Acupuncture Treatment for Stroke (Post Stroke Paralysis)?
Acupuncture therapy for stroke-caused conditions such as paralysis, speech and swallowing problems, and depression is commonly used in the Orient. In China, Acupuncture is done on a daily basis in China. many acupuncturists with experience in treating stroke with acupuncture believe treatment 3 times a week is optimal. Several different approaches have been used to treat stroke, demonstrating that acupuncture for this disorder remains a healthcare art: midnight-noon ebb-flow acupoint selection acupuncture therapy, Chinese scalp acupuncture.
Does acupuncture really work to help stroke victims improve? Many studies involving thousands of patients have been published in China, and 2 of 3 studies from Scandinavia, demonstrated significant help. These studies indicate that patients get well faster, perform better in self-care, require less nursing and rehabilitation therapy, and use less healthcare dollars.
Acupuncture is a safe therapy, and my experience has taught that this is especially true when helping stroke victims. Even discomfort is generally minimal. If one compares the possible positive help to be obtained with the risks associated with acupuncture, my contention is that acupuncture is worthy to attempt for stroke therapy.
Adding acupuncture to rehabilitation therapy obviously increases the cost; daily-to-3 times-weekly treatment is needed for 2-4 weeks or longer. Concern for added cost would perhaps disappear if the end result demonstrates more self-care and less dependence on family and health providers.
Pain is a system in your body that warns you if something is wrong. In today's society, most people will try to cover up the pain by either ignoring it or taking drugs to dull it. By doing this, the source of the pain will never go away. Pain can also be felt at points of the body that are a distance away from the originating disorder. For instance, a toothache can be felt in the ear because they share the same sensory nerve. This is called referred pain.
Pain threshold vary greatly from person to person. Often times, distress, anxiety and fear will heighten pain. For example a patient may feel more pain when they feel an unexplained pain, but it may feel less severe when a diagnosis is made.
What can you do? It is possible to try to let your body recover on its own through bed rest, but this can have the potential to delay recovery or even make the problem worse. Another choice is to take drugs to dull the pain; however, this does not solve the problem that is causing the pain and drugs may also have unwanted side effects. Surgery is also a possibility, but it is a drastic one. Your body will have to recovery from the operation and there may be pain from the incision. On top of this, surgery itself is risky. Some studies suggest that surgery is very similar to the placebo effect.
Acupuncture is an option that is reliable, safe, effective and a natural way to eliminate the problem and pain. Both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the National Institute of Health (NIH) acknowledge the benefits of acupuncture as a useful treatment for pain due to a wide number of causes. Furthermore, acupuncture works for the entire person, body and mind at the same time. It's a medical system that has had thousands of years of practice and it is safe and gentle with no side effects.
Acupuncturists understand that Qi, the energy of life flows through the 14 major meridians in our bodies. The meridians carries this energy to parts of our body, nourishing each part. A blockage in a meridian can cause pain. The acupuncturist uses needles to unblock meridians to let the energy flow freely. Acupuncture not only treats symptoms, it uncovers the source of pain and corrects it so your body can begin to heal on deeper levels.
For years we have believed we were either healthy or sick. However, during the mid-90s, scientists developed a new concept called “Sub-healthy”, a status between health and illness.
Sub-healthy has become popular because it has helped to explain many health problems. According to one study, only 5.6% of people in the overall population are actually sick, whereas the sub-healthy group consists of about 60%, and the remaining population is considered healthy. Awareness of one’s sub-healthy will help one to alert the underlying disease and will help one to remain healthier. Sub-Healthy is a state in which the body is either transitioning from health to illness or from illness to health. Our bodies are actively balancing the conditions of health, sub-health and disease. Factors like aging, internal or external toxicity, body or mind exhaustion may cause sub-health, but taking good care of the body can change a sub-healthy status to a healthy one.
The most common symptoms of sub-health include: intolerance of hot or cold, fatigue or exhaustion ; insomnia; low resistance or frequent flu.; body aches; bloating or other GI problems; fast weight gain; sluggish memory; hair loss; sexual libido…..
The recommended standard of sub-healthy status is the persistence of one or more of the above symptoms for more than 3 months, along with no conclusive positive medical finding or diagnoses. Or can be a long term disease patient but the symptoms can not be explained by that disease. Patients who have chronic diseases may not be considered as sub-healthy ones if they keep them selves in a good condition.
