Happy Christmas

I would like to wish all my patients and friends a very Happy Festive Season. I wish you all a happy time, with plenty of good food, enjoyable exercise and an opportunity to have good quality rest. As the days have grown shorter and shorter, I have found myself contemplating a Chinese Medicine view of the ebb and flow of light. In this perspective, the year has a flow between Yin and Yang, in the same way that the diurnal cycle moves from Yin to Yang and round again.

Chinese doctors suggest that our sleep pattern should change with the flow of Yin and Yang such that, in summer - the period of maximum Yang, because of the long days, when we feel naturally more energetic and active - we should get up early and go to bed late. By contrast, in the middle of winter, when it is cold outside and long dark nights enclose us indoors in what is, hopefully, a warm and cosy home, we should try to go to bed early and get up late, perhaps having nine hours sleep a night, and enjoying some time outside during daylight hours to refresh ourselves. Obviously, this is totally impractical for anyone who works a normal working day but, if you have more than a few days off, why not take advantage over the Christmas holiday, and stockpile plenty of rest to see you through the rest of the winter?!
 

So, Happy Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Resting!!

Microlives

A interesting concept, and possibly fun to try out is this new idea! It's a way of working out how good for you (or bad for you!) are various daily things that you do each day.

There is a kind of quiz to help you work it out. Click here

You can access the full article from the website.

Facial pain - acupuncture shown to be effective

Facial pain is a frequently encountered condition causing great distress to the sufferer. A recently published U.S. study analysed 168 participants with temperomandibular disorders. Participants were all given self-care education. After two weeks and ten weeks, patients were allocated to a traditional Chinese Medicine ( TCM) group or continued self-care alone.

Those in the TCM group were given 20 weeks of acupuncture within a one year period. The treatment was individualised, although it included a core set of points. Other points, specific to each patient, were added, depending on the specific symptoms and other complaints experienced by the patient.

The TCM group was compared with a group only given self-care education. TCM was found to provide significantly greater pain relief, and greater reduction in the degree to which pain interfered with social activities, than self-education alone. You can look at the research here

You can see what conditions acupuncture can treat on my Acupuncture in Bristol and Shaftesbury website

Moxibustion effective for turning breech babies

A new study has looked at the traditional Chinese method of turning breech babies by using moxibustion  - a method of stimulating an acupuncture point by warming it with a smouldering herb, moxa, derived from mugwort, part of the artemisia family. This centuries old practice has been used by traditional acupuncturists for years and, in this study, was compared with sham moxibustion. More breech babies were successfully turned to the correct position in the group of patients on whom true moxibustion was used, than in the sham moxibustion group.

The study also concluded that the procedure was a safe method of intervention, when used between 33 and 35 weeks of gestation, the time recommended by most acupuncturists, and what I advise myself. This is the study.

And this video shows how smokeless moxa, which I use, is applied. 

There's another study which you can access from my website.

Acupuncture for chronic pain

A huge review of acupuncture trials, numbering nearly 18,000 patients, has concluded that acupuncture is effective for chronic pain. The researchers found true acupuncture to be better than sham acupuncture, and also concluded that acupuncture is definitely more than a placebo.  

Those reviewing the available randomised controlled trials, included patients with back and neck pain, chronic headache, osteoarthritis, and shoulder pain.  Evidence indicated acupuncture's effectiveness for these chronic conditions and also implied that other factors in addition to needling contributed to the improvement. One can only speculate as to what these might be:

As an acupuncturist, I wonder if the length of time spent with each patient played a part in their improvement, allowing the practitioner time to listen to the patient, examine them carefully at each treatment, and give appropriate lifestyle recommendations and reassurance, as well as adjusting each treatment to suit the patient.

You can look at the review here.

To return to my Acupuncture in Bristol and Shaftesbury website, and look at evidence for acupuncture and chronic pain, and other conditions, click here. 

Morning sickness - help from Acupuncture

Congratulations to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the news that they are expecting a baby. All my sympathy went out to the Duchess on hearing that she had been hospitalised with severe morning sickness.

This condition, known technically as hyperemesis, is thoroughly miserable, involving prolonged and persistent vomiting as well as nausea, and usually lasts all day, not just the morning nausea that traditionally afflicts pregnant women.  Any sickness is unpleasant, but a little passing nausea often comforts women with the reassuring knowledge that their body is behaving in a way that confirms their pregnancy.

The degree to which Kate has clearly been suffering ruins any quality of life and can be dangerous because of the dehydration that sets in. It takes the joy out of being pregnant.

I have helped a number of women, in the course of the last twenty years, to cope with nausea and vomiting in pregnancy, and to reduce the severity of their symptoms, and was interested to watch this video published by the British Acupuncture Council, as the comments voiced by the patient echo those made by patients of mine. 

To visit my website click here.

Heel pain

Plantar heel pain is an extremely painful and wearisome condition - also known as plantar fasciitis, or policeman's heel. It can be treated by various means, acupuncture being one choice. 

A recent systematic review of different pieces of research has shown that there is evidence supporting the effectiveness of acupuncture for treating plantar heel pain. This is comparable to the evidence available for conventionally used interventions, such as stretching, night splints or dexamethasone (a powerful steroid). 

So this review recommends that acupuncture should be considered for patients with plantar heel pain. To look at the review in more detail, click here. To return to my website, Acupuncture in Bristol and Shaftesbury, click here.