You may be wondering, do I have inflammation? So I`m going to share with you all an easy way to know and remember the signs of inflammation and how you can check for them.
There are four cardinal signs of inflammation. These four signs are found in an easy mnemonic which are their Latin names because medicine was and still is often written in Latin. These four signs are:
Calor, Dolor, Rubor and Tumor.
Let`s go through them.
Calor – this refers to a feeling of heat. Its also similar to the French word chaleur which also means heat. If you have a right wrist that isn`t healing well, feel the right wrist temperature, and then compare that with the left wrist temperature. Better yet, have someone else test both wrists for you. An elevated temperature of the area is a key sign of inflammation.
Dolor – this refers to pain. Its also similar to the French word douleur which also means pain. Pain is often the first signal that something is wrong and the signal we tend to act on quickly. Pain and inflammation are linked because inflammation creates pain. Pains` function is to put us into fast action to care for the injury. If pain has gone on longer than six weeks, youre now dealing with chronic pain. In a chronic pain case, acupuncture points that help the body turn off continuous pain signaling by the nervous system will also be used.
Rubor – refers to colour, the reddish colour that happens during an inflammatory process when blood has rushed to an area to feed the injured tissues, providing key nutrients to the area as the building blocks of the repair process. Blood flow to the area is part of the acute healing process. However, acute inflammation should not become chronic, meaning more than six weeks. If you`re still having signs of inflammation past six weeks what you want to do is get in for acupuncture treatment to decrease inflammation in general as well as decrease inflammation to the injured area. The acupuncture treatment goal will be to increase micro-circulation to the injured areas, and the affected channels so that the repair work can complete and the inflammatory process can be put to rest.
Tumor – is just like the English word we use with the same spelling. Tumor in Latin simply means swelling. You can check for swelling of an injured area by comparing the size of your right wrist for example, versus the size of your left wrist. The swelling happens because of the increased blood flow to the area that is there to complete the repair work of the injured tissues. Again, although swelling is a normal part of acute injury, this process should not be going on longer that six weeks. If your knee is so swollen to the point that you haven`t seen it in a year, it`s time to come in and get acupuncture and clear up the swelling by increasing circulation to the area.
Are you noticing any of these four signs? If you have even one or two of these signs, its very likely that inflammation is part of the picture. Give me a call at 647-378-3182 and let`s talk about getting you out of inflammation and allow your injury to complete the repair process.
The word vertigo comes from the Latin word vertere which means to turn, whirl or spin. When the room spins or we have that light-headed feeling, it does feel like a wind blowing through our head – and we aren’t wrong.
Eastern medicine has long understood the Wind element to be a pernicious influence. When the Wind element is in excess we can also experience things like tremors or twitches, rashes that migrate, headaches that also move around the head, joint pains that move around the body, and any symptoms that come on rapidly or move rapidly, or where there is an excess of movement are said to be caused by the Wind element. In the case of vertigo or dizziness, the excess Wind element is in the head.
Three main causes of vertigo which I will cover here are:
Extreme Heat Generating Wind
Liver Fire Generating Wind
Deficiency of Liver Blood leading to Liver Wind
Extreme Heat Generating Wind
Symptoms that fit this pattern include elevated body temperature, stiff neck, spasms, tremors or convulsions, opisthotonus or extremely arched neck
and spinal column as seen with meningitis and tetanus, and there may be loss of consciousness, delirium.
Signs of Extreme Heat include: complaints of feeling hot, poor tolerance to hot weather, when I take the pulse I can feel their skin feels abnormally hot, the pulse will often be fast, which in Eastern medicine terms is anything over 80 beats per minute (bpm), but in this case 100 bpm would also be very common. and the tongue will often be bright red, and/or have a yellow coating.
If the heat is long-standing, there may be cracks on the tongue as well. Some people with a heat-related vertigo also have ringing in the ears that has a high-pitched tone.
The head is the area of most Yang (Heat) because it is the highest point on the body. In thermodynamics heat always rises to the uppermost point. When the head gets hot enough, then Wind is generated just like this wildfire storm. The main problem here is the Heat. The Wind issue (vertigo) is secondary (caused by) that Heat. So in terms of healing, the main priority is to clear the Heat (aka inflammation) and once the heat is cleared, the Wind and its’ manifestation, the vertigo, will abate naturally.
This scenario is similar to the way a windstorm is generated during a wildfire. Here you can see these palm trees getting fiercely blown during a wildfire. In fact, what also happens here is that wildfires draw in wind. In other words, the Yang of Fire generates more Yang in the form of Wind where they synergistically feed off each other to create more Fire and Wind.
For this type of vertigo, I have seen good results using Fire-clearing guas on the channels most indicated by the tongue and pulse. The Small Intestine channel carries the most heat in the body, and second to that is the Heart channel, and experience has shown me how clearing heat from these two channels is very effective in this instance. When the body starts to cool down, the vertigo tends to dissipate, and the person comes back into balance.
Liver Fire Generating Wind
Here the experience of dizziness will feel more like strong vertigo or the room spinning.
The pathology is in the Liver channel primarily, often with Liver Stagnation that lead to the development of Liver Heat. In this case the tongue is red or purplish-red colour or the sides of the tongue are curled. The pulse may be fast and/or showing fullness or wiry-ness on the Liver pulse position. Some may have headaches behind the eyes or ringing in their ears with a high-pitched sound indicating Liver Fire.
