Mayo Clinic Acupuncture: The Best of the West Embraces the East
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!
But what I was most surprised and pleased to learn was the level of integration of acupuncture and alternative medicine into the practice and philosophy of a facility as prestigious as the Mayo clinic. Their literature promotes acupuncture for the use of body pain, headaches, nausea, constipation, diarrhea, insomnia, anxiety, depression, weight loss, neuropathy and muscle weakness.
But acupuncture can also treat digestive disorders such as nausea, acid reflux and irritable bowel syndrome. It is commonly used to treat asthma and sinus problems. Acupuncture is very powerful to treat gynecological problems including PMS, menopausal symptoms, endometriosis and even infertility.