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OM Newspaper Essay Contest

Aromatherapy: Nature’s Magic

Top Breast Cancer Foundation Awards Grant to Hawai’i Acupuncturist

Nutritional Insights from Ayurveda

From the Trenches: The Case for Insurance

Yin and Yang, the Path to Total Health

Breast Health is the Cure

A PCOM Alumnus’ Calling: The Himalaya Project

Treatment of Fibromyalgia and Clostridium Difficile Using Four Needle Technique and Four Constitutional Medicine

Ten years later: A Perspective on Chinese Medicine Education

Pain is NOT the same for everybody?

The ‘Why’ of Chi Nei Tsang

Systematic Review: Generating Evidenced-Based Guidelines on the Concurrent Use of Dietary Antioxidants and Chemo-therapy or Radiotherapy

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Researching Retinitis Pigmentosa (Night Blindness) with Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine

By Andy RosenfARB, ND, L.Ac.

Since 1998, I have specialized in treating eye disease--includ-ing retinitis pigmentosa (RP),

glaucoma, macular degeneration, etc. I have treated hundreds of cases of all types of eye conditions. Results have shown that acupuncture is clearly an effective means of manag-ing most chronic and degenerative eye diseases. Results have shown measurable improvement in approxi-mately 70-80% of all cases treated.

Over the last few months I have been invited to work with research-ers at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) in Maryland. We are conduct-ing a research project on acupunc-ture as an effective management strategy for retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic eye condition. This study will run from December 2011 through early 2012. We are very excited be-cause this will be the first major re-search study done in the US on the

use of acupuncture in the treatment of eye diseases. The researchers at JHU have also expressed interest in doing additional research for other eye conditions including macular de-generation and glaucoma--conditions that I have found also respond very well to acupuncture therapy.

In this article, I would like to share some of my treatment strategies for treating RP in hopes that more acupuncturists come to help this des-perate and hopeless population.

What iS retinitiS pigmentoSa?Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is an

inherited genetic eye disease where retinal degeneration is caused by the loss of photoreceptor (light receptor nerve cell) function. The incidence of RP is about 1 in 4,000 and 1.5 million people worldwide have RP.

inSiDe THIS ISSUE....

In January 2012, Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, New York launched its Bachelor of Science Completion Program in Holistic Nursing. With this program, registered nurses (RNs) can advance

their careers and earn a degree that prepares them for the future of healthcare. A leader in developing highly skilled and licensed practi-tioners of traditional Chinese medicine, including acupuncture, herbal medicine, massage and Asian bodywork, PCOM has developed the first nursing bachelor degree program of its kind within a Comple-mentary/Alternative Medicine (CAM) school. The new nursing pro-gram includes classes covering not only core work in the sciences, leadership, community and research necessary for the Bachelor of Science, but also classes in holistic theory and modalities for healing, health, and wellness. Designed specifically for licensed registered nurses who already have their associate’s degree, students can attend day or evening classes. With classes beginning in January 2012, stu-dents can complete their bachelor’s degree in as little as four semes-ters full-time or seven to nine semesters part-time.


PCOM Launches Bachelor’s in Holistic Nursing at New York Campus

Oriental Medicine • www.PacificCollege.edu SPRING 2012 3

OM Newspaper Essay Contest Chooses Winner

Volunteer Oriental medicine practitioners and students are increasingly joining tra-

ditional health delivery assistance programs, reaching out to people around the world who have little or no available healthcare. Like the Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that have gone before them, the ultimate goal of these new out-reach health volunteers is to engage local groups as proactive healthcare participants, not as mere passive pa-tients. However, such commendable goals don’t always work as expected. A recent startup NGO, Healer2Healer, is developing a different approach, working with local groups in Gua-temala and elsewhere to foster self-reliance from the very beginning of each project, rather than hoping to transition at some later date.

Doing more With LeSSGuatemala is an appropriate

place to start such an effort. As a re-sult of the collapse of international agency assistance in the last few decades, NGOs now represent the lion’s share of healthcare outreach in Guatemala. During the 1970s, in-ternational organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations International Chil-dren’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) attempted to funnel healthcare funds through the central government. Those efforts stopped after 10 years because the political and bureau-cratic channels to the poor were inefficient and not cost-effective. Ef-fective NGOs can thus make a real difference in this country, where 51% of Guatemalans live on less than two dollars a day.

Healer2Healer’s mission faces a daunting challenge in Guatemala, one of the poorest countries in Latin America. A study by University of Colorado researchers found that

traditional short-term medical volun-teer work in Guatemala has a history of mixed success.1 The study found a pattern of concern that such efforts often ended up with a dependency relationship with local communi-ties. The most frequent suggestion of those interviewed from such com-munities was that short-term medical work could be much improved by coordinating with existing Guatemala healthcare providers to avoid poten-tial harm. But such coordination is complicated since in some parts of Guatemala the NGOs provide the only healthcare either available or affordable. Indeed, some of the 200 NGOs working in the Mayan hinter-lands offer the only healthcare avail-able to the local population.

“give a Woman a FiSh …”Oriental medicine’s recent entry

into global healthcare outreach is based on the old Chinese proverb “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” It is in this spirit that a group of indigenous women healers high in the Mayan Altiplano have teamed with New York City-based Healer2Healer to learn how to integrate Chinese and Japanese healing modalities into their traditional Mayan medicine. This joint effort in Guatemala’s Western High-lands is “teaching women to fish.”

Rik Lim, PCOM-NY intern and founder of Healer2Healer.org, lived and worked in Guatemala for seven years, traveling on business to small cities and communities throughout the countryside. Rik was struck by how deeply dependent some communi-ties became on NGOs. He decided to see if, where socioeconomic condi-tions were optimal, local stakeholders could be trained in Oriental medicine techniques to supplement the limited healthcare provided by NGOs and government institutions. “I see a need in rural areas for holistic healthcare

The OM Newspaper held an essay contest last summer open to all Pacific College students and alumni of the college’s three campuses. The OM has always enthusiastically encouraged publishing articles by noted authorities in the field, so the contest was held to give students and alum-ni an opportunity to begin creating a name for themselves in the field of Oriental Medicine.

Congratulations to the winner, George Chachis, for his essay entitled, “Transplanting Oriental Medicine to the Mayan Altiplano.” As one of this year’s featured article authors, he also received a $100 gift certificate to the Pacific College bookstore and was featured in the college’s online

newsletter. Over twenty essays were submitted, and all participants are published on the Pacific College website at www.PacificCollege.edu/omessaycontest. The OM Staff would like to thank all those who partici-pated, making this an exciting and close contest!

Missed out on submitting your essay? The Oriental Medicine Newspa-per is proud to announce the kick-off of the 3nd Annual OM Essay Contest! Log onto www.PacificCollege.edu/omessaycontest and find out how YOU can get published in next year’s winter edition of the Oriental Medicine Newspaper!

Transplanting Oriental Medicine to the Mayan AltiplanoBy GeoRGe ChAChis

and training as a means to reconnect communities,” Rik explains. “ I am creating avenues for a more expansive effort to bring healing technologies to areas of the world where they are not readily accessible.” Healer2Healer has been particularly successful fostering a cooperative relationship in the Gua-temalan Highlands where the terrible

32 year civil war has left deep scars among the K’iche’ Mayan speakers of the Quiche Department. A small group of Mayan civic activists, the Group of Q’anil Women, reached out to Healer2Healer to build a partner-ship between the two groups. The

continued on page 4

A unique opportunity for licensed acupuncturists, physicians, and students of Oriental Medicine to learn the profound body/mind/spirit

medicine, as taught by the world renowned late Professor J.R. Worsley.The Program, called “life-transforming” by its graduates, meets once per month for 9 months in Santa Monica, CA. (First session Friday-Monday, subsequent 8 sessions Friday-Sunday)

Non-California residents are welcome.

California CEUs and NCCAOM PDAs Pending

Become The Practioner You Always Wanted to Be

Space limited. Applications now available. For information contact

The Institute of Classical Five-Element Acupuncture Inc.2926 Santa Monica Boulevard, Santa Monica, CA 90404

310 453.2235 • email: [email protected] visit our web site at www.5elements.com

The Institute of Classical Five-Element Acupuncture Inc.

Proudly announces the next

Classical Five-ElementAcupunture Program

Beginning in September

Presented by

Neil R. GumenickM.Ac. (U.K.), C.T. (A), L.Ac., Dipl. Ac.

and Staff

4 SPRING 2012 Oriental Medicine • www.PacificCollege.edu

TRAnsplAnTinG oRienTAl MediCine To The MAyAn AlTiplAno continued from page 3

Mayan women have asked the New York City-based NGO back twice to continue their internship in Oriental medicine modalities. Access to tradi-tional medical care by the rural Mayan population in Quiche is limited2, and through their relationship with Healer-2Healer, the Q’anil Women are trying to fill that gap.

integrating orientaL meDicine With traDitionaL mayan heaLing

Healer2Healer holds 4 to 10 day public clinics in communities with local healthcare stakeholder groups. Each clinic has three goals: 1) attend to the immediate needs of patients; 2) work side-by-side with the indigenous healthcare providers; and 3) teach Chinese and Japanese healing modali-ties both in short classes and through hands-on experience in the clinic. Depending upon the makeup and skills of the Healer2Healer volunteer team, such techniques can include ear seed and needle applications of the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA) technique, moxa, cupping, acupressure, Shiatsu, Tui Na, Shonishin, etc. Follow-up visits evalu-ate which of these techniques have been adopted and become integrated into the Mayan folk medicine prac-ticed by the local stakeholders.

creating an aDaptive voLunteer team

The volunteer team structure is made up of licensed acupunctur-ists and student interns along with a cadre of less experienced volunteers who are required to complete certi-fication in Reiki I and Reiki II. In ad-dition, a condensed course in NADA needling is provided before the team leaves for Guatemala.

