Back Pain & Acupuncture (2)

 

 

Back pain can be caused by many reasons, Most people think that they hurt their muscles, or they make a wrong posture. I don't have any argument about that. However, you might think a different way: your back become less stronger than before.  Back pain can be caused by structural issues such as spine degeneration, disc protrusion. Osteoporosis, etc.  However, in the Eastern Medicine, we think there are some stagnation so that Energy and Blood (氣血) do not flow freely.  Acupuncture moves Energy and Blood (氣血) to help easing pain on your body such as back pain.

PAIN - Whole Body Pain & Numbness

Generally, pain is caused by Energy and Blood (氣 and 血) stagnation. It can be described with many different words such as dull ache, sharp pain, numbness, tingling, etc. Especially, numbness and tingling in the whole body cause by Energy and Blood stagnation. In the Eastern Medicine, Energy and Blood circulate well in our body we do not have pain. However, We get some kinds of pain if Energy and Blood are not circulate well. 

 

Basically, you can do exercise, yoga, good diet, ...   to solve this pain. Or you also can take pain killer medicine to stop the pain itself not fixing the root cause. First please talk to your GP, if you still have pain even though you are perfectly okay. Then please talk to your acupuncturist or traditional eastern medicine practitioner (It is called as Chinese Medicine Practitioner in Australia)

 

Acupuncture helps you by moving Energy and Blood  (氣 and 血) in your body to remove pain. 

 

 

 

WELL-BEING (4)

 

Being Well is somewhat hard to balance everything. ALIVE means balancing all the time. We need good food and diet, and a good medical system, exercise, care, mental health, etc.

Acupuncture can be one of good elements to maintain a good heath. Acupuncture does help for Energy and Blood (氣血) circulation in our body. It can play PREVENTATIVE MEDICINE as well. Regular acupuncture treatment will help your life better and you live well.

 

Weight Training & Acupuncture

 

Weight Training or Body building needs a lot of energy and protein to build up muscles in our body.  Due to too much exercise and work, we might get very good muscles with good looking and healthy looking. 

However, the internal organ might become weaker and weaker because the outer muscles are so big. To support outer muscles, we need a strong digestive system to absorb everything we eat.

Acupuncture and Herbal medicine can boost your digestive system to help to make your internal organ strong. 

Mental Health & Acupuncture

Acupuncture help our Energy (氣) and Blood move to help our mental issues. In the Eastern Medcine Theory, our emotions are belong to our organs such as anger belong to the liver. Therefore, acupuncture will help energy and blood movement in a specific meridian to help our mental issues. 

WELL-BEING 3

12 Weeks Acupuncture Treatment

- Fiirst 4 weeks - focus on current issue in the body

- Second 4 weeks - focus on digestion

- Third 4 weeks - focus on  Qi & Blood Circulation and Tonification.

WELL-BEING 2

Well-Being cannot be done by itself. Acupuncture can help circulate Energy(Qi) and Blood in our body

Back Pain & Acupuncture

Back pain is caused by many reason. It can be caused by spinal issues. It can also be caused by muscle issues.  This is general thinking of back pain. 

However, in the Eastern Medicine, back pain can also caused by Large Intestine issue, Small Intestine issue, Kidney Energy issue, and Blood stagnation issues (瘀血), and Energy deficient Issues. 

Acupuncture help our body's Energy and Blood (氣血 - 기혈, Qi Xue) circulate well and may help ease back pain.

Massage vs. Acupuncture

In the western world, the massage and acupuncture are used together and people believe they are similar. However Massage therapy and Acupuncture treatment is somewhat similar but they are huge difference in terms of effectiveness. 

Massage

Massage can be used for many reasons, such as nice treat and pain reduction. 

As a nice treat, I recommend people to have a massage. After the massage, you may feel better.  

Massage helps relax the muscles and helps the nervous system release hormone which helps muscle pain reduction. Massage is also great for people with tight muscles which causes them pain, such as the neck and shoulders. By releasing the tension in these muscles, massage can definitely help the person feel better.

However the effect of massage won't last as much as acupuncture. Massage only can help circulation by pressure and rubbing. It doesn't solve a root cause. Too frequent massage may make less sensitive in the muscle area so that people want harder and harder massage to get feel better. 