The Liver system has the most affinity with the Wind element. Poorly balanced Liver energy will create Internal Wind disturbances such as those listed above. In this case, regulating the Liver energy will cause the Wind element to dissipate. The acupuncture treatment here is a about descending Liver Heat from the head as well as balancing both the
Liver and its’ sister organ, the Gall Bladder system to dissipate the Wind. Using the Five Element system, the Liver and Gall Bladder channels are controlled by the Metal element (Metal Cuts Wood) so a Metal Gua is helpful in controlling the Excesses of the Liver. Points on the Governing Vessel channel are also effective in controlling the excess Yang (Wind and Fire) at the same time.
Deficiency of Liver Blood leading to Liver Wind
In this case the dizziness is felt more as a light-headedness. Often people with this pattern will feel better from lying down, because the dizziness is coming from a deficiency and a hallmark of deficiency patterns is improvement from rest. There can be weakness, fatigue or faintness with this picture. There can also be blood sugar issues, hypo-glycemia. The tongue will be pale, and can also have paler sides. In extreme cases the sides may be orange. The pulse will be weak overall and even weaker in the Liver and Spleen positions.
With Liver Blood deficiency, the healing is about nourishing the Liver both energetically and with the Liver Blood-building foods. Acupuncture is targeting the Liver and Stomach/Spleen to allow for the Earth element
to harmonize with the Wood element (Liver) according to the Five Element system. When the Spleen and Stomach energy are stronger there will be improved absorption of nutrients. We aren’t just what we eat, we are what we can digest. In this case, Earth guas on the Liver, Gall Bladder, Stomach and Spleen channels are used.
If you or someone you love is experiencing vertigo or light-headedness, Eastern medicine and acupuncture have much to offer in terms of diagnosis and effective treatment. Reach out to me at 647-378-3182 and let’s get you on a path to good health.
The classic Eastern Medicine text, the Huang Di Nei Jing (Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon) explains that “ the liver opens to the eyes”. The health of our physical eyes but also our ability to *see* on a more mental plane is related to our Liver, and the spirit of the Liver, the Hun. Our vision has two parts. One is the physical ability to see objects outside ourselves, such as reading the words on this page. The other is a little more subtle: the vision in our mind, the vision where we “see” the life we want, the dreams we weave as we stare out the window in our quiet moments and picture life in 1 year, 10 years from now. Or it may happen when we see others living in ways that we long for; we light up when we “see” our future dream through theirs.
From our inner visions, inner seeing, we use dreaming to craft a plan which we then use to bring these dreams into reality. This planning
aspect is the subtle aspect of the Gall Bladder energy, the sister organ to the Liver. This is affirmed by the expression “to have a lot of gall” in describing a courageous person. To have gall, is to have the guts, the courage, the chutzpah to make our dreams real, to plan and act on those plans without fear, fear of what others will think, or what might happen next. The vision comes first, then the gall, the courage to plan and act out that plan.
In the same vein, the Chinese character for gall bladder contains the character, “dan”, which means courage, bravery. When someone’s gall bladder is weak, there is the opposite, timidity. Timidity is a clear sign of gall bladder deficiency. Tonifying points are used on the Gall Bladder channel to bring back courage.
Inability to plan also shows up when these channels are weak. Problems with planning curiously can manifest as chronic habitual lateness. Do you experience habitual lateness even when you conscientiously try to not be late, or are you embarrassed by your chronic lateness? It comes down to poor planning which falls under the jurisdiction of the Liver, the mental aspect which is the Hun. All the steps to get to where we need to go, the ability to nail down how much time it takes to do the various things that have to happen before we can get out the front door, and allocating the right amount of time for each part of the journey are the jobs of the Hun. When our Liver system is working well this happens easily, perhaps without a lot of conscious thought. But when the Liver Hun is weak, well, not so much. So there you have it, a very esoteric (but valid) explanation for being late should you need one. Your acupuncturist said its your liver/gall bladder (Hun) systems that are too weak.
The Liver/Gall Bladder is associated with the Wind element. When the Wind blows, leaves scatter. Apply this to your own life. Are your plans often getting scattered? Blown around and changed far too often creating little structure or consistency for your dreams to be realized? What were your goals , hopes and dreams one year ago? Have you been anchored enough to put those plans into action and see them through, or did things get blown by the wind and scatter, waiting another year? If one is so often changing ones mind, flitting about from this to that, it actually works against the liver system and our ability to plan and see manifestation in our lives.
But it can get better with the right tools. One tool I use to help people with this situation is to book their appointments at the same time every week. So if Thursday works, then Thursday at 11AM, for every appointment, every week. This commitment helps patients healing the Hun to develop their planning muscles. They start to get used to having a clear plan. They can “see” their week in advance because it stays the same, EVERY SINGLE WEEK.
With this time commitment to work around, people with weak Liver/Gall Bladder systems also find that other parts of their lives start to become more structured and routine. If you are feeling very scattered, take one small activity and try committing to a routine time to focus on it. See what happens. This regular stable rhythm is a magic sauce that nurtures our plans so that they come to fruition; providing enough anchoring for goals to be completed, for dreams to come true.
Women need special advice when it comes to their Liver and the spirit of the Liver, the Hun. With the blood loss we go
through monthly for much of our lives, our Liver Blood runs low, especially during the menses. If it’s not replenished monthly by a diet rich in foods that build the liver blood (dark greens, red meats, beets, egg yolks, molasses), our Liver, and hence the Hun become weak and deficient. This shows up in many ways in our lives. We can be inexplicably held back from moving forward, lacking plans and initiative to move towards our dreams, sometimes from not even having a vision for our life, or lacking actionable clarity in this regard. This can also show up as depression, feeling stuck in a rut and feeling unable to plan a way out, or envision another kind of life, the one we actually want. This is where acupuncture and correct diet therapy for the Liver help create the physical and mental terrain to support us living out our true calling.