Each day’s organizational struc-ture is adapted to the needs of the patients and the stakeholders, based on the staff composition. Typically, the clinical leader is a seasoned acu-puncturist such as Tom Nash, both a practitioner and PCOM-NY faculty member, who coordinates the day with Rik and a senior Reiki Master. While the experienced acupuncturists and student interns run a typical acu-puncture clinic, the less experienced volunteers work as assistants in the clinic, perform NADA treatments and Reiki to waiting patients, and help with patient intake. As patients in the waiting area complete their intake di-agnoses, they move to the “Reiki Cir-cle” where they receive both NADA and Reiki treatments while queued for the acupuncture clinic.

While there are no official ties between PCOM-NY and Healer-2Healer, volunteers who are neither acupuncturists nor student interns are heavily represented by first year PCOM-NY students eager to apply the non-invasive Oriental medicine

techniques they have been intro-duced to in their first semesters. The clinical stints in Guatemala offer them the experience of one-on-one men-torship by professionals and senior students that typically rarely hap-pens until they have become Clini-cal Assistants or Associate Interns. Reiki practitioner volunteers provide leadership in the Reiki Circle to the Healer2Healer volunteers, teach Reiki classes to Mayan healers, and mentor those providing Reiki where needed in the acupuncture clinic. Inexperi-enced volunteers fluent in Spanish are always also in demand because in a country where there are some 21 dialects of Mayan spoken, Spanish is the lingua franca in clinic.3

training mayan heaLerS in orientaL meDicine moDaLitieS

Training in traditional Oriental medicine takes years of study and clinical experience to master. There-fore, Healer2Healer emphasizes teaching basic Chinese and Japa-nese healthcare modalities that are relatively easy to learn. The NADA protocol is one such modality. This auricular acupuncture was developed to help addict populations and was originally pioneered at the Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx as an alterna-tive to methadone treatments.4 Train-ing and practice of auricular acu-puncture extended beyond traditional acupuncture practitioners to include such professionals as social workers, psychologists, and addiction profes-sionals. The 5-point needle protocol has been embraced by the Com-

munity Acupuncture movement for its systemic effects on patients. For example, the five points are credited with reducing cravings, improving sleep, increasing energy, and lower-ing blood pressure.5 Healer2Healer has provided formal NADA training by a NADA certified instructor to the Group Q’anil healers for use in their own clinic. In addition, the Mayan women were taught how to make acupuncture ear seeds using readily available flexible First Aid tape and sesame seeds. Sesame seeds, an ex-port product in Guatemala, proved to be particularly appropriate to use be-cause they carry spiritual significance among the Maya and are used in Ma-yan Calendar ceremonies.

BuiLDing on mayan meDicaL traDitionS

Traditional Mayan medicine, including shamanism, still exists among Mayan populations in other Latin American countries such as Belize6 and Mexico. 7 In those coun-tries, it is modernization and cultural change that have limited its scope of practice. However, in Guatemala, it was the decades-long civil war that crushed shamanistic practices8 and killed many Mayan healers who pos-sessed knowledge of the old ways of healing.9 Thus, traditional healing knowledge was fractured in much of Guatemala, with the exception of Mayan midwifery, which now itself is slowly succumbing to modernization and acculturation.10

Mayan civic organizations, such as the Group of Q’anil Women, are

trying to reshape grassroots medicine by building upon the old traditions while adding other healing modali-ties with economically feasible ap-proaches. While peace has come to Guatemala, socioeconomic issues still put traditional healthcare beyond the reach of many Mayan communities.11 Oriental medicine resonates well with traditional Mayan medicine, as both have conceptual analogs.12 For exam-ple, the Mayan medical duality of hot and cold mirrors Oriental medicine’s Yin and Yang. In Guatemala’s neigh-boring country, Mexico, with a large Mayan population, Yucatan Mayan healers have even been observed us-ing some 50 points that are needled analogous to TCM’s acupuncture points. (There are no indications yet that this needling practice may have once existed among the Maya in Guatemala’s Quiche Department.)

Healer2Healer is not the first NGO to bring Oriental medicine to Guatemala. It is, however, the first NGO to attempt to build partner-ships in Guatemala with local heal-ers that are hoped to lead to com-plete self-sufficiency by community stakeholders when Healer2Healer is long gone. Only time will tell if Ori-ental medicine takes root in the land

of the Maya. oM

reFerenceS

1 Green, T., Green H., Scandlyn, J., & Kes-tler, A. “Perceptions of short-term medical volunteer work: a qualitative study in Gua-temala,” Globalization and Health, Febru-ary 26, 2009.

2 Lewis, M.P. K’iche’: a Study in the Sociol-ogy of Language, SIL International, Dallas, TX:2001.

3 Wikepedia in print: Languages of Gua-temala: Spanish Language, Kaqchikel Language, Q’anjob’al Language, Yucatec Maya Language, K’iche’ Language, Mam Language. Books LLC, Memphis, TN:2010.

4 Wager,K., & Cox, S. Auricular Acupuncture & Addiction: Mechanisms, methodology, and practice. Churchill Livingstone, New York, NY: 2009.

5 Rohleder, L., et. al. Acupuncture is Like Noodles: The Little Red (Cook)book of Working Class Acupuncture. Working Class Acupuncture, Portland, Oregon: 2009.

6 Arvigo, R. Satsun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer. HarperSanFrancisco, San Francisco, CA: 1994.

7 Kunow, M. A. Mayan Medicine: Traditional Healing in the Yucatan. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, NM: 2003.

8 Prechel, M. Secrets of the Talking Jaguar: Unmasking the Mysterious World of the Living Maya. Element: Boston, MA: 1998.

9 Telock, B. Time and the Highland Maya. University of New Mexico Press, Albu-querque, NM: 1992.

10 Rogoff, B. Developing Destinies: A Mayan Midwife and Town. Oxford University Press, New York, NY: 2011.

11 Adams, R., & Hawkins, J.P. Health Care in Maya Guatemala: Confronting Medical Plu-ralism in a Developing Country. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, OK: 2007.

12 Garcia, H., Sierra, A., & Balam, G. Wind in the Blood: Mayan Healing and Chinese Medicine. North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, CA: 1999.


Aromatherapy: Nature’s MagicBy KAThy pAdeCKy, AS, CMT, Aromatherapist, CBS

Many look to nature for their healing needs. An-cient cultures used herbs,

plants, trees, and shrubs for their medicines. Today, we use as much of the ancient knowledge as we can to counteract disease. The World Health Organization estimates that 75-80% of the world’s population use plants as their medicine. Many of the allopath-ic medicines are derived from plants.

Archeologists determined the Egyptians used aromatic substances as far back as 4500 BCE. In 1922, King Tut’s tomb was discovered in the Valley of the Kings. In the tomb, they discovered 350 alabaster jars of aromatic essences of spikenard, cedarwood, myrrh, and more. In Tut’s sarcophagus, the essential oils of clove, cedarwood, cinnamon and nutmeg were used in the mummifi-cation process. The Ebers papyrus, from the 18th dynasty, details the healing properties of herbs and es-sential oils. In the Middle Ages, peo-ple used aromatic essences to protect themselves from the Black Plague. Research on the antiseptic and other properties of essential oils began in the eighteenth century.

Aromatherapy is the therapeutic use of essential oils. The oils are ex-

tracted from leaves, flowers, seeds, bark, trunk, stems, and resin, usually by a distillation process. Essential oils affect all the systems of the body. Dennis Willmont writes in Aromather-apy with Chinese Medicine that essen-tial oils are the most potent aspect of herbs. Essential oils are the lifeblood and immune system of the plants.

There are hundreds of books dealing with the plethora of aspects of aromatherapy. They detail the history, chemistry, schools of aromatherapy, safety, use of synthetics, FDA laws, as well as factors that affect the essential oil like soil, climate, elevation, mois-ture, chemicals, harvesting, and pro-cessing. Many countries use aroma-therapy as the first line of treatment in hospitals. While there is much infor-mation worldwide on aromatherapy, there is still a controversy surrounding its use around the globe.

Part of the controversy stems from the four schools of aroma-therapy. They are named after each country of origin: German, British, French, and American. The German school believes that inhalation is the most effective use of essential oils. The British school believes that inha-lation is good; however, all essential oils must be diluted when topically

applied. The French school (where aromatherapy was rediscovered) pro-motes all effective uses of essential oils including ingestion and injection. The American school believes es-sential oils can be inhaled, ingested, applied topically, and that only the strong essential oils are diluted.

The FDA and food safety laws define how essential oils are mar-keted in America. The laws govern-ing essential oils relate to safety and labeling. If you see a section detail-ing Supplement Facts on a bottle, this means the essential oil is safe for internal consumption. If you see the word pure on the label, by law it means only 25% of what is on the label has to be in the bottle. The rest can be related essential oils or other fillers. If you see the word natural on the label, this means it may be synthetic. The law states the word natural applies to any substance that has the same chemical formula as something grown or found in nature. Beyond these guidelines, American manufacturers of essential oils can put anything they choose on the la-bel, such as therapeutic grade. The reality is that there are no standards or laws beyond the food laws that apply to aromatherapy in America.

