DAAN Chinese Herbs and Acupuncture » Alternative therapies

Exploring alternative medicine

DAAN — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 10:34:04 +0000

Contrary to contemporary medicine, alternative medicine, such as acupuncture, treats the person’s health from a holistic perspective rather than treating the symptoms.

Acupuncture can be helpful for nausea and pain for cancer patients during treatment. Pain can often be decreased or doses of medication lowered in conjunction with acupuncture. Up to 40% of his patients are dealing with infertility.

If a woman chooses, his care is integrated into the treatment plan created by the infertility specialist. In his mind, this integration with complementary medicine rather than segmentation helps healing work on many levels including emotional, physical and spiritual.

Alternative therapy is effective in restoring ability to chew

DAAN — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 10:08:36 +0000

Chinese medicine has helped this woman regained the ability to chew and enjoy eating once again.

I have been having jaw problems since I finished treatments for breast cancer — whether or not the two are related is unknown. What I do know is that I have been to a plethora of medical providers, each doing their best given their specific area of expertise, to offer me some relief — relief that would take its form in reduced pain, the ability to open my mouth and, more than that, the ability to chew.

I have become quite fond of my food processor and blender. I can make a smoothie in a matter of minutes and can blend foods together that you might never dream of mixing. The pain in my jaw, however, has largely gone unchanged since December of last year when I turned my head and heard a loud popping sound in the right side of my jaw, accompanied by severe pain in my ear and jaw.

Alternative therapies that work

DAAN — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:51:52 +0000

This article details alternative therapies that have proven to be effective in enhancing one’s health and quality of life.

The proven therapies have much to recommend them. They are gentle on your body and can often replace prescription drugs. They’re a safe adjunct (hence their “complementary” moniker) to medication and other conventional treatment. And they’re easy on your wallet, usually less expensive than traditional care and, increasingly, covered by insurance. Here are some common conditions that new research says respond best to these uncommon — but extraordinarily effective — treatments.

Alternative medicine and back pain.

DAAN — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:00:29 +0000

Acupuncture, along with other alternative therapies, can provide relief to back pain.

One of the first and most effective recourses for people with chronic back pain is acupuncture. “We’ve had great success with acupuncture. It’s great for someone who gets pain that’s situated in the back or neck and is not radiating down the arms and legs so much,” says Cohen, who is a retired tennis pro. “I’ve had it myself, gotten up, and felt 75 percent better.”

Chinese medicine can ease discomfort from menopause

DAAN — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 10:46:35 +0000

Chinese medicine can help ease the discomfort resulting from menopause.

An HT alternative?

Hot flashes, insomnia, mood swings, and the other symptoms of menopause can be unpleasant and difficult to manage. Hormone therapy (HT) can help in the short term, but long-term HT can increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer, stroke, and heart attacks.

Instead, many women opt for dietary supplements. But do they work? Supplements are rarely tested thoroughly, and their manufacturers make health claims that aren’t always backed up by science.

In the following article, we use the latest research to break down the most commonly used supplements for menopause.

100 best blogs for alternative medicine

DAAN — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:57:47 +0000

If you are interested in learning more about alternative medicine, here’s a guide to the most popular blogs.

Whether you want to supplement your nursing education or are interested in alternative treatments, there are lots of resources for learning about alternative medicine. Through blogs, websites, and more, you can find an education in alternative medicine online. Here, we’ll take a look at 100 blogs that will give you the information you’re looking for.

Chinese medicine and asthma

DAAN — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:07:14 +0000

Chinese medicine as well as other alternative therapies can provide relief for those who suffer from asthma.

Dependent upon the factors which had caused the asthma is the treatment based. There are many types of herbal treatments in Chinese medicine. One type is Asmatrol. Some of the herbs used in the treatment are cinnamon twigs, mustard seed, dry ginger and Magnolia bark.

Acupuncture points also vary depending upon the type of asthma. For cold asthma the main points Feishu UB 13, Lieque LU 7, Fengmen UB 12, Tanzhong REN 17, and Chize LU 5.