The effect of massage is short. It may last 2 hours to a couple of days. Massage may hurt muscle fibre and muscle fascia to make better circulation, which may cause more irritation or may even make it worse. The way that massage make circulation in the body is limited by the pressure. 

 

Acupuncture

As an acupuncturist, eastern herbalist, and massage therapist, Effect of acupuncture is much better than massage. However, people who are scared of having needle in their body, then massage is better choice. 

Acupuncture has been used as first treatment when it comes to a disease. It treats not only muscular issues, but also internal organ issues. In terms of circulation in our body, acupuncture has strong effect and used as a Medicine in the Eastern world (China, Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan, etc)

Acupuncture modifies the flow of Energy (氣 - 기, Chi, Qi) and blood in our body to help our body to be balanced. While having acupuncture. I can feel our body electricity more easily along the acupuncture area. Acupuncture needle boost our body electricity more and make our body help circulate Energy and blood better. Acupuncture can help nerve pain. When nerves become damaged, they might cause some sharp of stabbing pains. Acupuncture can help the blood flow to these areas of the body that can help heal the nerves that are damaged. 

Some people think one or two needle cannot make muscle relaxed. However, currently physiotherapist, myotherapist, chiropractor, osteopathy are using acupuncture needle to relax muscle and ease muscle pain. They call it as dry-needling. However dry-needling is also a part of acupuncture. 

Acupuncture has also side effect of the treatment. Acupuncture may cause a tiny bleeding and bruise as a needle goes through the skin. It may cause a needle pain. 

Acupuncture can relax muscles and ease the muscle pain. Furthermore, acupuncture can be used as preventative well-being method because it help the circulation of Energy (氣 - 기, Chi, Qi) and blood in our body. 

 

Conclusion

In Australia, people know well about massage,  and they are everywhere and easy to access. Massage is a nice treat. However, Acupuncture has better effects and historically proven method in terms of relaxation, treatment and boosting our body.  People should access acupuncture as easily as massage. 

As an acupuncturist, I would recommend regular acupuncture to everybody who want to live well. 

Post COVID-19 and Long COVID Recovery

COVID-19 symptoms are various among the people. The symptoms are similar to Flu like symptoms but it can be worse than flu and you may end up into hospital for treatment. 

 

Even if you have mild COVID-19, you may get the LONG COVID symptoms after post COVID-19. 

Common symptoms during recovery phase ^[1]

• fatigue
• cough
• breathless
• joint or muscle pain
• chest pain 
• change of smell and taste
• mood swinging

other symptoms may occurs after COVID-19 recovery

• low-grade fever
• headache
• memory loss
• muscle pain
• rash
• digestive issues
• depression

 

How acupuncture and Eastern Herbal Medicine may help the long COVID symptoms

Acupuncture is to help move the energy in our body (氣-기, Chi, Qi) and blood, so that our body itself can fix problems that are caused by COVID-19. We uses a specific acupuncture points for a specific symptoms such as chronic fatigue, cough, etc. Acupuncture is a good natural method to help recovering from long COVID-19 symptoms. 

German researchers mentioned dandelion and pomegranate peel are effect for inhibit spike protein in COVID^[2] .

Traditional Eastern Herbal medicine can be used according to symptoms. During COVID-19 infection, our body spends a lot of energy to fight against Corona virus, so we get tired easily after COVID recovery. We may promote our body with a certain traditional herbal medicine such as Ginseng. Further more, chronic dry cough may happens after COVID-recovery due to being damaged in Lung Energy(氣) and Lung Yin Fluid. We can provide a certain herbal medicine to tonify Lung Energy and Fluid

 

Experience.

This COVID-19 is different from other Flu, It has lingering symptoms due to our body doesn't have enough energy to remove the symptoms of COVID-19 thoroughly and our body doesn't have ability to recover itself quickly. Eastern Medicine in Korea uses Gong Jin Dan for chronic fatigue symptoms.

We can use acupuncture and eastern herbal medicine to boost our body to help our body become normal as quickly as possible.

 

 

Reference : 

[1]. Understanding post-covid-19 symptoms and 'long covid'. healthdirect. (n.d.). Retrieved April 29, 2022, from https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/covid-19/post-covid-symptoms-long-covid

[2] Causes and treatments for long haul covid. www.theepochtimes.com. (2022, April 25). Retrieved April 29, 2022, from https://www.theepochtimes.com/causes-and-treatments-for-long-haul-covid_4385618.html?welcomeuser=1