Real essential oils are extremely powerful. Their chemical compo-nents in the form of molecules de-pend on all the physical factors of growing, harvesting, and processing the plant. These molecules consist of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and oc-casionally nitrogen, sulfur and other atoms. The most common method of obtaining essential oils is steam distillation. Amazing essential oils are extracted using the lowest pres-sure and temperature in the distilla-tion process. Other extraction forms include crushing the rind. Citrus oils use this procedure. Some manu-facturers use extraction by carbon dioxide, high temperature and pres-sure steam distillation, as well as solvents. Carbon dioxide processing is believed to be completely safe. We find that the aroma produced from carbon dioxide processing is very different from low pressure and tem-perature distillation. The use of high pressure, and temperature produces an inferior essential oil containing less unique molecular components. If you see the word “absolute” on the label, this means the essential oil was extracted with hexane or other



Top Breast Cancer Foundation Awards Grant to Hawai’i AcupuncturistBy JAyne TsuChiyAMA, Dipl. OM, L.Ac., Honolulu, HI

Imagine that you’re unemployed, living in government subsided housing, and receiving food

stamps. Then comes a breast can-cer diagnosis and your first chemo-therapy charge of $12,000. That’s just for the first 10 drug treatments and doesn’t include fees for surgery, emergency room visits, doctor’s con-sultations, or radiation.

The brutal reality in today’s America is that there are 50 million people uninsured. Another 50 million are under-insured. Low-income cancer patients have few resources and they experience enormous stress manag-ing the side effects of their treatment. To give just one example: in a 2008 story in The Washington Post, Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical offi-cer at the American Cancer Society, is quoted discussing the use of a single drug, Avastin, in treating recurrent breast cancer in Medicare patients. “It costs about $55,000 a year for a Medicare patient to receive the drug,” Lichtenfeld said. “But there is a 20 per-cent co-pay. If a Medicare patient has insurance, it may be covered, but if they don’t have insurance, there is an $11,000 co-pay to cover--and $11,000 is a lot of money.” Since 2008, chemo-therapy costs have risen significantly, averaging $15,000-20,000 for just one chemotherapy treatment

I witness this reality on a weekly basis. In 2008, I launched the acu-puncture program at the Cancer Cen-ter in the Queen’s Medical Center, in Honolulu, Hawai’i. The center is one of only 30 National Cancer Institute Community Cancer Care Programs (NCCCP) in the USA. Since then I have provided well over a thousand acupuncture treatments in more than 240 four-hour clinic day shifts. Hawai’i leads the country with its medical insurance system, which is the most progressive in the nation. I have been fortunate to work alongside some of the nation’s top oncologists, nurses, patient navigators, and social workers. But Honolulu is generally considered the most remote city on earth and the Queen’s Medical Center describes itself as the leading medical referral center in the Pacific Basin, so it at-tracts people from throughout Poly-nesia and Micronesia--from places like Guam, Samoa, and the Marshall Islands, where healthcare options are often limited and where cancer is the fourth leading cause of death. Even in the state of Hawai‘i itself, access to good healthcare can be a challenge to people scattered across an archipelago of eight islands. I have seen many patients coping with cancer on a very tight budget.

As fellow practitioners are well aware, acupuncture can be extremely beneficial in alleviating some of the side effects of allopathic cancer treatments. It has been used to treat pain, hot flashes, nausea, peripheral neuropathy, dry-mouth, insomnia, and anxiety, to name just a few. Treating these symptoms with acupuncture, in a complementary regimen, can allow an oncologist to reduce prescription of pallia-tive drugs at a time when patients’ systems are already stressed with chemo and other powerful West-ern therapies. Most of my patients have had significant improvement in their side effects. In a 2009 patient survey administered at the Queen’s Cancer Center, 68% of acupuncture patients experienced a self-reported 50-100% improvement in their chief complaint. However, in the state of Hawai’i, acupuncture is generally a non-covered expense, so the major-ity of my patients pay out-of-pocket. That leaves out many other patients who are frequently curious about acupuncture or feel they would ben-efit from treatment, but cannot af-ford it due to their limited economic circumstances.

So, when I heard about the grant opportunity from the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure foundation, I was immediately interested. I applied for funding in 2009. However, as a new-comer to the arcane world of grant writing, I did not craft a proposal that adequately addressed all the needs and requirements of the foundation, and my application was turned down that year. Undaunted, I reapplied in 2010. This time I wrote a thorough, detailed, well-researched proposal that addressed all the foundation’s require-ments. I was rewarded with a grant to

cover the full amount of my proposal and, I am proud to say, I am the first acupuncturist in the state of Hawaii to receive an award of this size.

The grant will enable me to pro-vide 300 acupuncture treatments to low-income breast cancer patients and survivors with a discomfort level greater than #2.

Patients funded by the Komen grant must meet one of the following criteria:• Unemployed• Uninsured• Foodstamprecipient• Subsidizedhousing

From the point of view of further establishing our medicine alongside the allopathic system, this grant pro-vides more than the obvious ben-efit to indigent patients. There are numerous outreach, marketing, and publicity benefits.

For example:• Financialsupportfromamajor

national healthcare foundation reinforces the credibility of our profession.

• Themedialikestocovernewsabout effective alternative health treatments. This creates a great opportunity to generate press and PR coverage to spread the word about the efficacy of acupuncture for conditions other than muscle pain--such as cancer care, hyper-tension, neurological and immune system disorders and more.

• Itdrawsattentiontothebenefitsof Oriental medicine and acu-puncture in general.

• ItforcestheWesternmedicalcommunity to take notice.

• Itsetsaprecedent.Receiptofonegrant should prove a stepping-stone in seeking other grants. After

all, if the Susan G. Komen Race For The Cure--which is considered the leading breast cancer founda-tion in the world--believes that acupuncture services are worthy of generous financial support, other foundations are likely to be more open when considering an appli-cation from a previous grantee.

From a personal standpoint, I be-lieve a grant of this sort allows me to support my professional interest and to explore treatment and research strategies in greater depth.

Another benefit is that grant work generally involves collabora-tion with groups you might otherwise have never been involved with. It creates a great opportunity for inte-gration and new synergies.

So, I’m already thinking of my next project – a grant application to the Hawai‘i Medical Service Associa-tion (HMSA – Hawaii’s biggest health insurer) to explore the effects of acu-puncture on Chemotherapy Induced Peripheral Neuropathy (CIPN).

In conclusion, I would encourage Oriental medicine and acupuncture practitioners to explore and research what grants are available in your areas of interest. There are many national and local foundations looking to pro-vide funding to worthwhile causes. You may find one that sparks your interest and furthers your career.

For further information, contact

Jayne at [email protected]. oM

Jayne tSuchiyama is a licensed acu-puncturist in Hawaii and board-certified in Oriental medicine, acupuncture and chi-nese herbology, Jayne is an advocate of integrating traditional and complementary medicines. She has spoken at major hos-pital pain symposia in New York City and Honolulu. Jayne was a participating acu-puncturist in a study examining the “Effects of Acupuncture during Labor and Delivery” at Lutheran Medical Center, New York. Re-cently, she led the fight against SB1507 and testified at the Hawaii State Health Senate Committee, opposing a bill that would al-low MDs to practice acupuncture with min-imal regulation and training (the bill was NOT passed). She is the first acupuncturist in the state of Hawai’i to receive a grant from the Susan G. Komen Foundation. Jayne practices acupuncture in the Cancer Center and the Women’s Health Center at the Queen’s Medical Center, Honolulu,HI. She also maintains a busy private oriental medicine practice where she specializes in women’s health, cancer care and pain management. She received her Master’s in Traditional Oriental Medicine from Pacific College, NY in 2004. She is certified in can-cer care acupuncture by Memorial Sloan Kettering (NY).

SPRING 2012 8 Oriental Medicine • www.PacificCollege.edu

Nutritional Insights from AyurvedaHealing from the Source

By sARiTA ViGhne, L.Ac, MSTOM, BAMS

We have our health in our own hands. Ayurveda emphasizes how to adapt

with nature so that the disease pro-cess does not start and health is main-tained. It offers three basic pillars: diet, sleep, and exercise (yoga). We will only focus on ‘eating’ for this arti-cle! In one of my favorite scenes from the movie Ratatouille, a food critic goes to the restaurant. When asked what would he like to eat? He asks to serve him ‘a perspective’! Confused, the server babbles and then offers him the chef’s best dish. It instantly takes him to his childhood memory of the similar food made by his mother. Now that’s a perspective! How nice it would be if we could also get some perspective from the food we eat ev-ery once in a while, if not with every meal! So how does such perspective taste, where can we look for one, and know when we find it?

Ingestion is a very broad term in Ayurveda. It’s not just limited to the ingestion of food, but the experience, which takes our body and mind in a certain direction. Food is prescribed as the number one preventative medicine. Each individual’s psycho-physiology is taken into account and then he or she is offered a proper diet plan. According to Ayurveda, diet should support your physiology and lead to a strong mind. This strong mind then promotes clear thinking. Clear thinking always produces use-ful activity, which ultimately leads to the fulfillment of your desires. This is how good eating habits can promote the greatest happiness and satisfaction in life, and that is why we, as adults, have to start all over again (de-learn) and relearn how to eat right.

