Acupuncture and Chinese Herbal Medicine are Uniquely Suited to Treating Chronic Illness

Do you feel somehow cursed because, unlike your loved ones, you can’t eat a slice of pizza without debilitating pain or running to the toilet?  Is your internal thermostat off, to the point that you are sweating and wanting to rip your clothes off and stand in front of a fan while others seem perfectly unbothered?  Do you have to budget your energy expenditures, knowing that a normal friend outing will require half a day or more of recuperation time, or that a typical work day even at a job you love leaves you without the energy to fix and eat a meal?  Does a normal sized meal sit uncomfortably on your belly, so that you eat less than everyone else at the table, and yet mysteriously still gain weight?  Do you track public restrooms or a tried and true way to ask to use the employee restroom because you can’t run an errand or watch a movie without getting up to pee?  These are all symptoms that drive my patients to multiple doctors, where they sometimes get a diagnosis and sometimes do not, because despite something clearly being wrong, their ailment does not show up on blood work or imaging.  Or their abnormal bloodwork does not turn up a diagnosis.  Or their diagnosis in conventional medicine has no treatment.  Sometimes frustrated patients are told to lose weight or exercise more, two things that their body has long ago declined to do despite dedicated and sustained efforts.

The medicine that originated in ancient China and spread throughout Asia, now referred to as East Asian Medicine (EAM) is uniquely suited to treat chronic illness.  When you explain your bizarre conglomeration of symptoms, we hear things that were described in ancient texts, and are excited to begin an effective treatment that will restore confidence in your own body’s ability to interact with this world and experience joy.

We ask a lot of follow up questions in order to determine whether your body has not enough or too much of certain substances and to find out where things are getting stuck or are falling out.  We then, in very basic ways, get to work.  If something is stuck, we open through; if blood or cooling fluids are missing, we help the body make more; if there is too much heat, we cool it; too much cold, we warm it.  If an organ’s function is going in the wrong direction, say stomach qi is going up when it should go down causing nausea, vomiting, or regurgitation, we help it find the right direction.  If something (like urine) is falling out too frequently, we help it to stay in.  Persistent symptoms become less frequent, and less intense.  Slowly, being chronically unwell becomes a memory, a hard thing that someone went through and came out of on the other side, stronger, more confident, and, for having suffered deeply, more compassionate.

Your mysterious illness is not mysterious to us. If you are tired of seeking a solution to feeling unwell and are ready to get off of the sick train, call (626) 817-3556 for a free consultation or book an appointment below.

Recurring or Persistent Urinary Tract Infections

Most people with a vagina have experienced a urinary tract infection at some point in their lives.  But some of us have had wayyyy more than our fair share, and fall into a very frustrating cycle of UTI followed by antibiotics (possibly followed by yeast infection) followed by UTI followed by antibiotics, etc., etc.  If a person’s trigger is sex, this become an even bigger quality of life issue.  Many, many women struggle with this, and all the wiping from front to back and urinating immediately after sex is not enough to prevent some of these chronic cases.  This is on my list of things that should be shouted from the rooftop about East Asian medicine:  Chinese herbal medicine and acupuncture can put chronic UTIs into remission.  Please spread the word.

There are many ways that bladder infections can manifest.  In the same way that Western medicine chooses the appropriate antibiotic for the appropriate bacteria, we choose our formulas based on exactly what your particular body is doing.  Do you get your UTI at a particular time in your menstrual cycle?  Do you get strong burning pain and discomfort, or are you more the type to just go more frequently even though nothing comes out and have a bloated sensation at the pubic bone?  Or maybe you go straight to blood in the urine, which can look pretty scary but the herbal solution to this problem, like the others above, was described thousands of years ago and is effective.

Some women, after a spate of infections, will have all the sensations of UTI, yet their urine shows no bacteria.  This may be due to previous infections creating irritating scar tissue in the wall of the bladder, or due to biofilms that shelter the bacteria as it makes its life within little biofilm apartments, inside of you but separate.  People in this category usually receive the diagnosis of interstitial cystitis, which is considered a bladder pain syndrome.  In these cases, antibiotics are no longer appropriate or effective.  Fortunately, this does not matter for Chinese medicine.  There were no labs to culture your urine when our treatment principles were developed, so we are always treating “difficult urination”.  And we can treat difficult urination whether or not it is interstitial cystitis or an actual UTI.