Some keys signs that the Liver Hun is healing:
A steadiness in your chosen path, less shakiness or switching directions too often due to indecision
A greater ability to *see* your life path, why you are here, and envision a healthy, happy future, resulting from a more lavish and vivid imagination
Greater courage to be assertive about one`s beliefs
More propensity to take action on making your dreams come true, with less stalling, delaying or feeling stuck in a rut.
If any of these themes are resonating for you, please reach out and let’s talk about how I can help you get your liver and gall bladder systems running at greater capacity so that you can move forward and make your dreams come true.
Yours in health,
Cynthia McGilvray, R.Ac.
References:
Dechar, Lorie Eve, M.Ac. 2006. Five Spirits: alchemical acupuncture for psychological and spiritual healing. Lantern Books.
You may be getting acupuncture treatments and wondering, how do I know if it’s really working? You may have never had any explanation for what signs to look for and the healing process can be gradual. So here I will share with you five signs you can look for. It’s unlikely that you would have all five signs so please don’t be waiting for all of them to happen. Most often it would be one or two signs per issue being treated, depending on the nature of the complaint.
#1. The area of the complaint, or the area of pain starts shrinking. An example of this is someone coming for shoulder pain, initially the shoulder pain can be all over the shoulder, the front, side and back of the shoulder. After a few treatments the pain is only at the back of the shoulder. The size of the area is smaller.
#2. The pain or complaint is diffusing, spreading out across a larger area but becoming less intense as it spreads out. In this case the pain is
leaving by fading out. I’ve seen this with headache pain where the pain was once very localized and fixed and after a few minutes the feeling spreads out but becomes lighter and lighter as spreads and fades away. I’ve also seen this happen with skin rashes, say an angry red rash above the knee, with a few treatments it spreads across the thigh but as it spreads the colour changes becoming lighter and lighter from red to pink and then fading into skin colour as it disappears. This sign can be a little confusing at first because it may seem like it’s worse because the area is larger but since the intensity is less and less, this is a sign that it is fading out and leaving the body.
#3. A stubborn old symptom changes in a new way. An example of this would be a migraine that always happens over the right eye, for years the person has suffered migraines, and reliably always over the right eye. Then after a few treatments, the migraine shows up over the left eye instead! When there is a stubborn symptom that has gone on for years and nothing seems to fix it or change it in any way and then after acupuncture it changes, this is a great sign. Yes, the pain or complaint is still there, but it’s a positive development because if the pain or symptom that was unmoving starts to move then it’s a good sign that acupuncture can get it to move out of the body completely with more treatment. Healing often happens on stages so this may be the first sign that the treatment is working, and with more treatment it should clear further and further.
A common example I’ve seen repeatedly is where a person comes in with lateral hip pain and after some treatment, the pain is now on the lower back or around the SI joint. It’s not that the pain has actually moved. We have to think of healing as peeling layers of an onion. So the pain from the hip resolved, and that was an outer layer, and then once that layer got cleared, now the deeper layers of issues or pain such as the low back are felt. This is happening because pain signals are competitive. We can usually only feel the worst pain signals at any one time and older areas of pain or milder complaints fall into the background until the most pressing issue gets cleared. Often as the healing progresses the pain or complaints will happen in reverse order from how they occurred, so in this case the low back pain is usually the older symptom and will usually take more time to clear because of it’s longer history.
This symptom can also be harder to detect because the pain can sometimes move from one channel to another channel that is merely an inch or two away. It can seem that the pain is still at the elbow, and it is, but one channel has been cleared of pain and now another layer needs to be worked on for the full healing to be seen.
#4. Symptoms are moving from the top, downwards. This one can often
go unrecognized as a sign of healing but it is well understood from Herrings Law of Cure. If the symptom is moving is this direction, top to bottom, rather than the reverse, this is a good sign. This can be likened to leaving a building, it’s down the elevator and out the door. An example of this is with heat symptoms, a person comes in complaining of feeling waves of heat in their head. After a few treatments the heat feeling has moved to the chest, and after another treatment, the heat feeling is only in the thighs and then it’s gone.
#5. The pain or issue happens less often or for a shorter period of time. This one is pretty obvious but still worth mentioning because it’s helpful to have a baseline before treatment is started. It helps to know how often, for how long, and how severely a symptom is happening at the beginning of the treatment. This helps you to see what’s changing and also to share with your acupuncturist for them to understand your progress. For example, if you’re having sleeping problems, how often are you waking up at night, and how long before you fall back to sleep? With treatment there should be fewer wake-ups and falling back to sleep happens sooner, and the following morning you should feel less tired. Or in the case of afternoon fatigue, perhaps initially the fatigue would start at 2 pm and happen until 6 pm, but with treatments now the fatigue happens from 4-5 pm.
What you should have is at least some small shift within the first 1-3 treatments to know that your acupuncture protocol is working, then if this is the case, further treatments should clear up the issue completely. If there has been zero change after three treatments then what I will definitely do at this point, if not before, is to switch to another protocol to get the healing happening because the body wants to heal. The body has vital force and acupuncture stimulates that vital force. It’s the same thing if a patient hits a plateau, they were healing up nicely and then after a while they hit a plateau and now symptoms are stable but not progressing further. In this case, a different protocol would be used, for example, opening up all 12 main acupuncture channels is often enough to activate the healing response again.