Many intelligent and good-hearted parents either have busy lifestyles or a poor understanding of what their child should eat. This results in choosing the wrong food for their child most of the time and promoting poor eating habits. What we have now is a complete distortion of the meaning and purpose of food. The unhealthy, nutrient-lacking food ingested mainly to satisfy your taste buds is going to produce a weak mind. This weak mind is going to produce cloudy, unclear thinking that is going to make wrong choices in every aspect of life. This now sets up the vicious cycle of a lifetime pattern involving improper diet, and poor lifestyle and eating habits. Breaking this cycle is the first step towards achieving a health goal and, by ex-tension, life goals.

Our innate ability to choose right, listening to our body... the built-in cues about what it actually needs vs. what we want, is often overridden by the conditioning of wrong choices we make over time. In Ayurveda, this condition is very properly described as, ‘Prajñāparādha’ aka ‘Mistaken Intellect’. Prajñā means wisdom, in-telligence, knowledge, discrimination, or judgment. Aparādha means of-fence, transgression, fault, or mistake. Erroneous judgment or a lack of dis-cernment between what is good and what is not leads to unwholesome thoughts, speech, and actions. We all know cigarette smoking or drinking too much is harmful to health, but we see some doing it anyway! This is very good example of ‘Mistaken In-tellect’: deliberate, willful indulgence in unhealthy lifestyles due to faulty understanding. Reconditioning our mind is needed to reawaken our in-nate biological intelligence and free it from the influence of evil ‘mistaken intelligence’. One way to achieve this is to get control over the Mind to find that disconnect. How do you do this? You can get control over the Mind through practicing yoga, meditation, and gaining spiritual awareness.

This brings us to another im-portant term described in Ayurvedic texts called as ‘Oka Satmya’. It re-fers to the suitability of a particular food or lifestyle developed over time through practice. Whatever food or drink an individual takes in regularly becomes suitable to them due to its constant intake. It is very well developed for things that are ingested lifelong. A good example of Oka Satmya is various grains such as wheat, rice, and corn, which con-stitute staple diets in our culture. A not so good example of Oka Satmya is the habitual drinking of coffee or tea at certain time of the day, espe-cially in the morning. It helps some to have a bowel movement, but can also make us think we will not be able to have one without it. So we tend to think it is well suited for us, and, therefore, it must be good for us. It is also said in Ayurveda that some degree of suitability can be developed after a couple weeks of daily intake.

You may not think or want to know that what you eat has anything to do with your chronically stuffed nose, stiffness, and inflammation in your joints, or both at once. You also


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From the Trenches: The Case for InsuranceBy JennifeR MoffiTT, L.Ac, MSTOM, Dp.OM

This article is in response to an article in the Summer 2011 OM Newspaper, which dis-

cussed the pros and cons of whether acupuncturists should accept and bill insurance, a topic of some dis-cussion when I was in school over a dozen years ago. At that time, the reigning consensus was that cash was king, and most wanted to be a cash-only practice, under the radar so to speak, without the hassles of paperwork and coding.

As romantic a notion as that was then, after practicing for almost a decade, I would venture to say that it is almost impossible to make a liv-ing wage in our profession without accepting or billing for certain types of insurance. A cash-only practice excludes Workers Compensation, personal injury (PI), and certain gen-erous PPOs, which have better fee schedules.

In this economic climate, the question is not whether we are to accept insurance and bill for it, but how to do it efficiently and in such a way as to avoid the burnout that frequently drives away otherwise talented clinicians from private prac-tice. It also requires that we become knowledgeable about coding and speaking with physicians and their staff about how to navigate the in-surance maze effectively.

For most newly licensed practi-tioners of course, the difficulties and wait times associated with insurance make it difficult in terms of managing cash flow. My own chronology was that I had a cash only practice for the first 2 years, after which I got my first Workers Comp case. I think it took me 6 hours to navigate how to even print the Health Care Financing Administra-tion (HFCA) form and line it up with my printer. At that time, my business was slow enough that I was still un-acquainted with the idea of time-for-money. The fact that it took 6 months and 40 phone calls to get paid was offset by a nice check, although if you include hours worked on the case I think I averaged $4 an hour.

Well into my third year, I began to bill paper claims for some provid-ers, and spent more than 10 hours each weekend doing so, for cases as little as $25, the going fee schedule for many payers (and sadly still is). The number of cases that required rebilling was staggering, sometimes for an error as trifling as a misspelled street name. At that time, paper claims were not processed in under 60 days, and my average wait time for $25 was 4-8 months. Switching to electronic claims and a clearing

house helped somewhat, but again, lots of rebilling and denials. Don’t get me started about the hours on hold verifying insurance coverage, since most payers at that time were not online. Even now, ancillary care is often not included in the online por-tion of verifying patient coverage and requires a phone call.

In my 4th year (and to strains of the Hallelujah chorus) I hired a biller and hired some student in-terns, and slowly began to get my life back. But a biller alone did not solve all the problems, since the American medical system and in-surance companies, in particular, operate with a profit motive which includes unscrupulous practices to deny payment for any reason. Most medical doctors, unless they run a solo practice, are completely pro-tected from this since they rarely, if ever, have to deal with billing issues. But for the small solo prac-tice, the nuisances of navigating the insurance billing world leave many clinicians and patients furious and frustrated. Frankly, I was ready to retire by year 5.

Lest you feel dismayed, there is light at the end of the tunnel, at least in terms of insurance billing. I would like to share a few tips, things I wish I had known in the beginning.1. Take a billing class ASAP, as soon

as you graduate, if not before. Why this was not discussed in my practice management class is be-yond me, and I lost 4 years trying to navigate this maze blindly. This is something I tell my students as soon as they are licensed: regard-less of whether you plan to take insurance or not, at the very least you need to know how to code a super bill, how to discuss claim forms with clients, how to phrase things so that your clients will be reimbursed, and how to discuss diagnosis codes with other clini-cians. You are no longer an in-tern in the school clinic and “We don’t make a Western diagnosis in TCM.” You must learn how to make a Western diagnosis in or-der to participate in the medical system and since most intern clin-ic time is focused on TCM pattern differentiation, learning the ropes of effective coding will save you about 5 years of pain and thou-sands of lost dollars. The changes coming next year with the new ICD-10 codes will make taking a new billing class mandatory.


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Yin and Yang, the Path to Total HealthBy Ted KARdAsh, PhD, MFT

Every practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is thoroughly familiar with the

principle of yin and yang as the foundation of their medicine. This principle plays a primary role in the diagnosis and treatment of all diseases, and its concepts of whole-ness, change, and balance provide the basis for optimal health and well-being.

However, this principle also has a much wider application than only treating disease. Fully understand-ing yin and yang and integrating that knowledge into one’s daily life can have a direct and powerful impact not only on one’s immediate health but also on one’s total being--on how one lives and experiences life. This, in turn, leads to a spiritual awareness that transcends the purely physi-cal and that can be characterized as complete or total health.

The idea of yin and yang comes to us from the teachings of Taoism, the Chinese philosophical tradition whose origins date back to the 6th c. BCE and whose principles deeply in-form TCM. The main ideas of Taoist thought are most clearly articulated in the works of legendary Taoist sages, Lao Tzu (Tao Te Ching) and Chuang Tzu (Inner Chapters).

Taoist teachings function as a guide to daily living. Their purpose is to assist us in cultivating and strengthening our own process of self-exploration, growth, and trans-formation, so that we experience our essential nature as inseparable from that of the cosmos or Tao. An important first step toward attaining this sense of interconnectedness is to recognize and align ourselves with the movement of life itself. This is achieved primarily through a deep comprehension of yin and yang.

yin anD yangYin and yang constitute the two

essential and interdependent ener-gies of life. Yang is characterized as creative, assertive, positive, and light, while yin is receptive, yielding, negative, and dark. It is important to note that these attributes are only descriptive and do not carry any judgmental or moral value. It is also critical to recognize that, though op-posite in nature, yin and yang are to be perceived and experienced not as diametrically opposed, but rather as complementary and relative to one another. They arise from a common source, the Tao.

Yin and yang literally make the world go round! Our entire physi-cal reality is based on the relation-ship between these two energies. Whether it is the structure of DNA,

with its positive and negative strands, the transmission of neurons in our brains, from a positively charged sender to a negatively charged recep-tor, the function of the earth’s mag-netic fields which regulate the ebb and flow of the ocean tides, or the makeup of electricity with its positive and negative currents - all of these processes take place because of these two opposing energies. Their inter-action creates all manifestation. It is through them that the Tao reveals itself. The interplay of these two po-lar opposites represents the deeper underlying unity of life.

primaL unity

This image, called the Tai Chi Tu, or Supreme Ultimate Map (sometimes referred to as the “yin-yang symbol”), represents this unity of opposites. The two energies are depicted as equally proportional, harmoniously balanced. The small dot signifies that as each energy reaches its fullest ex-pression it already carries the seed of its opposite. And the curved line sug-gests a flowing dynamic between the two - they are constantly changing, literally flowing into each other and becoming one other.

TCM is often referred to as a “to-tal” medicine, treating body, mind, and spirit. The entire human energy system is perceived and treated as a unified whole. While organ systems and energy pathways are classified according to their yin or yang quali-ties, they are still managed as part of the larger structure. Everything is in-terconnected and any one element of the system affects all other parts.

Just as within the human en-ergy system, in life neither of these opposites is to be excluded, nor is one superior to the other. Lao Tzu reminds us that one polarity cannot exist without the other. He writes, “Under heaven all can see beauty as beauty only because there is ugli-ness. All can know good as good only because there is evil.” If there is no “light”, there is no “dark”, no “up” without a “down”. There cannot be health without disease.

