Acupuncture and herbal medicine is highly effective in treating orthopedic disharmonies or problems with bones, joints, ligaments, tendons, muscles, and nerves which often result in pain such as:
- acute and chronic pain
- sports injuries
- sprains, and trauma
- musculoskeletal pain
- repetitive motion injuries
- back, neck, and shoulder pain
- sciatica
- whiplash
- tendonitis
- tennis elbow
- knee pain
- arthritis
- fibromyalgia
- headaches and migraines
- TMJ/jaw Pain
- gout
- restless leg syndrome
- numbness and tingling
- trigger finger
- Bell’s palsy
- neuralgia
- peripheral neuropathy
- phantom-limb pain
- menstrual cramps
Christina has studied channel based and balance method Acupuncture with several masters. These systems of treatment were developed and taught by Master Tung and Dr. Richard Tan. The balance method is renowned for quick results in the treatment of pain.
According to this theory of acupuncture, needles are not placed in the area of pain; doing that is like adding insult to injury to an already inflamed body part. Instead, mostly distal acupuncture points below the elbows and knees are used to treat the area of pain. Points as far away from the pain as possible are chosen based on meridian mapping theories rooted in the five elements and eight principles of Oriental Medicine and the Ba Gua of the Daoist book of the I Ching. These far away acupoints located in healthy parts of the body balance and unblock stagnant qi in specific parts of the body.
From a Western medical perspective one can think of the channels somewhat like blood vessels and nerves and qi as oxygen and nutrients in our blood that feeds our entire body. Research has shown that acupuncture needles increase blood flow throughout the body and affect brain chemistry by increasing neurotransmitters such as serotonin, noradrenalin, and endorphins which are natural “feel good” chemicals, pain killers, and regulators of the body.
Acupuncture influences the peripheral nervous system by forcing the mid-brain to release enkephalins, the body’s pain killers. These natural chemicals plug up the pain receptor sites in the brain, along the spine, and in the capillary beds where pain is experienced. This is how acupuncture stops chronic pain and allows the body to return to natural functioning.
The number one reason that the body’s pain-relieving mechanism is no longer working in chronic pain sufferers is related to a signal strength problem in the proprioceptive neural tissue. If the neural threshold level is too low, the brain will not know exactly where to release the enkaphalins, and thus the pain continues. We see many patients who have had multiple surgeries and are still suffering. An MRI or X-Ray cannot detect a nerve. It is often difficult to treat nerve pain with pharmaceuticals as nerve pain does not respond well to prescription pain relievers.
Acupuncture will raise the signal strength on the proprioceptive pathway, often resulting in sudden and dramatic relief from pain. For this reason we can treat an incredibly wide variety of pain problems and most patients respond quickly to channel based acupuncture and report instantaneous pain relief.