So there you have five specific signs you can look for after you’ve had several treatments. For each acupuncture treatment, please give your body at least 24-48 hours to respond to the treatment. Acupuncture works in a series of treatments to achieve a result. If it’s an old issue that’s been there for years it will usually take a few months of regularly biweekly treatments. Sometimes there will be a healing crisis where symptoms can feel worse for a few hours or a day or two, after which the issue will feel better than before treatment.
It is clear that anusitis is a case of inflammation. The “itis” in anusitis is Latin for inflammation. Western medicine used to be written in Latin back in the day so learning the meaning of some of these Latin root words can help to decipher all manner of medical language without Google.
In any case, inflammation is another way of saying Heat or Fire which is how inflammation is described in Oriental Medicine. This word meaning gives us clues, but the focus of treatment is on the actual symptoms. Symptoms such as burning (heat) and itching (another symptom of heat) and bleeding due to inflammation, all give direction in how to treat this condition. Then from looking at the presenting tongue and pulse, I gather further information about treating the individual case.
What I have seen with long-term anusitis is bright red tongues (another heat sign), as well as cracking or fissured surface of the tongue and a peeled coating. A healthy tongue coating is thin and white, neither thick, nor totally stripped off.
We must understand the way heat works in the body over the long-term. Excess heat starts to burn up the fluids. In this case, the Stomach Yin that builds the normal healthy coating on the tongue has been burned off by long-term heat of anusistis lasting 5+ years. The fissures or cracks in the centre (the Stomach/Spleen area of the tongue), is further evidence that the moisture of the Stomach/Spleen has been burned off, leaving the internal landscape resembling a dry desert.
Cracks on the tongue look like cracks in the soil of very parched earth when there has been no rain. It’s always helpful to use patterns in nature to understand the body because our bodies are often mirroring things that go on in nature.
Pain in anusitis may come from swelling of the rectal tissues. Both pain and swelling are classic signs of inflammation. Some patients may also have rectal bleeding which can be another sign of inflammation. Bleeding should also clear up as part of the heat-clearing treatment strategy. If the bleeding is truly from the rectum or anus it will be a bright red colour and not a darker colour such as black. Black means bleeding from higher up the digestive track such as in the stomach in most cases, and has become dark because of oxygenation during the passage of time where it takes roughly 18 hours for the stomach contents to get to the anus. In other words, black blood means old blood. The colour of the blood helps us to know which area has the bleeding problem.
For anusitis cases I like to use a Global Balance treatment approach of balancing the Stomach, Spleen, Large Intestine and Lung channels. The reason is, the rectum connects to the Large Intestine channel, which carries the food products stemming from the Stomach. The Large Intestine channel will often carry similar pathologies stemming from the Stomach so it is often useful to treat these two channels together. The Spleen channel supports mucosal lining repair and it supports the Stomach channel as it’s Yin-Yang pair. The Lung channel deals with skin issues (itching, cracking, bleeding) and it supports the Large Intestine channel as its’ Yin-Yang pair. With these four channels, I use appropriate points for inflammation by selecting the Water over Fire Gua #36 elemental pattern because, as we all know, one of the best ways to put out a fire is with water. Applying this Gua to these channels produces a treatment plan as follows:
In addition to those channel points, I also use two points around the navel which is a mirror image of the anus. In this way I can target the anus tissue using the navel points so that I never need to put needles in private areas.
The result of this treatment in my experience has been that the itching and burning sensations have decreased significantly over usually about ten treatments and then finally disappeared. The tongue becomes less red, dry and cracked, evidence of less inflammation and then finally the tongue returns to normal pink colour. The tongue cracks starts to be less deep and then disappear altogether and a normal amount of tongue coating returns showing that the heat is more under control and no longer burning off fluids in the Stomach.
As for the self-care routine, I recommend topical castor oil liberally around the anus because castor oil used topically functions as an anti-inflammatory that de-flames the skin as well as deeper layers of tissues beneath the skin. You may find that its’s best to do this at night wearing a pair of old pajamas because castor oil is very messy and stains clothes badly.
I also recommend avoiding Heat-producing foods until the anusitis gets under control. Heat producing foods include red meat, (especially lamb), peanuts, chili, cinnamon, wasabi, vinegar, chicken and turkey, alcohol, eggs (the yolk, egg whites are fine), garlic, ginger and coffee. Although these foods aren’t necessarily bad foods in and of themselves, for a person with heat issues, they will often make those heat issues worse. When the body has deflammed and come back into balance then you can return to those foods in a balanced way.
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is a very common health issue. Experts estimate that it affects up to 24% of the adult population in the US. Often it is a silent disease however it can be a cause of liver pain. When NAFLD becomes inflamed is gets re-named as Non-Alcoholic Steatohepatitis (NASH) which means there is fat in the liver plus inflammation and liver damage.
NAFLD is associated with:
obesity or being overweight
abnormal levels of fat in the blood
metabolic syndrome
type 2 diabetes or insulin resistance
malnutrition
disorders of fat storage in the body
medications such as estrogens, HIV treatments, corticosteroids and some breast cancer medicine
toxin exposure
How does NAFLD progress?
Many people with Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease won’t even know they have it. It can progress and create serious liver damage if left undetected and uncontrolled.
The four stages of Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease are
Basic fatty liver (steatosis) –fat build up in the liver cells
Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) – a progression of NAFLD that involves inflammation
Fibrosis – inflammation that has progressed into scar tissue at the liver and adjacent blood vessels, but the liver is still able to function normally
Cirrhosis– late stage inflammation causing a large build up of scar tissue that interferes with liver function and can lead to liver failure or liver cancer
How is Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease diagnosed?
