Category: Research & Articles

I was sitting at the desk in my office when a woman in her seventies suddenly appeared in the doorway and asked me, “Excuse me, do you treat cancer patients?” As I was looking for the right words to form my answer, the woman made that task easier for me. “You see, my husband has lung cancer, and he is undergoing chemotherapy. His doctor is happy with the results because my husband’s metastases have stopped spreading. Before starting the treatment, however, he was active and energetic, but now he spends most of the day in bed. Can acupuncture help?”

I believe massage therapy has a ripple effect–a radiating energy, an extension of our clients’ own healing processes, on through to the other humans within their circle. In our work with pregnant clients, this connection is even more obvious, and infinitely rewarding. When we work with a woman who is carrying another human inside her, we are essentially working with two people simultaneously. As practitioners of touch therapy, we must be fully present to be mindful of that fact. Part of our role as therapist is to educate our clients (and other health care practitioners) about the many benefits that purposeful bodywork engenders for both the mother and the baby.

Herman Kauz has been a prominent teacher of tai chi for over 60 years. For the past 15 years, he has instructed the free Push-Hands class on the San Diego campus. In the 1970s, he trained with Cheng Man-ching, himself a student of Yang Chengfu, who was one of the most famous teachers of tai chi ever to have lived. Cheng Man-ching’s short-form Yang-style tai chi, one of the first to be introduced to the West, has since become the most widespread style of the art in the Unites States.

The Chinese New Year is an opportunity to honor family and friends and enjoy some of China’s traditions. Lucky colors for the year are brown, red, and purple, and lucky numbers are two and seven. Some foods are considered lucky because of the similarity of their names to other words in the language, such as the fact that the Chinese word for “orange”, 橙 chéng, sounds like the world for gold, 金 jīn, or that the word for “tangerine”, 柑橘 gānjú, sounds like the word for “luck”, 运气 yùnqì. The bright orange color of the fruits also represents the metallic sheen of gold. Find out what other lucky foods to eat and display to ensure a prosperous and happy new year!

Traditional Chinese Medicine can provide an alternative treatment for seasonal allergies and sinus problems. Most medical practitioners will recommend using decongestants, non-steroidal nasal sprays, allergy shots, antihistamines, or nasal corticosteroids to combat these sinus problems. While these options have been successful for many patients afflicted with burning throats, itchy eyes, inflamed eyes, and stuffy nose, there are many individuals that do not respond well to these treatment plans, or who would like to go a more natural route.

Pediatrics as a specialty is one of the oldest topics discovered in the Chinese medical literature. Sabine Wilms discusses that as early as the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), there is mention of pediatric treatments in at least 19 volumes within the Imperial Library, (Venerating the Root, Part 1, 2013). Sun Simiao was a notable author in the early Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) who emphasized the treatment of children and women above any other medical issue.

Katy visited our center with a seemingly disparate collection of symptoms that were causing her distress. She described a pattern that was episodic in nature and involved abdominal bloating, belching, acid reflux, loose stools, shallow breathing, and palpitations. A cardiologist had ruled out serious heart disease and she’d been offered beta-blockers for what had been diagnosed as pre-ventricular contractions (PVCs) and occasional tachycardia.

We are presently experiencing a quantum evolution in our perceptions of the aging process, which involves the elimination of outmoded ideas about what it means to be elderly. This paradigm shift has been facilitated by half a billion Baby Boomers1 worldwide who have provided a powerful stimulus for a collective change to the ‘face of aging’. This is not the previous silent generation, but an outspoken, entitled demographic, which, by force of their sheer numbers, is amending existing conscious and unconscious social contracts.

Acupuncture and aromatherapy are two individual modalities that have been used for thousands of years to successfully treat a gamut of conditions and diseases. But what happens when they are combined together in one treatment? Is the treatment session more effective? Is there no difference at all? Does it increase patient satisfaction and comfort? I set out to answer these questions in 2011 while obtaining a doctoral degree in acupuncture and Oriental medicine. Here I will share with you what I discovered and suggest that yes, combining aromatherapy with acupuncture can make a treatment more effective.

One of the four categories of examination in Chinese medicine is the “looking diagnosis”. Observing the patient’s skin tone, the Shen in the eyes, and checking the tongue are all elements of creating a clear, effective diagnosis. Observing posture can add a layer to the examination that is insightful, especially given the frequent occurrence of postural distortion in modern times. We can start looking at our patients as soon as we greet them in the waiting room. How do they sit, stand, and walk? What kind of posture do they have? Instinctively, many of us sense that a slouching or hunching patient has a qi deficiency.