Acupuncture Services of Central New York offers informational articles on acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). We welcome you to read about our background and services from the "About Us" navigation, or educate yourself with the articles categorized by topic and health condition. To be informed of new articles as they're posted, you may subscribe to our Relieve Menstrual Cramps!
Millions of women suffer from painful periods. Often the pain occurs the day before the period starts. Some women experience menstrual cramps during the period. And some feel exhausted and achy when the period is over. Chinese Medicine explains menstrual period cramps in terms of the proper flow and quantity of Qi (energy) and Blood. By asking very detailed and specific questions about the menstrual cycle a practitioner can determine the underlying cause of menstrual cramping. Both acupuncture and Chinese herbal formulas are very effective to resolve the vast majority of painful period cramps.
To determine the pattern of imbalance in the body that is causing the painful period symptoms, questions must be answered as to the timing of the pain, the location of the pain, the character of the pain and whether or not it is aggravated or relieved by cold, heat or pressure. The regularity and length of the cycle, the quality of the pulse and the color of the tongue may also be significant in coming to a correct diagnosis.
Last year I was asked to speak at a monthly meeting of the local Dental Society. I decided to talk about TMJ because it is a condition that our two professions can co-treat very effectively. I had been told that very few of the members knew much about acupuncture, so I wanted to give some background on Chinese Medicine that would hopefully give some credibility to my explanation of using acupuncture points on the foot to treat jaw pain. I wanted to talk about the many micro-systems of acupuncture that are based on the knowledge that the body can be viewed as a hologram. That is, one part of the body represents the whole body.
Whether you have occasional trouble falling asleep, trouble staying asleep or severe insomnia, acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine may have help for you. Recently, I have had a few patients with severe insomnia come to me hoping for relief. Often anxiety and depression accompany sleeplessness. It becomes a vicious cycle - the more you can't sleep, the more anxious and depressed you become. And the more anxious and depressed you are, the more difficult it is to sleep peacefully. Insomnia starts to affect every aspect of your life – job, health and relationships.
I love the following article by Dr. Amaro because it illustrates the relationship of the acupuncture meridians and shows how a blockage in one part of the body can cause pain in another seemingly unrelated part of the body. Scars can cause the blockage of energy in the acupuncture meridians. This article also shows how treating that blockage without ever touching the painful part of the body can give immediate and lasting relief. I see this everyday in my acupuncture practice. I almost never use an acupuncture needle in the part of the body that has pain. By using the logic of correspondent needling technique that I learned from Master Tung's work, there are many choices of acupuncture points that can be used to relieve pain without ever doing local acupuncture needles.
In Chinese medicine, mouth sores (whether they are sores on the lips, sores on the tongue, or sores inside the mouth) are trying to warn you that the environment in your body is out of balance. The location of these sores, the frequency that they occur and what triggers them are all clues to the nature of that imbalance. A practitioner of Chinese medicine takes all of this information, along with other signs and symptoms in the body, to correctly diagnose and treat not only the mouth sores, but also address the general constitution of the patient so that the cause of the problem is eliminated.
In Chinese Herbal Medicine, many foods are included in the medicial literature because of their health benefits. After thousands of years of observation and recorded experience, walnuts have been shown to have very specific therapeutic effects in the human body. 
Acupuncture can provide relief for both back pain and sciatic pain. I see it every day in my practice. Back strain and sciatic pain are quite common in pregnant women starting in the second trimester. As the baby grows, the weight distribution on the lumbar spine and sacroiliac joints, along with the associated muscles and tissues, changes quickly and drastically. Women may alter their posture to compensate for this change or fall into a habit of poor posture due to fatigue from carrying this new weight. At the same time, hormonal changes in the body are causing the ligaments in the pelvic area to relax and soften in preparation for labor and delivery. This can cause instability of the sacroiliac joints.
This morning I left the office of Dr. Christopher Wolter with a clean bill of health. Dr. Wolter is a urologist at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Arizona. After three years of being passed from physician to physician, and test to test without a diagnosis, I took it upon myself to travel from upstate New York to what I had heard was one of the finest medical facilities in the world. In April, after eight days of sophisticated medical testing and imaging, Dr. Wolter confirmed that I had a rare endocrine paraganglioma embedded in the wall of my bladder. This tumor was causing my blood pressure to spike as high as 260/140 for several minutes after urination. I returned in June to have DaVinci robotic surgery. I am healing quickly and my blood pressure spikes have been resolved with the removal of the tumor. Thank you Dr. Wolter and the technology of western medicine!