Liver diseases are diagnosed through blood tests that check for inflammation in the liver. Liver damage can also be seen through imaging tests such an ultrasound, CT scan or MRI. Transient elastography is a newer type of test using ultrasound that measures fat in the liver.
How is Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease treated conventionally?
Once the diagnosis of NAFLD has been made, doctors will recommend some lifestyle changes to prevent further damage to the liver and progression of the disease. Lifestyle changes may include:
weight loss
exercise
diet changes such as reduced sugar consumption to correct metabolic disorder or diabetes
controlling fat intake if there are issues with poor storage of fats
If scarring is significant, liver transplant may be recommended.
Can acupuncture treat liver disease?
Acupuncture has quite a lot to offer in the treatment of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Large bodies of research have shown acupuncture to be significantly more effective than placebo at addressing liver function, reducing symptoms, and improving immune function in liver-diseased patients. Specifically, acupuncture works by :
1. Reducing oxidative stress
2. Suppressing inflammatory response
3. Increasing fat metabolism of liver cells.
More recent research has suggested additional mechanisms of action including improving insulin resistance.
Acupuncture can also address the pain and crippling fatigue associated with liver disease. Many painkillers such as NSAIDS and Tylenol are metabolized in the liver and therefore are not recommending by those suffering from liver disease. Acupuncture in this case can also be used as a wise alternative to pain medications.
Treatment Planning for NAFLD
The treatment plan for NAFLD will involve 3-4 key areas:
Treating the Liver channel to send blood, oxygen, nutrients and energy to the liver organ for tissue repair
Treating the mesoderm of the liver which is fed by the Stomach and Spleen channels
Points that reduce inflammation and pain
Treatment may involve using spinal nerve points that feed the liver at T7-T10 at the spine.
How many acupuncture treatments will I need for NAFLD?
Treatment for NAFLD will largely depend on progression of the disease, and adherence to lifestyle recommendations. The following study on electroacupuncture treatment shows that positive results were obtained using electroacupuncture for 30 treatments (30 minute sessions several times per week). The results obtained included better blood lipid levels, better liver enzyme levels, improved glycolipid metabolism, and insulin sensitivity, reduced fatigue, reduced pain and even relief from depression in NAFLD patients.
If you are experiencing liver pain you may want to have the tests mentioned above to diagnose the cause of the liver pain. Acupuncture can then be used to treat liver disease, prevent any progression and get your liver functioning back to normal levels. Since NAFLD is often a silent disease, it is best to not wait.
In our modern world people’s immune systems are burdened by exposure to toxins in food, air, fluoridated water, etc. The good news is that electrical acupuncture medicine is a game changer, a new paradigm in modern medicine that shows measurable benefits. Electricity that is congruent with the body’s systems gets delivered to the circulatory system allowing red blood cells to regenerate faster. The electricity alkalizes the blood through the absorption of electrons.
This more alkaline and enlivened blood is less viscous so it is able to move more freely through small capillaries and to all areas of the body providing better responses to treatment.
From these live blood cell analysis photos below, we can see the before and after in cellular terrain from electro acupuncture. These photos taken by Dr. Jeremy Steiner, researcher and practitioner of electro acupuncture medicine, show prior to treatment, in the top row, thick and sticky red blood cells clumped together, and white blood cells that are atrophied.
The bottom left photo shows the same person’s blood one week later. Notice how the blood cells have become uncoagulated, meaning more able to move through the smallest blood vessels while the white blood cells (bright clusters) which are the neutrophils of the immune system have grown larger from cleaning up the plasma terrain which is the black background. From the bottom right photo taken two weeks later we can see the black background which is the plasma terrain has becomes less cloudy as the white blood cells have finished cleaning up blood parasites, while the red blood cells are still maintaining reduced viscosity.
Modern research has demonstrated how white blood cell activity is increased by stimulating certain acupuncture points.
This can be useful for those who get frequent colds and flus. Additionally, it can help those undergoing conventional cancer treatments that have caused a low white blood cell count.
How often is blood electrification treatment done? Because of the pervasive nature of the immune system and the toxic burdens of modern life, regular blood electrification treatment is very recommended. Blood Electrification is a one point electro-stimulation that can be added in to your regular acupuncture session for better outcomes. It can also turn around issues that have previously had poor response to treatment due to immune dysregulation or blood viscosity which are both very common issues. For chronic conditions, daily home treatment is recommended using the silver pulser, a self treatment device that can be found here Silver Pulser – SOTA Instruments.
Let’s get you started. Call /text my cell at 647-378-3182 and we can discuss how to best incorporate blood electrification treatments into your health routine.
Osteoarthritis is said to affect 500 million worldwide and one in five adults in the US. With so many affected it’s good to know the ins and outs of how it develops and how it gets treated for pain relief, healing and prevention.
You may have had it explained by your doctor that your arthritis is “bone on bone” and as the bones of the joint rub together, the cartilage at the end of the bone wears away leaving a rough surface instead of a smooth surface. When the joints rub against a rough surface this can inflame the tissues and create more pain.
You may still be wondering what caused the cartilage to wear away?
In essence it comes down to a deficiency of the affected channels and tissues. This also correlates with why we see more osteoarthritis is older people who also tend to have more channel deficiency. For example, osteoarthritis of the hip joint reflects a deficiency of the Gall Bladder channel that runs through the femoral head.
Osteoarthritis of the knee
joint reflects either a Stomach or Spleen channel deficiency in most cases. The Stomach channel runs through the lateral knee and the Spleen channel runs through the medial side of the joint. Similarly, after a trauma, osteoarthritis may begin to form whereby the original trauma creates a deficiency in the channel which, if unresolved, can lead to incomplete healing of bone and sets the stage for osteoarthritis.