Antibiotics are an incredible, life saving medicine, and will treat an acute UTI effectively and prevent you from dying a very ugly death due to a simple bladder infection traveling to your kidneys.  It is my personal experience that antibiotics are far superior in treating one-off, acute infections than our herbs.  But if you or someone you love fall into this other category of frequent, chronic, or resistant urinary tract infections, please get in touch.  There is so much we can do to return your body to full health.

Acupuncture for Chemotherapy Side Effects

As anyone who has been through chemotherapy knows, it is a rollercoaster.  Just as the body is showing its ability to heal from the last dose, it is time for the next.  Often it is the first day or two after an infusion that the patient feels best; the body has had the longest time to heal since the last infusion and the effects of the most recent infusion have yet to kick in.

The side effects indicate that the chemotherapy is working as desired.  The rollercoaster of the symptoms are a manifestation of our bodies’ incredible capacity for resilience and repair.  Still, no one enjoys the feelings of sickness that come with treating the wayward cancer cells.  Fortunately, acupuncture works quickly and effectively to mitigate the effects.

Let’s talk about the chemo-induced symptoms that I have treated in my office.

Tongue Pain  Chemotherapy causes the epithelial cells of the body, which then regrow. This includes the epithelial cells of the tongue.  Pain is probably not the right word to describe the sensation this causes, as the feeling ranges from dry, painful, sore, to other neurological symptoms such as a strange metallic taste and tingling.  I would say for most of my patients this is one of the most difficult to tolerate symptoms, because we use our mouths to ingest everything we need as well as to speak.

Fortunately, acupuncture can provide instant relief.  By working with channels that pass through the tongue, we can mitigate the discomfort of these sensations.  Patients usually report that they notice increased salivation during the treatment.  By the end of the treatment they notice less discomfort.  The relief provided by acupuncture can go a long way in making it possible to eat the amount needed to stay strong.

Nausea  You do not have to have experienced chemotherapy to know that the sensation of even mild nausea can make it difficult to inhabit your body.  Acupuncture is well known for being able to treat this condition.  In fact, there are some health insurances that will only cover acupuncture for “chemo-induced nausea”.

Gritty eyes, styes, and other eye symptoms  Because chemo attacks the fast growing epithelial cells, the glands we all have behind our eyebrows can sometimes stop working and no longer produce enough tears to moisten the eyes.  Acupuncture helps to reduce the inflammation and to promote healing of the tear glands.  Patients often comment that their eyes feel less filmy, less gritty, or less swollen by the end of the treatment, and the improvements continue to develop over the next 24 hours.  I will also send patients home with ju hua, or chrysanthemum, a most amazing flower for any sort of eye troubles.

Anemia  Chemotherapy impairs the body’s ability to make blood and can often result in low grade to severe anemia, or, depending on the chemo, even neutropenia.  Unlike the other symptoms in this post, a patient cannot report during the course of the treatment if their body has created more red or white blood cells or more hemoglobin.  However, my patients consistently report that their bloodwork is better than average.

Neuropathy  Some of the strongest chemotherapies, such as oxaliplatin (often used to treat pancreatic cancer), cause neuropathy.  This side effect sometimes becomes so severe that the course of treatment has to be discontinued, and the effects are sometimes permanent.  What I have found is that patients respond immediately to acupuncture in the first several rounds.  After that, while it continues to help, there is more variability between patients and the results are less complete and may not last as long.  

Painful nailbeds  Tender to painful nailbeds are due to visible damage to the blood vessels in the nail bed.  At its worst, the nails can fall out (but they grow back).  It has been described to me as a feeling of someone squeezing your finger tips.  Acupuncture also provides much welcome relief to this sensation.

Having born witness to this process, I am always so happy to be able to provide some relief during an emotionally and physically trying time. . If you or a loved one are facing the prospect of chemotherapy treatment, please consult with an East Asian medical physician like myself so that you can have the most support during the process.