New E-Book Available For FREE!

I recently put out an E-Book together with another acupuncturist named Kevin Doherty.  We wrote this book to explain acupuncture and Chinese medicine in terms everyone can understand.

Acupuncture can seem so foreign and strange, so mysterious.  Well in our E-Book “How To Thrive in The Modern World: A Layman’s Guide to Chinese Medicine” we break down all those barriers.

I invite you to visit my website www.wholisticfamily.com and download your FREE copy TODAY!

Enjoy!

Fatigue? Don’t Allow It To Get You Down!

Recently I have been seeing patients complaining of feeling tired all the time, not being able to focus on tasks and having a hard time getting up in the morning.

Perhaps something is in the air lately; I don’t know the reason for this spate.
I do know that they don’t all suffer from fatigue for the same reasons. [Read more]

In Vetro Fertilization Aided by Acupuncture

In the February 8, 2008 issue of the British Medical Journal a meta-analysis (a study that combines and analyzes data from many studies) of seven studies that involved 1,366 women who were undergoing in vitro fertilization, showed that acupuncture improved the chances of becoming pregnant by 65% when compared to women who underwent sham acupuncture.

The authors of the study do say that “It is important to note, however, that the odds ratio significantly overestimates the rate ratio in this context, in which the event (pregnancy) is relatively frequent. In absolute terms, the number needed to treat was 10, suggesting that 10 patients would need to be treated with acupuncture to bring about one additional clinical pregnancy.”

They addressed safety issues as well saying : “Safety and costs are other considerations. Two large prospective surveys of practitioners show that serious adverse events after acupuncture are rare. Among women in labour and women at various stages of pregnancy, systematic reviews and randomised trials have shown acupuncture to be safe, although limited sample sizes preclude definitive conclusions. The effects of acupuncture in early pregnancy on complications later in pregnancy and on perinatal and infant outcomes have also been investigated in one trial, and no safety concerns were detected.

You can read the complete study by clicking here.

Chinese Nutrition vs. Western Nutrition

Just last night I was discussing the topic of nutrition with a patient. This is a subject that comes up repeatedly during treatment sessions. It comes up because I ask about it at the first appointment and then again at subsequent appointments. Why, you may be thinking, does he ask about a person’s diet? The answer is because Chinese medicine demands that a practitioner evaluate all aspects of a person and one of the main influencing factors in a person’s life is the food that they eat. Chinese nutrition is vastly different from Western nutrition in many ways. In Western nutrition one size fits all (see the food pyramid below) - if your “healthy.” Try and define that! You will need to drop your pre-conceptions and open your mind in order to read further. [Read more]