How is Osteoarthritis treated conventionally?
The most common treatment for osteoarthritis is medication: NSAIDs, cortisone shots, and Tylenol. While medications may provide temporary relief, they do come with some serious side effects when used long term. I will go over this below. Physiotherapy can help strengthen muscles surrounding the joints however this alone is not healing bone tissue. Surgery is a last resort and can often be prevented by using acupuncture and nutrition as described further below.
NSAIDs refers to non- steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. These include ibuprofen, naproxen, and Voltaren. NSAIDs reduce the pain but harm the stomach. NSAIDs stop prostaglandins from being made by the stomach. Prostaglandins are a substance that protects the lining of the stomach from stomach acid. Without prostaglandins, the stomach forms ulcers. Patients will need
to be on broad spectrum digestive enzymes for 3 – 6 months to fix this issue. When the stomach organ is weakened it leads to all kinds of nutritional deficiencies down the road.
Cortisone shots are used to quell the inflammation because cortisone is a natural anti-inflammatory. However, cortisone shots are a hormone therapy. Hormones work on feedback loops so that the exogenous cortisone causes the body’s own innate production of cortisone to stop. When this happens, you have less cortisone and the effect of the shot stops working.
If Tylenol is being used for osteoarthritis pain, the main concern is liver damage. Tylenol creates liver inflammation and liver damage. Tylenol-induced liver damage can be treated using electrical acupuncture on the Liver channel and the dermatome spinal level that supplies nerves that feed into the liver. Although you may not be ready to go off pain meds completely, you can take a gradual approach of tapering down the pain meds as the acupuncture effects kick in.
How does acupuncture treat pain?
Electrical acupuncture at a low hertz causes the release of ACTH and beta -endorphins that have up to 30 times the power of morphine. There are also specific acupuncture points that produce a global reduction in pain and inflammation due to the endorphin production. The effect of these is not instant, because the body takes about 24 hours to make endorphins in response to acupuncture treatment. In this way acupuncture addresses the main symptom which is pain as well as the underlying tissue damage which I will go over below.
Many studies have shown that acupuncture is an effective treatment for osteoarthritis. One study looking at 18000 patients found that acupuncture was effective for multiple pain conditions including knee osteoarthritis.
How can acupuncture heal osteoarthritis?
To understand how the cartilage got stripped off the bone and how that gets reversed, we need to look at pH. In terms of health, the ideal pH of the blood cells needs to be at -7.365. Unfortunately, many people in the world have acidic blood. What happens when blood becomes acidic? Acidic blood cells will pull calcium ions from the interstitial fluid to buffer the acidity. This now creates more acidic interstitial fluid. What happens when the interstitium becomes acidic? It pulls calcium ions from the bones to buffer it. This bone tissue, having lost ions, then starts to break down and become rough, making movement of the joint painful.
Acupuncture heals osteoarthritic tissues by healing deficiency of electricity in the affected channels as well as deficient dermatomes and tissue levels.
Electrical acupuncture heals the bones and joints by restoring alkaline pH as electrons move from the electrode wire to the acupuncture needle into the tissues. In essence, pH means the percentage of hydrogen atoms that creates a negative charge. Healthy blood is pH -7.365 = -20.8 millivolts. To restore healthy pH, electrons, which are negatively charged are added comfortably to the channels and tissues via electrical stimulation acupuncture. This results in healthier tissue terrain that is alkaline. Alkaline blood transfers excess alkalinity to the interstitium. When the interstitium is alkaline, the surplus of negative ions are then donated back to the bones to form smooth cartilage so that joints can move easily and without pain.
What nutrients are most important for healing osteoarthritis?
In addition to acupuncture, best results can be obtained by providing the right nutrition to the joints. Three common issues with osteoarthritis are: calcium-magnesium balance, vitamin D and digestive enzymes.
What is the correct calcium-magnesium balance?
When the body is putting calcium deposits on the bones, as in bone spurring, osteophytes, this is an issue of calcium not being properly absorbed which is often due to magnesium deficiency. Most people need more magnesium because modern diets tend to be low due to soil depletion and many food products are fortified with calcium which throws off the correct calcium-magnesium balance.
Magnesium levels should be at least half or equal to the amount of calcium in your intake. You can try magnesium malate or chelate, however if there are digestive issues with magnesium you may
need to try another version of magnesium and try to not take too much at once. A easy way around any digestive issues is to use a topical magnesium like a spray or a rub-on oil. You can rub this all over your arms, legs and abdomen morning and night. This may feel itchy at first and if so, it’s a sign that your magnesium levels are too low, In this case keep supplementing magnesium and the itching or tingling will go away as your magnesium levels normalize.
How much vitamin D do I need? Vitamin D allows calcium to move into the bones. 2000 IUs is the minimum daily dose. I do recommend 30 000 IUs per week which amounts to 4000-5000 IUs per day.
Why do I need digestive enzymes? The mesoderm of bone is largely supplied by the energy of the Spleen and Stomach channels. The majority of the population has deficiency in the Stomach and Spleen channels. One simple way to effectively improve the functioning of the Stomach and Spleen channels apart from acupuncture is to take a broad spectrum digestive enzyme before meals. Minerals that make up bone tissue are also the hardest micro nutrient to break down especially when there is low stomach acid or low stomach functioning.
How can osteoarthritis be prevented?
