Tao of Medicine Acupuncture & Wellness in Santa Monica, CA

The vine that ate the South has a sobering effect on binge drinkers.

Researchers at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., suspected that excessive drinking might be curbed by giving drinkers an extract of kudzu, a pesky, rapidly growing weed common in the Southern states. They knew it has been used for that purpose in China since 600 A.D. More recently, other researchers at Harvard University tested it on golden hamsters, bred and born to drink alcohol, and found that it reduced the rodents' intake.

"These results prompted us to test an herbal extract of it on humans," notes Scott Lukas, professor of psychiatry at McLean, a psychiatric hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School. He and his colleagues recruited 14 men and women, average age 24 years. The "laboratory" was an apartment where each person was allowed to drink as many beers as he or she wanted, up to a maximum of six. After determining how much each person drinks normally, half were given a capsule of kudzu or an inactive pill or placebo.

After a so-called "washout" period, treatments were reversed. Those who had gotten the kudzu received a placebo and vice versa. Researchers who evaluated their drinking behavior did not know who received what or when.

The results were dramatic. "Those who took kudzu drank significantly less than those on placebo," says Lukas. "Everyone took that first drink when they came to the apartment after work. But the kudzu group was slower and less likely to reach for the second or third beer. They downed an average of one or two beers while the placebo group finished three or four. Alcohol consumption was almost cut in half."

Beyond that, those on kudzu drank more slowly. "They needed more gulps to finish each beer," Lukas continues. "That tells us they are responding to cues from their brains telling them they don't need to drink so much."

My comment and additional information

Kudzu has the several different names; gegen in china, kakkon in japan, galgun in korea and the pharmaceutical name is Radix Puerariae. it tastes sweet and acrid, its sap is cool.

The indication of Kudzu root are:

1. releases the muscles and clears heat - used for common cold symptoms, muscle ache, sore throat, fever.
2. nourishes the fluids and alleviates thirst
3. vents measles
4. alleviates diarrhea
5. treats symptoms of hypertension

Kudzu grows so fast and its root down to the earth so deep so that it really eats all over the mountains, in Korea and Japan which have been around a thousand years  and used for many different uses.; ropes,wallpaper, domestic animal food, the kudzu powder for cake, the kudzu juice for the summer drink and so on.

And kudzu flower is also used for the headache from hangover, abdominal distention, thirst, poor appetite, vomiting and its leaves stops bleeding in the external wound.

What is Shingles?

Shingles (herpes zoster) is an outbreak of rash or blisters on the skin that is caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox — the varicella-zoster virus. The first sign of shingles is often burning or tingling pain, or sometimes numbness or itch, in one particular location on only one side of the body. After several days or a week, a rash of fluid-filled blisters, similar to chickenpox, appears in one area on one side of the body. Shingles pain can be mild or intense.  Some people have mostly itching; some feel pain from the gentlest touch or breeze.  The most common location for shingles is a band, called a dermatome, spanning one side of the trunk around the waistline. Anyone who has had chickenpox is at risk for shingles.  Scientists think that in the original battle with the varicella-zoster virus, some of the virus particles leave the skin blisters and move into the nervous system.  When the varicella-zoster virus reactivates, the virus moves back down the long nerve fibers that extend from the sensory cell bodies to the skin.  The viruses multiply, the tell-tale rash erupts, and the person now has shingles.

 

 

What is the prognosis?

For most healthy people who receive treatment soon after the outbreak of blisters, the lesions heal, the pain subsides within 3 to 5 weeks, and the blisters often leave no scars.  However, shingles is a serious threat in immuno-suppressed individuals — for example, those with HIV infection or who are receiving cancer treatments that can weaken their immune systems.  People who receive organ transplants are also vulnerable to shingles because they are given drugs that suppress the immune system.  

A person with a shingles rash can pass the virus to someone, usually a child, who has never had chickenpox, but the child will develop chickenpox, not shingles.  A person with chickenpox cannot communicate shingles to someone else.  Shingles comes from the virus hiding inside the person's body, not from an outside source.

 

Excerpted by National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, NIH

 

Treated based on the treatment protocol of skin disorder affected by fire toxin in the blood, shingles(herpes zoster) responds well to acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine; however the physician should differentiate first by the 8 principles ( heat or cold, exterior or  interior,  yin or yang, deficiency or excess ) and also zhang fu theory.

The most common Eastern diagnosis is liver-gallbladder damp-heat accumulation.

 

In this case, the patient has the damp-heat accumulation (also some fire-toxin) in “the liver and gallbladder” and “spleen and stomach”.

: 53 year-old , overweight male with hypertension and border-line high cholesterol, ruddy complexion, has taken prednisone for 3 ½ weeks, which didn’t seem to help and decided to try acupuncture.

