To say that anything is new with acupuncture is to discount its thousands-year-old history. But as more physicians seek training in the ancient practice, they also are expanding its use beyond the relief of pain and stress.
Every few weeks Lisa Schiff Dubinsky gets auricular acupuncture treatments to help with weight loss. Dr. Tara McElroy places needles at several points in Schiff Dubinsky’s ear to allow vital energy to flow and stimulate neural pathways.
Then Schiff Dubinsky, an actress and vocalist who lives in Shaker Heights, lies still in a darkened room with her eyes closed for 25 minutes.
She says she has lost about 30 pounds since beginning her treatment.
“It helps with cravings and suppression of appetite,” she said. “It’s like [the acupuncture] is drawing all of these things into some kind of calmness.”
Schiff Dubinsky is no stranger to the benefits of acupuncture; she previously used it to relieve chronic neck pain. But she wasn’t comfortable with the practitioner and stopped going.
Two years ago, she spotted some literature on acupuncture at the Cleveland Clinic’s Beachwood offices and decided to give it a try again. What attracted her this time was that the acupuncturist was a physician.
It wasn’t until the 1970s that the practice was first embraced in the United States. Physicians began integrating acupuncture into their medical practices in the 1980s, as they realized alternative therapies could fill gaps in Western medicine.
While most of the interest has been among physicians on the East and West coasts, more medical acupuncturists are popping up in Northeast Ohio and surrounding areas.
McElroy, an OB-GYN with the Clinic, says she was frustrated by the lack of resources to treat common complaints among her patients — decreased libido, weight gain and menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, anxiety and insomnia.
“I thought that if there was something that I could do, that would just be one more piece of the puzzle to offer,” she says
McElroy turned to the Academy of Pain Research in San Francisco, which offers courses in acupuncture and auricular therapy designed specifically for physicians. Her studies, a combination of distance learning and two 10-day hands-on sessions, spanned one year.
McElroy treats about four patients each week with acupuncture; she hopes to increase that number.
McElroy is not the only person at the Clinic who performs acupuncture. A full-time acupuncturist and six other accredited acupuncturists work under contract with the Clinic at the Center for Integrative Medicine.
