Cancer patients are turning to the practice of Qigong , an internal, meditative Chinese art, to help them relax and cope with their cancer treatments.
May 14
For those of you who suffer from allergies, acupressure may provide relief.
The first step is finding out what triggers your allergies.
To figure it out, the patient lies down on a table with one arm in the air.
A vial containing a specific allergen is then placed in the patient’s opposite hand.
If the patient is allergic, her arm will go down when the doctor pushes on it, no matter hard she tries to resist; if she’s not allergic, she’ll be able to resist the push.
The next step is the actual treatment.
The patient holds the allergen in her hand while the doctor uses a machine to stimulate certain pressure points on the body, sort of like a massage.
The patient then continues holding the allergen for 20 minutes.
After the treatment, the patient is told to avoid the allergen for 25 hours.
“It just sounds crazy. It’s so bizarre,” Langum says.
Lanman says, “There’s always doubts, especially when it’s unknown, especially when it’s strange.”
Lanman says just about any allergy can be treated, including tree pollen, grass and even food allergies.
May 06
Complimentary and Alternative Medicine is gaining popularity in the mainstream as more people seek for other treatment options to enhance their health.
While there are proven benefits to traditional Western medicine, Complimentary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is growing in popularity as a supplement to or in lieu of traditional Western medicine.
Failure to accomplish desired results, the current enthusiasm of embracing more natural products and approaches to health, seeking prevention techniques, lack of health care coverage and distrust of drug companies due to unreported side effects are a few reasons that more Americans are turning to CAM.
According to NCAAM (National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine- a component of the National Institutes of Health) “CAM is a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices and products that are generally not considered part of conventional medicine.”
May 02
People who have higher education and income are more likely to be users of alternative medicine.
1 out of 3 patients with chronic pain reported using complementary and alternative medicine therapies such as acupuncture and chiropractic visits for pain relief in a University of Michigan Health System study.
Socioeconomic factors – primarily race and age – played a large role in the use of alternative therapy
in chronic pain patients, the study showed. Whites used alternative modalities more frequently than blacks and elderly adults had a higher frequency of using alternative therapies than younger adults
Apr 21
Traditional Chinese medical techniques, such as acupuncture, remain popular in China.
A worker, above, prepares prescriptions at Beijing’s Capital Medical University Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, which distributes around 20,000 doses of herbal medicine daily. Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners are offering treatment — including acupuncture, which is being performed on a patient at right — as an alternative to vaccinations after a series of health product safety scandals. At least six Chinese children died in 2008 after drinking milk contaminated by the industrial chemical melamine. In 2003 and 2005, three suffered severe brain damage after being vaccinated against Japanese encephalitis. Their parents blamed a substandard vaccine, something the government denied.
Apr 20
Using a combination of Chinese herbs, yoga and other therapies, the individual profiled in this articule was able to get a better night’s sleep and a healthier life.
When menopause robbed Gail Jones of a good night’s sleep, she reluctantly tried drugs to boost her hormones.
The prescription soothed her symptoms for a time but ultimately couldn’t convince Jones that pharmaceuticals were the best companion on the midlife journey of menopause — and beyond.
Pericardium 6: two thumb-widths above inner crease of right wrist
“I just didn’t want to be on it the rest of my life,” says the 61-year-old Medford resident.Taking a cue from her mother — hale at age 93 — Jones turned to alternative therapies and exercise, namely acupuncture and yoga. While traditional Chinese medicine improved her sleep, yoga eased the aches and pains of menopause and restored a “certain presence” to her body, Jones says. Regarded for thousands of years as the foundations of health, the Eastern disciplines merged for a March workshop at Medford’s Rasa Center for Yoga and Wellness
Apr 19
Many of us are finding ways to live a happier and more fulfilled life. Here are some ways to lift your spirits, naturally!
Are you letting bad mood ruin your day?
For some people the feeling of gloominess or depression is due to neuro-chemical or hormonal imbalance and for others it’s the daily stress or upsetting events that wear down one’s emotional reserves. Studies show that people who are depressed or melancholic are twice as likely to develop cancer, heart disease and are a lot more susceptible to colds and flu. While psychotropic medications can be helpful for people who suffer from mood disorders, many patients are finding help from natural solutions. Here are some suggestions to lift your mood, your spirit, and your health.
Hands-On Healing Human touch increases the production of endorphins, growth hormone and DHEA, all of which lengthen your life span and lower the negative impact of stress. Studies have found that patients who are regularly touched recover faster than those who are not touched. Perhaps give someone a foot massage, or give someone a hug and feel both of your moods improve.
Mar 26
Alternative medicine, such as Chinese medicine, is an increasingly popular option for people who want to explore alternatives to traditional medicine in disease management.
When doctors could find neither an explanation nor an aid for her mother’s high blood pressure, Kinga Babicki-Farrugia began to explore alternative ways of looking at the issue.
The journey led her down non-traditional paths and eventually led her to become a doctor of naturopathic medicine. And today, she’s doing for patients what she did for her mom many years ago.