Chuang Tzu cautions us to be

aware of the limitations of value judgments that prevent us from per-ceiving this underlying unity. He states that depending on your point of view,

“Everything can be a ‘that’; everything can be a ‘this’. There-fore, ‘that’ comes from ‘this’ and ‘this’ comes from ‘that’ - which means ‘that’ and ‘this’ give birth to one another. When there is no more separation between ‘that’ and ‘this’, it is called being one with the Tao.”Being “one with the Tao” al-

lows us to see all things as part of the greater whole and to understand them at their deepest level. All oppo-sites - thoughts, views, opinions, in-terpretations, phenomena - all spring from a common source. Life is both yin and yang; it contains “good” and “evil”. It is how we respond to these energies that determines the quality of our existence.

changeThe health of the human organ-

ism depends in large part on its adaptability to change. It must ac-custom itself to changes of season, of climate, to different emotional states, and to various conditions of stress. The life force of the body, the qi, must flow freely for the system to op-erate effectively.

The “Supreme Ultimate Map” is literally a chart of how life manifests through the interaction of yin and yang. First, there is continuous trans-formation. It is this flowing change that allows the two energies to har-monize and balance themselves. Secondly, as these two forces inter-act, the process of change moves through recognizable, cyclical pat-terns, like the alternating of day and night or the turning of the seasons. When one energy becomes full and complete, the other begins to grow and ascend. “That which shrinks must first expand. That which fails must first be strong.” Lao Tzu tells us that life is a process with a natu-ral expansion and contraction on both the most minute and grandest levels. It is the breathing pattern of life itself. Change is constant.

Taoist texts speak of “living life in the round”. The “round” refers to the circle that encompasses the yin and yang energies (the Tai Chi Tu). “Living life in the round” means be-ing at ease with the flow of energy as it passes through one phase and then the other. It means being able to embrace both yin and yang, to ex-pand and contract. Knowledge of the cyclical process of events liberates us from a rigid view of the world and allows us to adapt and flow.

BaLance TCM seeks to help bring the

body’s yin and yang energies into a state of dynamic equilibrium. We might say that the definition of good health from this perspective is har-monious balance.

The Tai Chi Tu presents the yin and yang energies in a balanced state. Any point on the circle is bal-anced by a point on the opposite side. By learning to keenly perceive these two energies and their patterns of change, we learn the skill of main-taining balance in any given situa-tion, at any point within the transfor-mational process.

The ancient Chinese martial art, Tai Chi Chuan, or Supreme Ultimate Boxing, takes its name from the Tai Chi Tu precisely because it embodies many of the principles depicted by this symbol, primarily that of balance. Practitioners of Tai Chi learn to relax and be one with their experience (the Tao), to move smoothly from one posture into the other (flow with change), and to maintain stability in a variety of positions, including stand-ing on one leg (balance)!

Our language expresses the importance of balance in our lives through such terms as balanced diet, a balanced or even-handed ap-proach, and, of course, a balanced checkbook.

DaiLy LivingWhat implications does all of

this have for us on a personal level? How can we apply the concept of yin and yang in our daily lives? And how can this help us to attain “com-plete health”?

If we wish to enter the circle of Tao, to live life in the round, we must be ready to move beyond limiting judgments that prevent us from expe-riencing the totality of life. We must be willing to flow with what arises. By attuning our awareness to the patterns of change, we have the potential to be a harmonizing force ourselves. If we remain unaware, then at best, we are swept along by the current, often fighting it in a futile manner.

Cultivate an awareness of things as they truly are – interconnected and part of the larger whole

A conventional view of reality is based on a perception of the uni-verse as made up of separate objects, of irreconcilable opposites.

Our two sages advise us to move beyond this view with its ap-parent and limiting contradictions. All is Tao! Both yin and yang are Tao. Good luck is Tao, bad luck is Tao. Illness is Tao, good health is



Breast Health is the CureBy lARA KolJonen, LAc

Whether you want to pre-vent breast cancer, cur-rently have breast health

issues, or have or already have had breast cancer, practicing breast health on a daily basis is your path to wellness.

Being a busy female acupunctur-ist, stress is easy to find while time is not, and those pink ribbons still make me think about breast cancer. Science tells us that the thoughts we hold create emotional responses that bio-chemically either stress or relax our nervous system. What we really need is a symbol that reinforces per-sonal health, something that inspires us to integrate one of the many ways to create breast health into our daily lives. This will help change the con-sciousness we need as a society to prevent breast cancer.

There is no shortage of “cancer awareness” campaigns and events, but education and information about creat-ing breast health, the very thing that eliminates the problem, is challenging to find. If we want breast cancer to

be a rare occurrence, we need “health awareness.” Breast health needs to be common knowledge, promoted every-where and popularized.

What iS BreaSt heaLth?Breast health is the same as cre-

ating every day health, but putting specific focus on the breasts. For ex-ample: choosing exercises that focus on moving the lymphatic system, such as breast massage, push-ups and jog-ging, and eating foods that are loaded with indole-3 Carbinol, like broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage.

You can promote your own breast health when you are conscious and aware of keeping your thoughts inspiring to you, keeping the foods you eat simple, fresh and organic, reducing stress and toxic products, and regularly exercising and moving your body throughout the day. The combination of these lifestyle choices reinforces the energy movement in the meridian and lymphatic systems.

The lymphatic system is like the sewage system of the body, it’s one

of the body’s primary ways to flush out toxins and it plays a large role in keeping our breasts healthy. The un-derarm area is a highly concentrated area of lymph nodes, making it an important area to move and keep de-congested. In addition, it’s the main location where we eliminate toxins via sweat. The lymph system only moves when we move, so if there is a lack of exercise, restrictive clothing, and or dehydration, toxins that the body can’t expel can build up and congest the breast.

The meridian system is the en-ergy map of our body. When there is consistent energy flow in the merid-ians, the body is healthy. When there are blockages of flow in one or more meridian, disease and pain begin to manifest. Like the lymphatic system, the meridian system needs movement and flow in order to stay healthy.

The underarm is similar to a free-way on-ramp. When there is enough lymphatic movement and energy flow in the local meridians, there is little “traffic” and congestion. On the

contrary, if we are not exercising, not doing acupressure, not eating pH balanced foods, not feeling relaxed, and/or using antiperspirant and de-odorants made with aluminum (al-most all are, even the natural “crys-tal” ones have it listed as “alum”), the body starts having “traffic buildup”. This “traffic” allows the buildup and accumulation of toxins that can’t be sweated out. Over time, this chronic lymphatic congestion pollutes the breast and body, creating energy blockage, breast disease, and cancer.

There are so many different types of treatments (some familiar, some not) and ways to promote healing, that it can seem overwhelming to know where to start, how to get all the well-rounded, valid information and then, how to implement it into everyday life. Essentially Pink is mak-ing breast health more readily avail-able and is here to gather all the im-portant information regarding breast health treatments, foods, exercises,



ARoMATheRApy: nATuRe’s MAGiC continued from page 6

solvents. This is used for jasmine and neroli, to name a few. The theory is that the solvent evaporates without any residue or harmful effects. The most drastic forms of essential oils are the synthetics. France exports 200 times more lavender than it grows. Chemists try to duplicate the scent and molecular structure of an essential oil molecule. They have the same chemical formula (natu-ral) yet they are unable to duplicate the structure of the molecule. The atoms are like bricks, and there are multiple ways to build a molecule. The saving grace of all these issues is your nose. Your nose is the most effective way to discern whether an essential oil is real, synthetic, or adulterated. The nose always knows. There are people called trained nos-es, who can tell you the breakdown percentages of the molecular com-ponents of an essential oil merely by smelling it. This is an amazing accomplishment, considering the molecular complexity of an essential oil. All of this information is impor-tant to assist one to make informed choices as a consumer.

I view aromatherapy as one of the most amazing facilitators for healing. I use my nose to determine which essential oils are the best. However, my friends tell the real sto-ry. In my years of practice and teach-ing aromatherapy, I have observed many incredible healings. This is why I call aromatherapy nature’s magic.

I will start with my husband. When I told him I was an aroma-therapist, he was skeptical. I think he viewed it as the power of wish-ful thinking. Like many, he had no knowledge or experience with aro-matherapy. One day he smashed his thumb with a hammer. I heard his scream even though I was inside the house. He said the thumbnail was instantly blue, and his only thought was that he was going to lose the nail. His hand was numb. I walked into the garage with the essential oil helichrysum (Helichyrsum italicum). I think he stared at me as if I was crazy. Although, at that moment, he was open and willing to try anything.

I put a drop on his thumb and told him to rub it around the nail and area of impact. Within a minute, he exclaimed the pain was gone. Within fifteen minutes, he said the thumb felt like he just hit it and I put an-other drop on his thumb. Twenty minutes later, he came back for an-other drop. Thirty minutes after that I applied another drop. In total for the day, he had seven drops. When he awoke the next morning, the thumbnail was normal except for a blue spot about the size of a pin. His hand completely recovered from the trauma. My husband understands es-sential oils through experience.

Many years later, my husband was making home fries in the oven. When he opened the oven door to take the tray out, his glasses fogged over from the moisture. As he moved the tray, it hit something, and 360-degree olive oil spilled on his wrist and the back of his hand. There was blistering. His knowledge of essential oils told him to apply lavender (Lavendula augus-tifolia) and helichrysum (Helichrysum italicum). The pain was severe. He repeated the applications of these es-sential oils for the next hour. He then applied my skin lotion blend. The lotion plus the lavender and helichyr-sum proved miraculous. After an hour, he was completely free of pain. Over the next two weeks he applied laven-der to ensure there is no scarring. His wrist and the back of his hand went

from blistered and dark red to normal without scarring.