In Chinese medicine, sub-health is an Imbalance of Yin and Yang; Qi and Blood and organs. Our bodies have 12 meridians that are energy pathways and where are the acupuncture effectives on. Free flow of energy (Qi) in the meridians ensures the organ’s health, as well as the body’s. The blockage of Qi causes different symptoms; for example, a Lung-meridian blockage may cause cough, and Heart-meridian insomnia. Normally, Qi blockage happens before the clinical symptom develops. It is important to note that it is this meridian energy sluggishness or blockage that causes the sub-health status. To solve this problem, acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine work on two ways: they clear the meridian blockage or to strengthen the meridians from the attacks of the illness agents.
To regenerate sub-healthy back to a healthy state is to rebalance the organ meridians through acupuncture, herbal medicine, Qi-gong, massage, diet and exercise. It is very common that our patients are the healthiest ones in their families because a balanced body is a healthier body. To identify and treat sub-healthy is to prevent one from becoming seriously ill. Please be aware of and change your Sub-Healthy!
These days many people are trying to quit smoking, but a large number fail. Acupuncture can help you have a better chance at success. There are many reasons to quit smoking and most experts would agree that quitting smoking is the most important thing you can do for your health. Cancer of the lungs, bladder, mouth, larynx, pharynx, esophagus, pancreas, kidney, uterus and cervix are reason alone to quit. However, it's sometimes still hard to quit due to the stress, anxiety and depression associated with quitting. Acupuncture can help by suppressing nicotine cravings and also stimulate the healing and repair of damaged organ systems.
How does acupuncture treat Infantile Cerebral Palsy?
Cerebral palsy is an umbrella-like term used to describe a group of chronic disorders impairing control of movement that appear in the first few years of life and generally do not worsen over time. The term cerebral refers to the brain's two halves, or hemispheres, and palsy describes any disorder that impairs control of body movement. Thus, these disorders are not caused by problems in the muscles or nerves. Instead, faulty development or damage to motor areas in the brain disrupts the brain's ability to adequately control movement and posture.
Symptoms of cerebral palsy lie along a spectrum of varying severity. An individual with cerebral palsy may have difficulty with fine motor tasks, such as writing or cutting with scissors; experience trouble with maintaining balance and walking; or be affected by involuntary movements, such as uncontrollable writhing motion of the hands or drooling. The symptoms differ from one person to the next, and may even change over time in the individual. Some people with cerebral palsy are also affected by other medical disorders, including seizures or mental impairment. Contrary to common belief, however, cerebral palsy does not always cause profound handicap. While a child with severe cerebral palsy might be unable to walk and need extensive, lifelong care, a child with mild cerebral palsy might only be slightly awkward and require no special assistance. Using acupuncture, the acupuncturist is able to treat this disease; thus improving the function of brain.
Alzheimer's disease, also named senile dementia/Alzheimer's type (SDAT) , is the most common cause of intellectual decline with aging. The incidence is approximately 9 out of 10,000 people. This disorder affects women slightly more often than men and occurs primarily in older individuals.
The cause is unknown. Several factors are believed to be involved in the development of the disorder, but have not yet been proven. The neurochemical factors include lack of the substances used by the nerve cells to transmit nerve impulses (neurotransmitters), including acetylcholine, somatostatin, substance P, and norepinephrine. Environmental factors include exposure to aluminum, manganese, and other substances. The infectious factors include prion (virus-like organisms) infections that affect the brain and spinal cord ( central nervous system ). In some families (representing 5 to 10% of cases) there is an inherited predisposition to development of the disorder, but this does not follow strict (Mendelian) patterns of inheritance. The diagnosis is usually made by ruling out other causes of dementia.
In traditional Chinese medicine, it is understood that there are many causative factors for this disease: since the heart houses mind, so when the heart orifice is misted, the mind can not function; kidney houses the will, and when the will is harmed, the previous speech might be easily forgotten; up to the age of eighty, the “Po” (corporeal soul) is away, so the person can not speak and behave in a proper way.
In clinic, it is difficult to distinguish one syndrome from another, both heart and kidney could be coincidentally deficient, or phlegm and stagnation could coexist. The key point of syndrome differentiation is: to grasp the principle and use it flexibly; to ensure the syndrome by ascertaining the etiology; and to make changes on the ground of patients’ conditions.
For this disease, some cases could be cured, and some couldn’t, for it is also dependent on the vitality of stomach Qi and primordial Qi. So the treatment could be long-lasting, because it takes time for the recovery of both types of Qi, hence the patience is required.
Impotence refers to the inability to have an erection or maintain an erection until ejaculation, which is often seen in sexual neurastenia and some chronic diseases.