 

Acupuncture Treatment:

1. Poke the affected area with a lancet and do the cupping for blood letting and place the 0.5cun needles along the affected area.
2. In order to affect the whole body and enhance the immune system, Eastern differentiation should be made and the physician will choose the indicated acupuncture points.
3. Acupuncture points : Tonify:LI11, ST36, Sedate: SI5,ST44, LV2, HT8

 

Results: After the treatment, he experienced noticeably the immediate pain relief with no itch and the decrease of redness in the affected area was even visible.

 

Herbal Medicine:

 

 long dan xie gan tang(gentiana longdancao decoction)

: long dan cao, huang qin, zhi zi, mu tong, che qian zi, ze xie, chai hu, sheng di huang, dang gui

 

chu shi wei ling tang(eliminate dampness decoction by combining calm the stomach and five-ingredient powder with poria):cang zhu, hou po, chen pi, zhu ling, ze xie, chi fu ling, chao bai zhu, hua shi, fang feng, zhi zi, mu tong, rou gui, gan cao, deng xin cao

 

sheng ma ge gen tang(cimicifuga and kudzu decoction) with zi cao(lithospermum)

:sheng ma, ge gen, zhi gan cao, chi shao

 

Tak ri so dok um(eliminate toxicity decoction) from sang tong 93 in bang yak hap peon

: jin yin hua, chen pi, huang qi, tian hua fen, fang feng, dang gui, chuan xiong, bai zhi, jie geng, hou po, chuan shan jia, zao jiao

 

Common Indication: Clear heat, cool the blood and relieve fire toxicity while venting rashes

 

By Hoon Cheol Kim, Ph.D,L.Ac, Tao of Medicine, Acupuncture and Wellness in Los Angeles

 

Reference:

1. Chinese herbal medicine formulas & strategies by Dan Bensky, Randall Barolet (May 1990), Eastland Press

2. Pricking blood therapy combined with ultraviolet irradiation for treatment of acute herpes zoster - Zhongguo Zhen Jiu. 2009 Apr;29(4):285-8.

3. Observation on the therapeutic effect of electroacupuncture of Jiaji (EX-B 2) plus regional encircled needling for herpes zoster]

Zhen Ci Yan Jiu. 2009 Apr;34(2):125-7, 135.

 

 

 

This article is not intended to diagnose, cure, or prevent any disease, if you need any condition related to this article and contact your physician or licensed acupuncturist.

More and more researches have been on the positive effect of Acupuncture in IVF (in vitro fertilization) and shown that Acupuncture increases pregnancy rate and decreases the miscarriage rate, below is the one of which shows what Acupuncture does in IVF.

 

Group	Pregnancy Rate	Ongoing Pregnancy Rate
Acupuncture	37 of 95 [39%]	34 of 95 [36%]
No Acupuncture	21 of 87 [26%]	19 of 87 [22%]

 

Westergaard LG, Mao Q, Krogslund M, Sandrini S, Lenz S, Grinsted J.

Fertility Clinic Trianglen, Hellerup, Denmark. l.g.westergaard@dadlnet.dk

 

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effect of acupuncture on reproductive outcome in patients treated with IVF/intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI).

One group of patients received acupuncture on the day of ET, another group on ET day and again 2 days later (i.e., closer to implantation day), and both groups were compared with a control group that did not receive acupuncture.

DESIGN: Prospective, randomized trial.

SETTING: Private fertility center.

PATIENT(S): During the study period all patients receiving IVF or ICSI treatment were offered participation in the study. On the day of oocyte retrieval, patients were randomly allocated (with sealed envelopes) to receive acupuncture on the day of ET (ACU 1 group, n = 95), on that day and again 2 days later (ACU 2 group, n = 91), or no acupuncture (control group, n = 87).

INTERVENTION(S): Acupuncture was performed immediately before and after ET (ACU 1 and 2 groups), with each session lasting 25 minutes; and one 25-minute session was performed 2 days later in the ACU 2 group.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): Clinical pregnancy and ongoing pregnancy rates in the three groups.

RESULT(S): Clinical and ongoing pregnancy rates were significantly higher in the ACU 1 group as compared with controls (37 of 95 [39%] vs. 21 of 87 [26%] and 34 of 95 [36%] vs. 19 of 87 [22%]). The clinical and ongoing pregnancy rates in the ACU 2 group (36% and 26%) were higher than in controls, but the difference did not reach statistical difference.

CONCLUSION(S): Acupuncture on the day of ET significantly improves the reproductive outcome of IVF/ICSI, compared with no acupuncture. Repeating acupuncture on ET day +2 provided no additional beneficial effect.

 

 

My Comments : 

 

The result convinces those women looking for acupuncture with IVF enough to choose it with confidence.

