Tag: diet

Acupuncture, Diet, General TCM, Medical, Wellness

What is the diet’s effect on our health according to TCM and Acupuncture?

by kaiwang492Leave a Comment on What is the diet’s effect on our health according to TCM and Acupuncture?

TCM and acupuncture were formed at least 3,000 years ago. TCM and acupuncture doctors applied natural phenomena to our bodies’ individual situations in both ways – physically, and pathologically. They believed that the nature of the food we eat daily, and the herbs we consume, and acupuncture we receive when we have a health problem are similar, but are on different levels. It is just like the idea that we eat when we are hungry, or put on more clothes when we’re cold, etc. Herbs and acupuncture work in the same way. We have four seasons, day and night, rainy, windy, different environmental and climate changes, and other natural phenomena. We as human beings need to compensate for what is happening around us. Diet is the main part of the compensation.

We have so many types of food to choose from. Just like everybody’s foundation of different, our body’s reactions to food are more or less different. If we eat certain “wrong” foods on a consistent, long term time frame, we are harmed. When some people eat hot/spicy food often for a long time, at a certain point, they are going to experience anxiety, bad breath, dizziness, red eyes, headaches, restlessness, sore throat, etc. People like this just think they have a health problem, but when they check in a medical setting, there is nothing wrong with them. But they know they feel different than before, and have a problem. In TCM and acupuncture theory, this is because if a person belongs to the warm/hot type, the hot/spicy food (if taken often) can only make their body hotter. The sore throat, headache, thirstiness, dry mouth, are indications of the hot type and getting hotter. If you ignore the symptoms, and continue having more of the hot/spicy food, it will affect you further. It affects the gallbladder and liver, and can cause serious health problems.

It is a good idea for us to understand how different foods affect us. The first thing we need to know about what we eat is the nature of the food, meaning our body’s reaction to the food. In general, anything hot/spicy such as peppers, cinnamon, coffee, dried ginger, lamb, walnuts, goat, chives, etc. can be harmful for us if we are the warm/hot type of person. On the other hand, anything cold-natured, such as mint, watermelon, pear, papaya, tofu, crab, etc. can be harmful if we are the cold type of person.

In our practice, we see many patients coming in with various health problems, simply because their lifestyle or diet are the opposite of what their body needs. Some patients that have gone to doctors for their problems and have received test results showing that they technically have nothing wrong with them, but they know it is not what they are normally like and want to get back to their old self. If you ask them, there is nothing really wrong with them except they have been eating certain types of food for a long time. For some patients, we only need to ask them to change their diets in the way their body needs. After a while, coupled with acupuncture treatment, they will feel better. For some other patients, if it is a more serious condition, they will need to add herbal medicine to their acupuncture treatment and diet changes.

Acupuncture, Diet, General TCM, Wellness

Traditional Chinese Medicine Acupuncture and Seasonal Allergies

by kaiwang492Leave a Comment on Traditional Chinese Medicine Acupuncture and Seasonal Allergies

Ancient Chinese doctors knew about allergies, and passed this knowledge to future acupuncturists.

They noticed that when spring came, some people would have problems like skin rashes, sneezing, itching, runny nose, watery eyes, etc. In general, these complaints would come and go very fast just like the wind. During that time, scientists considered spring to be the wind season. Therefore, combining the factor of the time (season) and characteristics of the complaint – coming and going as fast as the wind – they named this kind of problem: wind type or wind like problems.

Although the liver is usually associated with wind problems, in this case the lungs are actually the organ related to the wind, because the material we are allergic to bothers us mainly through either the skin, nose, and sometimes the eyes. In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) acupuncture system, the lungs are a combination of nose, bronchial, skin, hair, partially circulatory system, partially the immune system, partially the metabolic system and the lungs themselves.

This TCM and acupuncture system was formed about 2,000 years ago and has been a key player in Modern Chinese disease prevention medicine. Nowadays, it is spreading worldwide more and more because of its effectiveness and good results through a natural way. In recent years, much more scientific research has proven that TCM and acupuncture can regulate and improve immuno function in both cellular immunity and humoral immunity. Most importantly, scientists also found they have what is called “both direction regulation,” which means if anything in the body is “higher than normal” then TCM and acupuncture can lower it until it is back to normal, vise versa.

Clinically, for patients with allergies, the common pattern could be “wind cold” sometimes combined with Qi deficiency. For “wind cold,” the complaints will be: feeling cold easily, allergies accompanied with chills, clear watery mucous from nose, sneezing, watery eyes without swelling, becoming worse in the morning or when the environment is colder. For “wind cold and Qi deficiency,” patients usually complain about tiredness and catching a cold easily and the allergy will get worse or onset more often when getting too tired, these happen simultaneously with the symptoms mentioned earlier. Of course, there are some other uncommon types too, such as “wind with poor circulation,” “wind heat,” etc. which we will not go into detail in this article.

Treatment

The treatment involves a diet change, acupuncture, and herbs if you want a quick relief. For the diet change everyone is different, it would be a good idea to talk about this face to face with the acupuncturist, but one thing is for sure: adding more fresh ginger root juice and mung bean in your diet, avoid the cold stuff are always a good idea. For TCM and acupuncture treatment, it completely depends on the patterns that you have. The acupuncture needle could go on the face, extremities, back, stomach, depending on the situation. At times, TDP and cups need to be involved as well. However, for a few people electrical acupuncture may be better. In terms of herbs, it is more complicated, you would need to speak face to face with an acupuncturist. We started to see seasonal allergy patients in the U.S. in 1995. So far, we have helped many sufferers. For most people, after treatment they will not need to come back. We followed up with patients for five years and there was still no need for them to come back.