The cause of osteoarthritis is a deficiency of electrical charge of the channels and tissues plus nutrient deficiency/toxins. This means that the prevention of osteoarthritis involves:
Maintaining healthy pH in the channels and tissues. This is done both through regular electrical acupuncture and very importantly though blood electrification which can be done as part of an acupuncture treatment or as a daily self-treatment using the Silver Pulser (sota.com) or similar device. Blood electrification helps keep the blood and thereby all tissues alkaline which not only benefits osteoarthritis but also helps in the healing and prevention of all disease.
Optimal levels if minerals through maintaining correct calcium-magnesium balance, vitamin D and digestive enzymes to ensure complete breakdown and absorption of minerals from food. Most people in the developed world are low in magnesium, vitamin D and have poor stomach functioning.
Removing energy leaks that prevent healing such as exposure to dirty electricity (EMF, cell phones, smart watches, oura rings, etc). Take steps to protect yourself from dirty EMF such as by not carrying cell phones close to your body or in the bedroom at night, and by using grounding mats or grounding straps on your shoes and boots to discharge the dirty electricity (earthingcanada.ca, or earthing.com) . Other forms of energy leak can come from dental issues (mercury, root canals), stuck magnetic fields, and toxins.
If you or a loved one has been experiencing pain from osteoarthritis without relief, now is the time to take action. Give me a call /text at 647-378-3182 and let’s get your bones and joints healing up and aching less.
Effectiveness and Safety of Acupuncture for Migraine: An Overview of Sys…Migraine is a common neurological disease, which burdens individuals and society all over the world. Acupuncture…
How does acupuncture help headaches and migraines?
Acupuncture can relieve headaches and migraines in five main ways:
Reduces inflammation . Inflammation leads to pain, when inflammation is treated, pain is reduced or cleared altogether.
Mitigates pain. Beta-endorphins (natural pain-relievers made by the body in response to electrical acupuncture) are produced in response to a low hertz frequency.
Relieves muscle tension in head, neck and shoulders. Muscle tension is often related to stress-headaches. By relaxing muscle groups in these areas, headache pain can start to disappear.
Increases micro-circulation to the head, neck and shoulders. When the muscles in the head, neck and shoulders are relieved of tension through regulated blood flow, the outcome is pain relief.
Improves physical health and well-being. When stress modulated hormones (cortisol, dopamine, adrenaline, serotonin) are balanced, it is much easier to manage stress and less likely for stress to trigger a headache.
How are headaches and migraines diagnosed in acupuncture medicine?
At the beginning of the session you will be asked where your headache pain is felt. The areas of pain are a key aspect of treatment as they relate to excesses and deficiencies of the main channels covering the head. These issues involve the:
1) The Stomach channel (yellow line) – relates to frontal headaches, cheek and jaw pain
2) The Bladder channel (blue line) – relates to inner eyebrow pain and occipital headache
3) The Triple Warmer channel (purple line)- relates to temporal headache that may also involve neck, ear and shoulder tension
4) The Gall Bladder channel (green line) – covers a large portion of the sides of the head and forehead and is the most common issue with headaches
5) Liver system – relates to pain behind the eyes and/or crown of the head
What about women with migraines?
Women may experience a pattern of migraines or headaches around or just before their menstrual cycle. If you are a cycling woman and you don’t know your headache triggers you may want to track the timing to see if it lines up with your cycle. If hormone shifts are part of your headache picture, your acupuncture treatment can address your hormones so that you can achieve hormone balance as well as headache relief.
Migraines in particular tend to follow a pattern of Liver / Gall Bladder Stagnation with Stomach/Spleen Qi Deficiency. The Liver and Gall Bladder system becomes “Excess” which is why there may be a visual aura (the Liver channel “opens to the eyes” and is responsible for healthy vision). The Excess of the Liver and Gall Bladder systems then overpowers (weakens) the Stomach and Spleen systems creating the common experience of nausea and in severe cases vomiting. All the endocrine glands fall directly within the Stomach and Spleen channels so this explains one way the hormones go out of balance when these channels become depleted.
How are headaches and migraines treated with acupuncture?
The strategy for treating headaches and migraines is to first assess which channel(s) are affected and treat those. The second is to use pain relieving points that cause your body to make the feel-good chemicals, the endorphins. Stimulation of endorphin-producing points will take about 24 hours to achieve their full effect as it takes this long for the body to make endorphins in response to acupuncture. The third aspect of treatment is to address nutritional deficiencies or toxins that may be causing the headaches/migraines or interfering with their healing.
What about head trauma?
For head pain that results from physical trauma to the head after an injury, the Pointoselect tool is used to measure low electrical resistance on the skin on points related to areas of the brain (i.e. frontal lobe, occipital lobe, parietal lobe, etc.) that may have been injured. Electrical acupuncture is then applied to those areas indicating low electrical resistance (low energy) to provide healing energy to the areas that need it the most as identified by the Pointoselect.
How will I know if the acupuncture is working?
Typically, in the case of headaches and migraines, and depending on your pattern of occurrence, you will begin to notice at first either a reduction in intensity of pain, shrinkage of areas of pain and/or reduced frequency of headaches. Usually there is some change within the first three treatments.
If you’ve had headaches or migraines for 20 years, your first change may be that left side headache pattern shifts to right side or some other change in location. This is considered a very good sign because pain that starts to move means your headache pattern is breaking up. If I can get the pain to move then it’s the beginning of getting the pain to move out of your body completely. A change in pain location is much better than pain that remains fixed in the same location all the time.
It’s also important to understand that pain is by nature competitive. This means that the nervous system which modulates pain can only signal a few areas of strong pain at any one time. So you will usually only feel one or two main areas of pain at once. Then when the initial pain area starts to heal, other areas may start to feel painful, that previously were not painful. It’s not that you suddenly have new pain but more that since other areas have resolved, you can now receive the pain signals from these other layers that are being uncovered, similar to peeling an onion.