Lavender is considered the uni-versal oil for a multitude of remedies such as acne, allergies, bee stings, bronchitis, bruises, cold sores, cuts, dandruff, flatulence, headaches, her-pes, insomnia, migraine headaches, nervous tension, skin rashes, stretch marks, and more. Lavender is so gentle it may be applied neat or un-diluted. There is one exception in the lavender plant family: lavendin. Lav-endin is a hybrid of two species of lavender and it contains camphor. It will burn the skin if applied topically without dilution.

Years ago, a friend accidentally touched her face with a hot curling iron. She immediately applied laven-der (Lavandula augustifolia) to the area. Everyone told her she would be scarred. Three days later her office workers noticed the area was healed and without a scar.

One of the best health oriented deodorants is lavender essential oil. Our family uses lavender (Lavandula augustifolia or Lavandula officinalis) as an underarm deodorant. Lavender is analgesic, anti-bacterial, anti-inflam-matory, and antiseptic. It is soothing to sensitive skin. It eliminates the bac-teria and you smell great.

A friend, John, related the fol-lowing experience. He went to pay his respects to a friend who was dy-ing. When he got there, his friend had been unconscious for three days and they expected him to die at any moment. The reality was that they had to strap the man into the metal hospital bed. It was as if the spirit was unable or unwilling to leave the body. His friend was actually moving the bed around the room as his body violently resisted something. John had extensive experience in aroma-therapy and knew how frankincense (Boswellia carteri) was considered a spiritual oil. John asked his friend’s wife if she was willing to try an ex-periment that will do no harm. John asked the wife to apply frankincense to her husband’s heart, solar plexus, and forehead. Within five minutes after the application, the struggling

ceased and the look of pain left his face. Within a half hour, his friend passed serenely.

A hospice volunteer related the following experience. He went to meet his new client and found him with a pillowcase over his head. His client was depressed and non-communicative. He refused to speak, and the volunteer decided it was just best to leave. Before he left, he decided to mist the area around the client with an orange (Citrus sinensis) essential oil and water mixture in a glass mister bottle. Within a minute, the client slowly removed the pillow-case and said hello. Over the months, they established a beautiful and up-lifting relationship. On one visit, his client was on the patio visiting with his estranged daughter. The daughter came up to hospice volunteer and thanked him for his care and restor-ing her father’s relationship with the family.

Essential oils have a powerful effect on easing emotions, stress, and tension, and they boost self-confidence. Inhalation is the quickest way to benefit from an essential oil. The olfactory nerves extend into the brain. Aroma molecules connect with receptor sites in nasal cilia extending to the olfactory bulbs. The olfactory bulb is an extension of the limbic system. The limbic system evalu-ates sensory stimuli, smell, taste, and touch. Emotional feelings are often associated with aromas. Humans can detect over 10,000 different aromas. We have over 50 million receptors on the nasal cilia. As a clinician, always ask your clients if they have allergies to any aromas. Your nose is the tru-est test of whether an essential oil is compatible to you.

The use of aromatherapy is subtle yet powerful. When you wear pleasing aromatic substances, it af-fects the people around you. Many clients are stressed and overwhelmed with today’s responsibilities. The effects of essential oils in reducing stress and anxiety are dramatic.


If you would like to join this esteemed group, enroll in Pacific College’s Doctoral Program

DAOM Capstone ProjectsThe list below is of those who have successfully defended their dissertations:Validation of Point Prescription for Radiation Prostatitis, by Pierre AurelienInvitro Effect of 350 Chinese Herbs on the P450 CYP3AA Enzyme, by Lily ChangDr Jiao’s Herbal Medicine for Rheumatiod Arthritis, by Ay-ying ChenThe Efficacy of Simultaneous Use of Massage Therapy and Acupuncture Treatment (SUMTA) for Patients Undergoing Pain Management, by Mei ChouThe Efficacy of Electro-Acupuncture in Treatment of Schiatica Due to Intervertebral Disc Herniation, by Michael CorradinoThe Critical Review of Acupuncture’s Effects on Relieving Symptoms Due to Prostatitis Radiation, by Elisebete DeSouzaComparisons of CD4 Count and HIV Viral Load in Patient Treated with Point Injection Therapy, Acupuncture and Glycyrrhizin Tablets, by Uchenna EgwuonwuEvaluation of Required Elements of Fully Integrated Pocket Clinic Manual, by Daniel HsuPrecision Using Chinese Herbal Medicine for Optimal Efficacy in the Treatment of Various Microbial Pathogens, by Steve JarskySystematic Review of the Effectiveness of Traditional Chinese Medicine Treatment on Alzheimer’s Disease, by Brian KouoThe Effects of Acupuncture on Weight Loss in Overweight Adults Over 40 Years Old, by Ed LaMadridAn Evaluation Study Designed to Improve the Evaluation Process of Clinical Supervisor Skills, by Gina LeporeEvaluation of Miriam Lee’s Rotation Method as a Primary Needle Manipulation in the Treatment of Pain, by Leslie McCoyA Critical Review of Etiology, Pathology and Treatment of Pediatric Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in Oriental Medicine, by Karen PanResponse of Blood Glucose Levels to Acupuncture in Type II Diabetes, by Don SnowSystematic Analysis of Electronic Health Record Software for the Oriental Medical Clinic, by Greg SperberThe Effect of Traditional Chinese Medicinal Herbs on Reducing the Vasomotor Symptoms of Climacteric Women in the United States, by Robin TiberiThe Effectiveness of Anatomical Acupuncture vs. Anatomical Plus Scalp Acupuncture on the Voluntary Movement of the Flexion and Extension of the Dysfunctional Arm in Post-Stroke Patients, by Toan Truong

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Night blindness and peripheral vision loss (tunnel vision) are the major clinical manifestations and usu-ally affects both eyes. RP is clinically divided into two types: typical RP and atypical RP. The disease occurs more in the offspring of carrier parents. Some patients or relatives may accom-pany with high myopia, mental dis-order, epilepsy, deaf-mutism (Usher’s Syndrome). Research has shown that at least 60% of people with RP have a family history of autoimmune dis-ease. There is currently no effective conventional-medical treatment for RP. Gene therapy is being explored and may be helpful in the future, but can take years before trials are done on humans. Until that time, conventional Western medicine has absolutely noth-ing to offer people with RP.

retinitiS pigmentoSa & chineSe meDicine

Traditional Chinese medicine calls the disease “Gao feng nei zhang”, also known as “Gao Feng or “Bird Eye” in the classic book of “Standards for Diagnosis and Treat-ment “ (Zhèng Zhì Zhŭn Shéng). The ancients considered that the cause of RP was “debilitation of yang that can-not confront yin”, due to a congenital Jing deficiency, thin and astringent vessels and collaterals result from lack of spirit light (Shen-Qi).

Gao Feng is an internal ocular disease that is characterized by night blindness, gradual vision loss, and progressive narrowing constriction of the visual field. There are many clinical treatment methods of treat-ment, but none have shown to be ideal for RP. We are hoping that more research will help to identify the best acupuncture points and point combi-nations for RP. Each case is different, but certain acupoints seem to have the same effect on the majority of people. Identifying the most effective points using diagnostic imaging could help to establish a solid base point prescription. This base point prescrip-tion can then be modified according to each case and underlying pattern.

Chinese herbal medicine can have a positive effect on RP, but we will not be conducting research on herbs at this time, only acupuncture. I will, however, provide the key for-mulas for the most commonly seen TCM patterns.

Generally, TCM treats RP with methods of supplementing yang and boosting qi, regulating blood, nour-ishing the liver and strengthening the kidney.TCM may stabilize symptoms, arrest and/or delay the progression of blindness, but this is not a “cure.” In my experience, Chinese medicine and its related therapies (acupuncture, herbs, Qi Gong) are presently the ab-solute best management strategy for RP and the only thing that can really offer these people a ray of hope.

Clinical results typically show that patients respond with different degrees of improvement in visual acuity, visual fields, acuity, contrast sensitivity, color vision, and ERG testing. RP is very slow to respond and requires many treatments and long-term maintenance. The most important consideration in long-term treatment is vision preservation. I’ve had many patients with RP that I have been treating for 3, 5, and even 10 years. A typical RP case will lose vision 3-6% per year and become le-gally blind by age 60. Based on our objective findings, we have success-fully slowed and arrested the degen-erative process in many RP cases.

cLinicaL maniFeStationS1. Night blindness: patients cannot

see in the twilight, darkness, or dimly lit places. Dark adaptation is decreased.

2. Narrowed visual Field with a “ring” that can be seen in visual field ex-amination: Central vision is normal or near normal in the early stages, but if/when the macula becomes affected, the loss of central vision can cause central vision blindness.

3. Fundus (interior eye) examination typically shows vascular stenosis (hardening from plaque), in the retinal arteries. In early stages, scattered bone-like pigments ap-pear in the equatorial parts. As the disease progresses, yellow wax shows up more abundantly, which is believed to be the result of poor detoxification of metabolic waste products.

4. ERG (electroretinograph) – gold standard for diagnosing RP.

treatment 1. Insufficiency of Kidney YangSyndrome characteristics: night

blindness, progressive constriction of visual field (tunnel vision), deep feel-ing of cold and cold limbs, limp aching low back and knees, pale tongue with thin white coating, deep thready pulse.