Eastern medicine treatments

DAAN — Sun, 23 May 2010 15:13:27 +0000

A good rundown of the different types of Eastern treatments for everything from fertility to relieving aches and pains.

What the research shows: “Acupuncture is probably the most studied of the various complementary therapies,” says Cassileth. “It has been shown to be useful for a wide range of physical and emotional symptoms. [In cancer care,] neither acupuncture nor any other complementary modality treats the tumor. These therapies provide symptom control.”

She adds, “Acupuncture can control hot flashes, shortness of breath, chronic fatigue, and pain.” Cassileth and her colleagues recently published a randomized controlled trial showing that acupuncture can relieve xerostomia, the devastating dry mouth problem that may result from head and neck cancer treatment. In these patients, damage to the salivary glands can make eating and talking difficult or impossible. “Acupuncture can restore salivation,” she says.

Acupuncture research is controversial because some studies find that “sham” acupuncture—where needles are placed in the “wrong” places or otherwise modified—is equally or even more effective than traditional acupuncture. Consequently, differentiating between acupuncture effects and those created simply by expectation (placebo effects) is hard.

Nonetheless, a recent review of the evidence by the Cochrane Collaboration, which conducts some of the most stringent data reviews, did find a measurable benefit from acupuncture for fertility in in-vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles if it is done on the day that embryos are transferred into the womb.

The Doaist philosopy behind traditional Chinese medicine

DAAN — Wed, 19 May 2010 13:35:53 +0000

Traditional Chinese medicine relies on a number of different techniques and principles to promote healing. And none are more important than a belief in wellness.

According to Yuen, the healing environment is crucial. “Healing has to occur in a supportive environment and the encounter between the clinician and the patient is very important. The doctor must be able to feel their patients’ pain,” he says.

“Fear and urgency shouldn’t be used in the healing encounter because that becomes a tactic which disempowers the patient. As clinicians, we need to give people a sense of hope.

“If a person believes he has an incurable disease, no matter what you do, it will be difficult to heal them. Healing has to come from within. We try to instigate a healing process but if the person doesn’t believe in it, they won’t be cured.”

In his own clinical practice, Yuen uses Chinese herbs and acupuncture but he is also a practitioner and teacher of the Chinese mindful movement practices of t’ai chi and Qi Gong (Ch’i Kung). He believes that Western medicine is coming towards a tipping point, which will impact on its approach in the future.

“Even within Western medicine, people are realising it has to radically change. The technology used for diagnostics – MRI scans, X-rays, etc – are based on quantum physics and when this theory is applied to treatment, it will change the mindset of medicine to give a more individualised approach,” he says.

On a spiritual level, Yuen says that rather than cultivate illness, we should cultivate wellness. “The consciousness of illness is not the same as the consciousness of healing. Rather than question, blame, find fault and guilt, we need to change the perception of our lives to change the meaning of our lives,” he says.

“We have choices we can make about our diet, exercise, emotional and mental wellbeing,” he says. “We need to give ourselves the opportunity to be with ourselves on a daily basis in an intimate dialogue with the body. This can be through conscious eating, conscious walking or meditation.”

Herbs for healing

DAAN — Wed, 19 May 2010 01:14:58 +0000

An interesting article, including some recipes, for how to heal yourself with herbs.

The “perception of plants as purely ornamental objects is a strange, cultural anomaly that has existed in only one civilization in history — our own. In every other culture, the plants that surround us are a living supermarket, pharmacy” and more, the star of a BBC show in the United Kingdom says in the book’s preface.

In modern society, the use of plants from the garden to help cure ills dropped off decades ago but is seeing resurgence, says Louise Hyde, owner of Well-Sweep Herb farm, which has been in Port Murray, Mansfield Township, for 43 years.

“Medicinal herbs are big,” Hyde says. That’s why, for the past 15 years, she’s been bringing in Warren County herbalist and ethnobotanist David Winston to present programs on the topic. He’ll be back on the farm leading a medicinal herb walk May 21.

While we may have heard of mint tea to soothe the stomach or chamomile to calm the nerves, there are natural remedies to address everything from athlete’s foot, to bad breath, to irritable bowel syndrome.