuncture care, my period came and was completely normal. There were no pills … and certainly nothing I had to take (and pay for) for the rest of my life. Just a little natural help to get my body unstuck.

What’s important for women to remember is birth control pills mess with your hormones and body chemistry. Ingestion of hormones (or anything extreme or sudden) forces the body to regulate itself and go into homeostasis. To use the common example of Yin and Yang, suddenly you’re ingesting a whole lot of one, overwhelming the other. Now, your body has to react and go through changes to try to create the equilibrium of the image you see in this post. The more pills you take, the more you put your body through.

I think most people taking Western medication realize this in one form or another. They think, “This can’t be good,” referring to side effects or long-term impact. It just makes common sense to treat an issue in a natural way that’s easy on the body, whenever possible.

So, if you or someone you know is experiencing PMS discomfort or is regulating cycles with birth control, call us or come in for a consultation to talk about natural options to support your health and rebalance your system. That way, you won’t be reliant on pills for the rest of your life.

Surgery is high stakes. (The common expression being, “There’s no such thing as minor surgery.”) Drugs are highly toxic, sometime addictive and rife with undesirable side effects. Drugs (and often surgery) also fail to address the underlying problem, instead suppressing or temporarily alleviating symptoms that are likely to return because the core issue hasn’t been adequately dealt with.

In a lot of cases, these two options are all patients ever know. Unless someone close to you has experienced the benefits of Traditional Chinese Medicine, you may never get another perspective on your situation.

Our goal at Eastern Medical Center is to raise awareness about acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine as a “second opinion” before undergoing costly and traumatic surgery or starting an oftentimes lifelong regimen of taking toxic drugs. There is a totally natural option in many cases that saves money and health.

This could be a chronic illness or a bad knee or a shoulder problem. Whatever the diagnosis, people need to know that their body is intelligent and understands how to heal itself. There’s likely just some sort of block preventing energy and blood flow from reaching the affected area.

Healing happens naturally … and we’re here to give the body the help it needs to heal without radical medical intervention. Because when the body is brought back into balance—when the root of the problem is reached—all those symptoms go away.

Sometimes surgery is necessary. Even then, in the case of surgical procedures to correct degenerated, bulging or ruptured discs of the neck and lower back, acupuncture helps the management of post-operative pain.

In terms of postoperative pain control, acupuncture treatment can:

• Completely relieve pain, or provide as much relief as possible
• Reduce pain levels
• Improve the ability to deal with pain
• Control the local tissue swelling
• Shorten the resolution of hematoma
• Assist the emotions
• Regulate the appetite
• Strengthen energy
• Increase participation in usual functions
• Enhance the quality of life
• Minimize the side effects of the anesthesia
• Lower the dosage of painkillers after the operation or reduce reliance on painkillers
• Minimize the use of other medications associated with the pain and their attendant side effects
• Stimulate the rapid recovery of functional activities after the operation, etc.
• Accelerate recovery!

So, the next time you hear someone say they need surgery or have been prescribed drugs by their doctor, mention they might want a “second opinion” from the perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine, which, by the way, has been in practice 4,000+ more years than Allopathic medicine.

For more information, please see Dr. Sun Pei-Lin’s book, The Management of Post-Operative Pain With Acupuncture.