Treatment Principle: warm kidney yang & nourish liver blood

Representative formula: Yòu Guī Wán (Right-Restoring Pill)

Ingredients: See Table 1Modifications: add hóng huā

(Flos Carthami Safflower) 10g, jī xuè téng (suberect spatholobus stem) 10g, niú xī (two-toothed achyranthes root) 10g to enhance the effects of nourish-ing and promoting blood circulation.

2. Liver-Kidney Yin DeficiencySyndrome characteristics: night

blindness, progressive constriction of visual field (tunnel vision), dry and gritty eyes, dizziness, tinnitus (Usher’s Syndrome), deafness, insomnia and dreaminess, red tongue with little coating, thin rapid pulse.

ReseARChinG ReTiniTis piGMenTosA continued from page 1


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yin And yAnG, The pATh To ToTAl heAlTh continued from page 10


Tao. Rather than rigidly choosing one side against the other, we are urged to perceive the two sides in their relatedness, to experience how one creates the other. In so doing we are best able to reconcile or harmonize these opposites, we “blunt the sharp-ness and untangle the knot,” as Lao Tzu writes.

To heal ill health we must first recognize it, accept it is there, and learn how to work with it. By stay-ing in relationship with it we learn from it and restore balance. People often talk about gaining value from their encounter with illness. Even those who succumb to a disease will express gratitude for how they have grown from the experience.

Recognize change in its various stages. Learn how to flow with change

When we become attuned to cycles and patterns of change, our actions become more skillful, more in step with these phases. Just as with physical illness we can recognize and deal with problems in their early stages. Our natural wisdom, our con-nection with the Tao, lets us know when and how to intervene and when to yield.

Much of our struggle in life arises either out of our failure to acknowl-edge change or out of our resistance to it. By flowing with the ongoing patterns of change we harmonize with them. We learn to not cling rigidly to our own values and inter-pretations when they prevent us from accepting what is occurring or seeing it in its totality.

By not holding tightly to one polarity or the other, we experience how “bad” luck can become “good” luck, and even come to understand how these terms are relative to one another. Crisis can contain the op-portunity for growth. Choosing to harmonize with the unity of oppo-sites means accepting all facets of our existence, “good” and “bad,” as the natural flow of the Tao.

Become an agent of balance by partaking in the reconciling of opposites

All opposites exist as part of the natural order, the ever-changing, on-going process of life. In nature, these opposites enhance and complement one another. We do not label nature “bad” or “wrong” because of natural disasters even though we may suffer from them. Hopefully we can learn to live more wisely with these pow-erful forces, just as we can learn from illness, and even find what may be “good” in it.

There are “two sides to every sto-ry”. Listening to both sides and mak-ing an effort to appreciate them al-lows us to be empathic, to understand another’s experience, to connect with them. Then we see that while there are two “sides” - yin and yang, there is one “story”--Tao. Rather than trying to win or be “right” at the expense of

another, we regard another’s experi-ence or opinion as different without making it categorically “wrong”. This allows balance to be achieved.

Contemplations• Areyouwillingtoexploreand

try to understand another’s view-point that is opposed to yours? Can you find the dot of yang in the sea of yin?

• Canyousensewhenenergyshiftsor changes direction? Are you comfortable with change?

• Arethereareasofimbalanceinyour life? Do you work too much? Do you feel emotionally balanced?

concLuSionWe do live in a world where yin

and yang manifest as “yes” and “no”, “light” and “dark”, and “good” and “evil”. Our challenge is to see be-yond these opposites, to the under-lying unity that they express. There are times when we will feel deeply that we are in harmony with the forces of change and that we must assert our position or vision. Yet even when we are aligned with the ascendant, or harmonizing energy, we can also remember our connec-tion to the whole, remember that we are, in some way, part of “the other side” as well. Then resolution will be more harmonious and will lead to a true balance and an outcome that benefits all.

A skilled mediator enacts this principle by looking beyond “right and wrong” and by seeking what is common and beneficial to all sides in a dispute. This is reconciling op-posites, finding the common ground of the Tao.

“What goes up must come down.” “Every cloud has a silver lin-ing.” Our own language echoes the wisdom found within the concept of yin and yang and encourages us to embrace these opposites, to see them as relative and changing, and to re-member that, ultimately, all is Tao.

By following the path of accep-tance and responsiveness to change, we can become, in the words of Ch-uang Tzu, true women and men of Tao. He writes,

“The true person of Tao is not always looking for right and wrong, not always deciding ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The true person has no

* TCM seeks to help bring the body’s yin and yang energies into a state of dynamic equilibrium.

Santa Cruz,


A PCOM Alumnus’ Calling: The Himalaya ProjectBy loRi howell, L.Ac., DAOM Fellow

When Mark Sobralske graduated from Pacific College of Oriental Medi-

cine, Chicago and went to Kath-mandu to volunteer in an integra-tive medical clinic, he anticipated gaining acupuncture and herbal medicine experience, deepening his Buddhist meditation practice, and certainly finding a little adventure. Mark didn’t anticipate founding a Tibetan medicine school for youths in the remote Nepali mountainous region of Dolpo. When you mix medicine, mountains, and medita-tion, many things may happen, what is anticipated, and especially what is unanticipated.

After volunteering for three months at the Shechen Clinic and Hospice in Kathmandu, Mark accept-ed an invitation from his friend Lhak-pa Dondrup to visit his “hometown” in the mountainous and remote re-gion of Dolpo in western Nepal. Be-fore embarking on the trip, Mark met with Amchi Namgyal Rinpoche, who told him of his improbable dream to

create a Tibetan medicine school in Dho-tarap Valley. Dhotarap Valley lies in the heart of the Dolpo region of western Nepal, adjacent to the Tibetan border. Tibetan pastoralists have inhabited this valley since the 8th century. Here, everything, every breath, is infused with Tibetan Bud-dhist culture.

Fortunately, Mark brought a sup-ply of acupuncture needles with him to Dolpo. Due to the scarcity of med-ical care in Dolpo, Mark continued his volunteer work by treating the local Dolpopas. In all of Dhotarap Valley there are only two amchis (Ti-betan medical practitioners) to treat the entire population. People suffer and die needlessly from treatable disease due to this desperate lack of healthcare. Mark developed a deep love and understanding for the Dol-po people and their way of life. He carried Amchi Namgyal’s improbable dream of creating a Tibetan medicine school with him and once there, he saw the dream’s potential to manifest as reality.

Back in the States, with the sup-port of the Dolpopas and Amchi Namgyal and local amchis from different areas of Dolpo, Mark em-barked on an altogether different and difficult trek, navigating through the formalities and legalities of starting a non-profit. Himalaya Project was created on January 08, 2011 with the goal of providing Tibetan medical education and healthcare to under-served communities in the Trans-Himalayan region. The non-profit is headed by Sobralske and includes six other volunteer members. The volunteer board meets monthly and communicates regularly with advisors in Nepal.

Himalaya Project endeavors to educate and train 14 children from age 12-13 for a period of five years. Two children from each of the sur-rounding seven villages will be ad-mitted with the goal that at the end of their education they will return to their village to provide healthcare. To this end, healthcare will be more accessible in the Dolpo region. The

healthcare provided, Tibetan medi-cine, is that which is desired and un-derstood by the population, allowing the region to remain self-sufficient without relying on expensive West-ern medication and foreign trained physicians.

Be a part of manifesting the dream. Donations are gratefully ac-cepted to help provide room, board, and tuition for Dolpo’s future amchis. Fostering and preserving traditional Tibetan medicine in Dolpo directly benefits the people of the Dolpo re-gion and benefits our world by keep-ing traditional medicine alive and relevant. For more information about Himalaya Project and how you can help, please visit: www.himalaya-

project.org. oM

loRi howell, L.Ac., DAOM Fellow is a faculty member of PCOM, Chicago and maintains a private practice in Evanston, IL. She is a board member of Himalaya Proj-ect who believes that access to healthcare is a human right and traditional medicines should be valued and preserved.


nuTRiTionAl insiGhTs fRoM AyuRVedA continued from page 8

don’t want to believe that it has any-thing to do with why are you feeling so bored and directionless sometimes, or why you had a fight with your dear one for no particular reason. But it does. By studying the whole health principles so perfectly described in this ancient medicine, you can gain insight on this body-mind connection. And if you are able to apply them in your daily life, you can pursue better eating habits life long.

The main Ayurvedic nutritional insight:

Food is Medicine or diet as a therapeutic modality. Eating the right food in the right amounts at the right times in the right way is the answer to all your health concerns. The main cause to most diseases is not the ex-ternal biohazards, but our own weak body and mind that invite them into our bodies. The most common Ay-urveda proverb that I find interesting is, “Without proper diet, medicines are of no use. With proper diet, med-icines are of no need”.

Ayurveda describes six tastes of food. They are nutritionally important and each taste has its own physiologi-cal effect. In this culture, we are so familiar with three main tastes--sweet, sour and salty, the main cause of dia-

betes, heart disease, hypertension, and obesity so prevalent in Western soci-ety. Ayurveda describes three more tastes--pungent, bitter, and astringent. Unlike nutritional labels for protein, carbohydrates or minerals, the six tastes naturally guide us toward our body’s nutritional needs. Each taste feeds our mind, body, senses, and spirit in its own unique way. From a modern nutritional perspective, the six tastes satisfy each of the major dietary building blocks. Sweet foods, for example, are usually rich in fats, proteins, carbohydrates, and water, whereas bitter and astringent foods are generally high in vitamins and minerals. The brain sends the body signals when it requires energy in the form of food. By incorporating all six tastes into each meal, we ensure that these signals are adequately met, thus avoiding food cravings or the over-consumption of certain foods. Leaving out any one of these will cre-ate a craving, which then sets up the cycle of overindulgence. You never feels satisfied if you not nourished completely. If our lunch is composed of all six tastes, not necessarily in equal amounts, then we will notice that our desire to snack is reduced significantly.