You may notice that these other areas of pain have had issues in the past that didn’t get resolved. For example, before your headaches started, you were having hip pain. The headache pain got worse and you stopped noticing the hip pain and forgot about it. Now that the headaches are resolving, you feel your hip pain again. These older layers that got put on the back burner can now get fully resolved.
What else can I do to relieve or prevent headache or migraine pain?
The first step is to rule out dehydration since lack of water or fluids is an easy fix and a common cause of irregular headaches. Sometimes dehydration is not easily fixed by simply drinking more water. If you find that you are still thirsty after drinking more water and are peeing out the water more than usual, the solution may be that you need electrolytes. A simple way to add electrolytes is to use Celtic or Himalayan sea salt (try one 1/4 teaspoon added to your water) or drink coconut water. If that doesn`t solve it, you may need a more comprehensive electrolyte blend such as Re-Lyte or similar that is a mix of sodium bicarbonate, magnesium, calcium and potassium in a powder form. Mix with water for a nice-tasting drink.
2) Keep a headache diary. Consider the time when the headaches/ migraines first appeared, triggers and anything relating to their recurrence. Caffeine withdrawal from quitting or reducing intake of coffee or even tea can create severe headache for a day or so.
3) Since many headaches and migraines have a Liver/Gall Bladder channel imbalance as part of the picture, you may want to look for things in your diet/lifestyle/medications that could be causing this imbalance.
4) Rule out side-effects of your medications by looking them up on drugs.com. Lyrica has headaches listed as a common side-effect. Tylenol is hard on the liver. Relying on Tylenol for long term pain relief may be significantly contributing to headaches and migraines. There are other alternative forms of pain relief, acupuncture being a major one. Acupuncture can also be used to detox and repair liver damage from medications.
5) In terms of diet, foods that are harder on the liver/gall bladder include alcohol, plasticky “fake” fats such as margarines, or any hydrogenated oils such as hydrogenated peanut butter, denatured oils found in processed canola oil, factory processed baked goods, and deep-fried seed oils such as that found in potato or tortilla chips. Try reducing these fats and replacing them with coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, organic butter and /or organic tallow or lard for liver-friendly fats that remain more stable at high temperatures. The liver is the body`s chemical processing plant so anything that is unnatural is unrecognizable and puts an added burden on the liver (think Splenda, aspartame, artificial flavourings, colourings, GMO foods).
If you or a loved one has been experiencing headaches or migraines without relief, now is the time to take action.
Call or text me at 647-378-3182 and we can discuss how to best help you or a loved one get relief from pain and bring things back into balance.
Have you been living with sharp, stabbing pain in the sole of the foot or heel? Or pain when standing after a period of rest? You may have a case of plantar fasciitis.
Plantar fasciitis is an inflammatory condition affecting about 10% of the population at some point in their lives. Inflammatory conditions have up to four main components: heat, pain, swelling and /or redness.
The issue with plantar fasciitis is often tissue fatigue – the same movements repeated over and over irritating the fascia. The plantar fascia is also a shock absorbor for when the feet hit the ground. This condition typically appears in people after:
excessive standing, walking or running
a recent change in activities
people who carry an excess of weight
alignment issues in the foot or leg
What are the conventional treatments for plantar fasciitis?
Conventional treatments for plantar fasciitis include pain relievers, stretching, icing, rest and limiting aggravating activities. Steroid injections are a less conservative treatment that may bring some temporary relief. Steroid use does come with side effects such as weakened bone in the affected area after repeated use and systemic hormonal imbalance such as adrenal hormone excess or deficiency. As a last resort, surgery can be done but this is usually not necessary.
How does acupuncture treat plantar fasciitis?
The plantar fascia is a shock absorbor that runs along the Kidney channel of the foot. Typically, people with plantar fasciitis also have a Kidney channel deficiency which is the underlying root cause for this condition.
Using a system of mirroring, acupuncture can be done on the hand, and not necessarily the affected foot. This is often a real bonus because it makes for a more comfortable treatment for the patient. The palm of the hand mirrors the sole of the foot. Using the Pericardium and/or Heart channel of the hand will relieve pain along the Kidney channel of the foot and support the Kidney system as well.
Acupuncture here will cause the nervous system to signal the brain to send more blood, energy and nutrients to the plantar fascia without needling the feet directly. The increase in blood and oxygen to the foot has analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects. The micro-tears and inflammation in the fascia that have developed from absorbing shock can now be repaired, allowing you to use your feet comfortably.
Other points may be used to promote circulation to the feet and to support the body`s endorphin production. Endorphins are feel-good hormones that provide an experience of well-being, and attach to the opioid receptors in the brain, making it easier for you to deal with pain without using prescription medications.
Acupuncture shines as a treatment for many types of pain and especially plantar fasciitis. I have treated many cases of plantar fasciitis using this technique and it has worked well every time. Most patients will start to feel some relief within the first 1-3 treatments and full resolution within a short course of regular treatments in simple cases.
What else can I do to heal my heel?
Since plantar fasciitis is largely an issue of wear and tear, the most important lifestyle changes are:
rest when and where you can
stretching the calves and plantar fascia
losing the weight
Acupuncture is used as a natural low-risk therapy that strengthens the fascia over time allowing you to be on your feet for longer. By improving blood flow to the area it will allow for greater flexibility to the band which allows for greater range of motion so that you can get back to doing the things you love.
Cynthia's Classical Acupuncture and Wellness 