 

And personally I hope to see more researches of the efficacy of acupuncture conjunctive with IVF and useful data to have the western fertility physicians and infertile women work with more acupuncturists, in order to save the medical expense and time for the whole procedure and increase the pregnancy rate.

 

Across the world, althought all the doctors and scientists try to curb H1N1, this influenza doesn't seem to know where to stop, still growing bigger, And last week monday, September 21 2009, 442 new H1N1-related deaths have been reported during the past week all over the world, the highest one-week death count since the third week of August; 63.1 deaths per day, and an increase of 11% over the week before.

during the same week, the United States(including Puerto Rico)had 59 new deaths, and Californic has had since 3161 h1n1 cases and 167 deaths.

Now while feeling this infectious diseae all around us and affecting our daily life, I have found some good news shining on H1N1 treatment here:

Last May 2009 Chinese Health Department announced that Traditional Chinese Herbs can treat H1N1 patients more effectively than Tamiflu.

Since H1N1 virus starts to spread from the Lung and the Stomach and flows into the blood system, its treatments can be categorized according to the affected region and symptoms.

1. The respiratory system(fever, coughing, runny nose, sore throat: Ma huang (ephedrae), xing ren(apricot seed), shi gao(gypsum), chai hu (bupleurum), gan cao(licorice). There are also effective Chinese patent drugs including Banlangen chongji (radix isatidis medicinal granules), Shuanghuanglian (oral liquid composed of honeysuckle, baikal skullcap root and forsythia), and Zheng chaihu yin keli (Chinese thorowax granules).
2. The digestive system: Ge gen (radix puerariae), huang lian(coptis rhizome), chang zhu(atractylodes), , huo xiang(agastache). People can take patent drugs such as Huo xiang zheng qi zhi ji (ageratum oral liquid) and Gegen qinlian (pills composed of radix puerariae, baikal skullcap root, coptis root and liquorice).
3. The blood system (High fever, chest congestion, irritability and breathing problems): ma huang(ephedrae), xing ren(apricot seed, da huang(rhubarb root), shi gao(gypsum), bai shao(white peony root),  xi jiao(cornu rhinoceri)

And after this announcement, East Asian doctors from China and Korea had the H1N1 Academic seminar in beijing to find out the alternative treatment with traditional herbs together in China.

---

All the herbs and formulas have been widely used around more than at least 1500 years from the period of Shang Han Lun and have shown the effectiveness to treat the infectious disease, which is called 'wen bing'( the disease of heat), because the major symptoms of H1N1 belong to heat and dampness among the pathogens(wind, cold, heat, dampness, dryness, fire) in East Asian medicine, however if you want to take these herbs or are interested in them, please contact the experienced acupuncturists or herbalist.

More related information:

• Watch the Reuters News http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kb9h7YID6e4
• Worldwide Statistics of H1N1 http://www.flucount.org/

Translated and summarized for the readers by TAO OF MEDICINE, ACUPUNCTURE SANTA MONICA & LOS ANGELES

How East Asian Medicine treats patients in the different way from that of Western Allopathic doctors.

 I have many questions from My patients new or established or phone calls;

   "I have OCD, can you treat this?"

   "I have severe IBS, how do you treat this? do you have experiences?"

   "I have Crohn's Disease..."

 

Most of people bring the diagnostic names, at times, the big names from their Allopathic doctors and ask if I know those names and able to help it.  to some of them,  more complicated diagnosis means they are more sick and need serious attention and treatment.

 If I say 'no', their typical response is that this doctor doesn't know about this so ignorant.

 

 When someone asks me,
  " I have IBS, can you treat it?', I might ask 'what is IBS, Where is he? '

 East Asian medicine does not treat the diagnostic names but the very person who have that diagnosis, and also without the diagnosis from the allopathic doctors, we help the patients, however if the patients give the right diagnostic names, this will help us to treat them more effectively; the diagnosis consists of its symptoms.

 I believe that alothough humans have two arm, two legs and two eyes and so on in common, those arms, legs and everthing in details are all different and unique, therefore even the same disease can cause the different symptoms with different intensity on the different people in different time and space, so we East Asian physicians do not address the names patients bring but the individual and the treatment is always customized to each patient.


                                                                        TAO OF MEDICINE, ACUPUNCTURE & WELLNESS SANTA MONICA & LA

The breathing exercise and the practice of the six healing sounds- liu zi jue or liu qi fa, has a long history as early as the Qin dynasty (221-207 B.C.).

There have been many records of healing sound practices.

The principles of breathing- exhale the old qi and inhale the new qi- zhuang zi, the chapter of ke yi(4th Century B.C during the warring states period)

The more should be inhaled and the less exhaled- ge hong's bao pu zi(A.D.283-343).