“I became very interested in how a naturopath looks at the whole person and tries to get to the root cause of the problem,” recalls Babicki-Farrugia.
Too often these days, those suffering want a pill to take away the pain, Babicki-Farrugia says. “What we do is look at symptoms as an expression of the body’s attempt to heal,” she says. “Sometimes when you take pain medication, it may actually be detrimental; it may just mask the problem, give you a false sense of security…so you go right back to work and you just reinjure yourself. We typically take a more long-term approach; we’re not just looking for a quick fix but rather at the root cause.”
With that in mind, new patients typically have a two-hour introductory appointment where an in-depth health history is taken including information about everything from lifestyle issues, to energy levels to diet. She then gives the patients a physical screening, investigating skin, hair, nails, blood pressure and other key indicators of a body’s health.
Mar 22
Acupuncture and Chinese medicine has made its way to Kansas and that’s good news to many who seek alternative method of treating aches and pains and other ailments.
Dr. Kitty Wong-Robertson has hung up her shingle, so to speak, to practice a medical specialty new to Pratt but documented for 5,000 years in China.
Acupuncture and Oriental medicine are considered to be alternative treatment in the United States, but in Asia, Western medicine and the old ways have achieved a balance.
“In Asia we combine them together,” Wong-Robertson said. She emphasized that she will never advocate that a person abandon treatments prescribed by a doctor or that they not seek medical treatment.
A graduate of Kansas College of Chinese Medicine in Wichita, Wong-Robertson is the tenth person in Kansas to be licensed in Oriental medicine. She will see patients on Tuesdays and Thursdays at Therapeutic Massage Office at 101 S. Iuka.
“She’s a very good fit for what we’re doing here,” said Cheryl Kumberg, a registered nurse and massage therapist. “A lot of people from Pratt drive elsewhere for Oriental medicine. You probably can’t find a qualified Chinese doctor between here and Colorado.”
Kumberg first became acquainted with Oriental medicine while visiting an aunt in California.
“It’s wonderful,” she believes.
Mar 17
This article brings out the importance that news articles should include alternative approahces to disease treatment and health management; this will enable patients to be more informed of options.
I read with interest The Journal’s two articles on ulcerative colitis on March 9, and could relate to many of the experiences of the interviewees, having been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis, first, then Crohn’s colitis, around 15 years ago. Mine came on quickly, and violently.
At first, my gastroenterologist told me I had six inches of good colon and wanted to cut out the rest which, would also have meant an ileostomy and having a bag). At the time, I was terrified and a shadow of my once healthy self, having lost 45 pounds with a hemoglobin reading at 58 (120 is normal) and having suffered all of the symptoms mentioned, and then some. Not the strongest bargaining position, and yet bargain I did.
I was born with a colon and wanted to die with one, indeed, for me, surgery was not an option — certainly not until I had actually given myself a chance to heal. Yet it was recommended by my then doctor as first line treatment: remove the symptoms — nice, but no thanks, if that meant removing my colon.
This illness, when acute, is brutal. As with any illness, one is propelled into another country with new currency: I had energy to make a cup of tea, or drink a cup of tea, but not both. It is hard to imagine, and frankly this level of exhaustion is difficult to convey.
After being presented with four options (have surgery and a bag, be medicated like an AIDS patient, do nothing and die, or go on a course of oral steroids and get a blood transfusion), I opted for No. 4 and got four units of blood and a 16-week run of steroids. Not a way to live for too long, but it bought me time and motivated me to deepen my investigation of alternative healing modalities. And so I did.
Slowly I recovered my health using Chinese medicine — acupuncture and Chi Nei Tsang –implementing dietary changes (eliminating gluten), suitable exercise (aquacize and yoga), and psychological and physical strategies devised by and borrowed from elite athletes (my approach) as after all, I suffered from the same complaints as mountain climbers and marathon runners at the zenith of their endeavours — electrolyte imbalance, dehydration, diarrhea, lack of oxygen to the brain, foggy thinking, lethargy and extreme fatigue.
Who cared that my marathon was getting up a flight of stairs?
Nonetheless, achieving almost anything was a celebration and provided me a decent alternative to being “less sick,” as that seemed that the best I could do in conventional medicine.
Ten years later, my new gastroenterologist was blown away to see how effective the combination of approaches had been. When he scoped me, he said that while I still have about 30 per cent of my colon implicated in active disease –which would flatten some of his other patients as it once flattened me — and that I have almost no debilitating symptoms. He was astonished and delighted, and open to reading some articles I then provided him on Chinese medicine. Nice!
I noted in The Journal article you only speak of conventional medical alternatives, which are, by their own admission, limited and only ever partially effective at providing treatment for the chronic aspects of the illness. Moreover, many treatments offered cause side-effects almost as unsettling as the illness. While conventional medicine is excellent at diagnosis and can be miraculous for acute disease, it bears up very poorly in the day-to-day management of symptoms.
The alternatives do not.