Impotence can be classified as primary or secondary. A man with primary impotence has never had successful intercourse with a partner but may achieve normal erections in other situations. This rare condition is difficult to treat.
Treatment of secondary impotence is more successful than that of primary impotence because, despite current impotence problems, there is some history of success with completing intercourse in the past.
In TCM, impotence is usually caused by the decline of fire from the gate of life and exhaustion of essence and blood as a result of early marriage, indulgence in sexual activity or frequent masturbation, damage to the kidney by fright, damage to the heart and spleen and further the Stomach Meridian of Foot-Yangming and Chong Meridian by worries. There are also some cases caused by the downward flow of dampness-heat.
The syndrome differentiation is failure to have an erection or inability to maintain a satisfactory erection, premature ejaculation. The accompanying symptoms are dizziness, blurred vision, tinnitus, insomnia, pale complexion, lassitude, soreness and weakness in the loin and knees, thready and weak pulse.
Treatment of the disease is to invigorate kidney qi and benefit the heart and spleen.
Treatment principles: To invigorate kidney qi and benefit the heart and spleen. Methods: Select acupoints on the Kidney Meridian of Foot-Shaoyin and the Stomach Meridian of Foot-Yangming and a back-shu point to apply acupuncture treatment, using the reinforcing manipulation. Moxibustion can also be used if necessary.
According to Traditional Chinese Medicine theory, a human body is considered as a mini nature. When the sun descends, the night is coming; meanwhile the Qi (vital energy ) and blood slip into the interior and human fall into sleep. This is a wellbalanced status for person. Now ,you can get a conclusion that if Qi and blood can not enter into the body in the evening because of any reasons, you will get into insomnia.
There are kinds of reasons that cause vital energy and blood can not go into the inside, such as disharmony between the heart and kidney, deficiency of Qi and blood of the heart and spleen, lack of yin of liver and eat too much or starve. Person can not sleep peacefully, manifesting be difficulty in going into sleep, easy to wake after sleep and not easy to sleep again and so on. It is just a Traditional Chinese Medicine theory-"yang can not enter into yin”.
Moreover, it is should be realized that Qi and blood go into the interior in the night in order to exert the function of nourishing visceral. "not sleep in the night, not energetic in day time", so the concomitant symptoms must be distractibility, listlessness and dizziness in the daytime.
The main treating principle of insomnia in Traditional Chinese Medicine include communicating heart and kidney, nourishing Qi and blood of heart and spleen, promoting digestion and removing retention of food .The representative formulae are “Harmony-Preserving pills, Mid-Reinforcing and Qi-Benefiting Decoction, Rehmannia Bolus with six Herbs”. Acupuncture and massage has a fine effect on insomnia too.
The definition of insomnia, according to the American Sleep Disorders Association (ASDA), is difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep. If it occurs every night or most nights for an extended time, it's called chronic insomnia. If it only lasts for a few days and short-term insomnia for no more than three week, we call it Transient insomnia.
Perhaps the most important point to realize about insomnia is that it is not a disease, but rather a symptom. This symptom can occur with many different types of illnesses or conditions. In the majority of cases, underlying causes exist for the insomnia. When no other underlying causes can be found, the patient is said to be suffering from primary insomnia. As you catch on, Primary insomnia is not due to any other sleep disorders, such as restless legs syndrome, medical conditions, drugs, or mental disorders and so on.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease that causes chronic inflammation of the joints. Rheumatoid arthritis can also cause inflammation of the tissue around the joints, as well as in other organs in the body. Autoimmune diseases are illnesses that occur when the body tissues are mistakenly attacked by its own immune system.
The immune system is a complex organization of cells and antibodies designed normally to "seek and destroy" invaders of the body, particularly infections. Patients with autoimmune diseases have antibodies in their blood that target their own body tissues, where they can be associated with inflammation. Because it can affect multiple other organs of the body, rheumatoid arthritis is referred to as a systemic illness and is sometimes called rheumatoid disease.
While rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic illness, meaning it can last for years, patients may experience long periods without symptoms. Typically, however, rheumatoid arthritis is a progressive illness that has the potential to cause joint destruction and functional disability.
Acupuncture is a really effective treatment for people who have rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis and will greatly improve overall state of health. Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners believe that deficiency of blood and liver, and kidney Qi deficiency are the main reasons for the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis. Dr. Huang & Dr. Zhang's Acupuncture treatment not only helps reduce pain in these conditions but patients will also have increased energy, disappearance of physical fatigue and digestive function improvements as an added benefit.