During the Sui dynasty (A.D. 590-618), a tian tai Buddhist high priest, zhi zhuan, pointed out the healing potential of the six healing sounds.

The six healing sounds were recorded as chui, hu, xi, ke, xu and si.

In Yang xing yan ming lu, quan xia of the early 6 century Yang Dynasty, a legendary Taoist, Tao Hong Jing (A.D. 452-536) said:

"Chui removes wind pathogen, hu heat pathogen.

Xi removes worries, ke moves qi down

Xu disperse the congestion, si eliminates the severe fatigue."

In the Tang dynasty (A.D. 618-906) a famous taoist and great physician, sun si-miao, wrote in the song of hygiene about the six healing sounds;

 
 The liver and spring corresponds to wood elements; the xu sound in the spring will brighten the eyes and relieve liver stagnation.

The heart and summer corresponds to fire elements; the ke sound in the summer will relieve fire in the heart.

The lungs and fall corresponds to metal elements; the si sound in fall will nourish the lungs.

The kidneys and winter corresponds to water elements; the chui sound in the winter will keep the kidneys at ease.

The xi sound will regulate the triple burner and eliminate annoying heat.

The hu sound during the four seasons will assist the assimilation of food by the spleen.

 It is not necessary to make any noise when you practice. The benefit is greater than miraculous pills.

 Today the standard and most popular way of the six healing sounds should be found in yang qi gong of ma li-tang.

If you want to dig more into this healing sound qigong, check yang qi gong of ma li-tang.

If you practice every day like having a meal three times a day, these healing sound will benefit you greatly and help you feel balanced and calm.

 And also if you like this practice, you may want to read the previous article "Remove your stress with breathing", that'll help you go deep in the training.

Tao of Medicine Acupuncture and Wellness Santa Monica and Los Angeles

How long is the right acupuncture treatment time?

Are there really the univeral fixed time for acupuncture treatment to be effective, regardless of what symptoms and how old, male or female and so on? If not, how long should be that, what is the scientific or theoretical background behind it?

Since I, myself have some different needle retention time for different patient with different health issues, It would be better for people having acupuncture or planning to have acupuncture to understand the different acupuncture treatment time.

Acupuncture Treatment Time( Needle Retention Time): How long you have needles on the body.

There have been people asking me of the needle retention time or actual treatment time. Some seem to believe that the longer is the better in having needles on the body, some want to know why I give the different duration for each different condition and so on. Then why some acupuncturists give longer time (some longer than 30 min, even 1 hour) and some shorter(10min)?

Theoretical Background for Specific Duration Times

1.  15-20 minutes : The Nan Jing-The Classic of Difficulties, Chapter 23
According to  The Nan Jing , Qi and Blood move through the meridians at the rate of six cun* for each complete inhalation and exhalation.  The total length of the Meridians and Collaterals equals 1620 cun. 1620 divided by 6 equals 270, so it is said that 270 breaths are required for Qi to make one complete cycle through the body.  However, this number could vary based on a person’s breath rate.  If a person breathes 14 times/minute, it will take 20 minutes (270/14) for Qi to make a complete cycle.  If a person breathes 18 times/minute, only 15 minutes (270/18) will be needed for Qi to make the complete cycle.  Therefore needle retention time can be calculated around 15-20 minutes. 
*Cun: about 3cm

And also many studies and researches in acupuncture analgesia have been showing after 15-20 min of acupuncture, Pain threshold increased.

 
2. 30min: The Ling Shu-Spiritual Pivot, Chapters 15 & 18
the Qi and Blood circulated through the channels 50 times per day. Since 24 hours equals 1440 minutes, dividing 1440 by 50, we get the 28 minutes and 48 seconds. This is where we get the guideline for approximately 30 minutes of needle retention time.

My Conclusion:

Some renowned acupuncturists put the needle over less than 5 locations and stimulate intensely and when they see the positive effect as expected, those needles are taken off or stay less than 5 minute.

They claim that once your brain picks up the signal from the needle and starts secreting the neurotransmitter for the pain relief or whatsoever and your patients show the improvement, you don’t really have to leave the needles any more.

Some practitioners report that the best results where achieved after 45 minutes of retaining the needles. Master Tung style acupuncture also used needle retention of 45 minutes, in which he stimulated the points every 15 minutes.  Some Korean acupuncturist who does Korean taoistic technique gives 1hr- 2hr needle retention to balance the whole body Qi.

So many factors are there to choose the right acupuncture time; each patient’s condition or the different season or even weather condition or the specific acupuncture technique that your acupuncturist performs. Therefore I strongly believe that choosing the right time is solely up to your acupuncturist’s differentiation, diagnosis and treatment plan for the best results and what kind of acupuncture technique he or she performs.