Studies on animals have shown that they choose food that supplies them with nutrients they are lacking. They rely on their primal sense of taste and smell. If we, too, choose to follow our instinct, we will make the right choice. To make the right choice we can rely on our natural spontaneous desires, relying on our body-mind to guide us to achieve balance in the body. But, the choice must be innocent. We are so influ-enced by media and advertisements, the medical community, researches funded by giant food companies, other outside sources, as well as our family eating habits. No wonder we answer our hunger signals with a bag of potato chips or brownies, or if we are feeling guilty then worst yet…reduced fat chips and low fat, low sugar brownies!

Ayurveda also gives us insight into food preparation. Can you tell the difference between the food prepared by your loved ones and the food from a fast food restaurant, or any noisy restaurant? If a home-cooked meal is prepared in a pleasant, calm, and clean atmosphere by a cook who is healthy, happy, and strong, it can of-fers you so much more in terms of quality of the food. It not only tastes

best, it nourishes you best. Always prepare food as close as possible to the time when you will eat it. Also prepare food from scratch as often as you can. This way, you can control every aspect of it, ensuring its purity and freshness. Avoid old, stale, left-over food. It is considered low qual-ity, lifeless, or dead food.

A few general eating rules to consider according to Ayurveda: * Eat the heaviest meal at noon. It

is the time of the day when diges-tive fire in our body physiologi-cally is strongest. Studies have shown that we can eat higher calories earlier in the day and not gain weight as much eating a high calorie content in the evening.

* Eat a lighter evening meal by 6-7 pm if possible, as our digestive fire slows down as the day sets down. Eat even lighter if eating after 7pm. It will also help you to sleep better.

* Eat lighter if ill or under stress, as digestive fire is low because the body is focused on dealing with stress and can get overwhelmed by too much food.


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fRoM The TRenChes: The CAse foR insuRAnCe continued from page 9

One expensive lesson I learned the hard way is that I simply don’t code for internal medicine. I have found that many carriers try the “Acupuncture for this diagnosis is considered ex-perimental.” In truth, 100% of my clients have pain, whether mus-culoskeletal or headaches. I may code for additional issues so that I am in compliance with my chart-ing, but my #1 issue will always include pain of some kind. If the patient comes in with another complaint, particularly fatigue, endocrine issues, etc., it opens the door for balance billing to cover aspects of the treatment associ-ated with their other condition, rather than for pain.

2. Consider using a free electronic billing service such as Office Ally. I did not begin to use them until this year, when I opted to be in network with several HMO based fee schedules where the remu-neration was so poor that it didn’t make sense to have my biller do the cases. Office Ally has some amazing features, not the least of which is that if you have an error on the HCFA form it will not be accepted for processing. I have

only had to rebill a few cases with this amazing software. And, as I said, free for the user.

3. If you have an expanding prac-tice, consider hiring an insurance biller sooner rather than later. I waited too long for this step and so did several of my colleagues. In fact, most of my colleagues wish they hired a biller sooner. What I did not know at the time is that I only have a certain amount of qi, and if I am wast-ing 15 hours a week trying to bill $25, then this is not an effective use of my time. Better to use my talent in generating income (e.g. treating), and let someone who is an expert in terms of billing navigate that. A biller brings the benefit of being current in coding and HIPAA changes that we may not know about as solo practitio-ners. In addition, a professional biller is far more knowledgeable in verifying insurance, finding the loopholes, hidden deduct-ibles, etc. This has saved tremen-dously in terms of billing cases where the patient, in fact, had no coverage.

Be advised, billing for ancillary care such as acupuncture is DIF-

FERENT than billing for Western medicine, and a biller will have his/her own learning curve in terms of billing for acupuncture. It took my biller and I about a year to work the kinks out--who required chart notes, who was most likely to deny payments, wait times, etc. It was admittedly scary that someone was now getting 15% or more of the take, but my own acupuncturist found that when she hired a biller, the service paid for itself in a few months.

As your qi is freed up from the drain and frustration of bill-ing, it becomes available to treat the new clients who are waiting. My own practice expanded about 30% after I hired a biller, sort of an if-you-build-it-they-will-come scenario. Had I not had this bill-ing relationship in place, I would not have been ready to see such a high volume of patients.

4. Don’t get greedy. This was a great piece of advice from my beloved chiropractor prior to billing my first Workers Compensation case. He said “Don’t get greedy, don’t over code.” His advice to me was to never code for more than three procedures in any one visit lest

you run the risk of being red-flagged by the insurance carrier. I have seen some acupuncturists bill PI cases at over $400 per ses-sion since PI still tends to pay at 100% of the fee schedule for a period of time. This is completely unethical and depletes the pa-tient’s med-pay, to say nothing of creating bad impressions for us within the industry. Some chiro-practors are reaping the rewards of greed and over billing now, so let’s learn from their mistakes. With regard to the myth of the Workers Comp cash cow, that be-ing that that you make more mon-ey from Workers Compensation and can “code up,” it is patently untrue. When you factor in the additional cost and time for addi-tional chart notes, medical reports (which are paid almost nothing), staff, rebilling and calls to recal-citrant payers, to say nothing of the headache of treating what are sometimes more challenging patients emotionally, I net more from cash clients. The benefit is a broader income stream from sev-eral sources.



Treatment of Fibromyalgia and Clostridium Difficile Using Four Needle Technique and Four Constitutional MedicineBy dAVid lee, Ph.D., L.Ac.

chieF compLaintS anD SymptomS

This patient is a female, age 52, and is a bank teller. The classic fi-bromyalgia symptoms made her one of the first to be diagnosed 25 years ago. Lupus erythromatosus was diag-nosed two years ago. She took five medications of immunosuppressants and steroids every day. There was so much tension and so many knots throughout the body that a light touch on the sternum, limbs, neck, shoulders and any place on the trunk elicited severe pain. She had tem-poromandibular joint (TMJ) pain and multiple joints pain throughout the body. She drank 10 to 15 cups of cof-fee a day to help deal with the pain. Red meat made the fibromyalgia worse. There was no edema or water retention. She had menopausal symp-toms of waking up every night with profuse sweating and then chills fol-lowed. But the patient did not sweat easily during the day. Bowel move-ment was 2~3 times a day, loose. Urination was once every hour from drinking coffee. Appetite was normal and there was no complaint of indi-gestion. Mouth was dry. Tongue had red papillae.

Five eLement DiagnoSiS:

Hourglass Trunk Shape Measurement

1st line 33.7 cm2nd line 33.8 cm3rd line 32.0 cm4th line 31.4 cm5th line 33.7 cm

This patient was diagnosed as having excessive wood and water elements, and as well as deficient fire, earth, and metal elements. There are many physical, physiological, and psychological manifestations to help assess the five element states.

The following stood out the most in identifying the constitution. The hour glass shape of this patient is confirmed by the width of the fifth line being longer than the third line, which means the patient has deficient fire, deficient earth, and excessive water elements. She was diagnosed as having excessive wood and de-ficient metal elements because she does not easily get motion sick and can read books in a moving vehicle.

Excessive wood and deficient metal means she has a Greater Yin (not the same meaning as the six pathogenic influences) constitution. Excessive water and deficient earth means she has a Lesser Yin consti-tution. Her deficient fire indicates that she is primarily a Lesser Yin constitution.

All the various four needle tech-niques are designed to specifically treat her five element imbalances.

LeSSer yin conStitutionaL herBaL FormuLaS

These two formulas are specific for the Lesser Yin constitution from Dr. Jema Lee’s Sasang Four Consti-tutional Medicine. Cinnamon Twig, Pinellia, and Fresh Ginger Decoc-tion (sheng jiang, gui zhi, ban xia, bai shao, bai zhu, chen pi, zhi gan cao) for the Clumping of the Chest in Taiyang Exterior Syndrome. Regulate the Interior Decoction with Evodia and Aconite (Ren Shen, Bai Zhu, Gan Jiang, Rou Gui, Bai Shao, Chen Pi, Zhi Gan Cao, Wu Zhu Yu, Xiao Hui Xiang, Bu Gu Zhi, Fu Zi) for the Jueyin Interior Syndrome.

treatment progreSS anD reSuLtThe visit frequency was at twice

a week in the first 10 weeks. At the first session, the patient was given a Large Intestine tonification on the right side of the body. 25 minutes needle retention gave a significant reduction of pains. She took Cin-namon Twig, Pinellia, and Fresh

LeSSer yin - greater yin conStitutionaL acupuncture

Yin Meridians Yang Meridians

Liver excess gall bladder excess

heart deficient small intestine deficient

spleen deficient stomach deficient

Lung deficient large intestine deficient

Kidney excess urinary bladder excess

Right side of the body metal (jing-well) → water (ying-spring) → wood (shu-stream) →

fire (jing-river) → earth (he-sea)

tonify sedate tonify sedate

Liver sedationLR8

(earth)LR2

(water)SP9

(earth)KD2

(water)

Heart tonificationHT3

(earth)HT8

(water)SP9

(earth)KD2

(water)

Spleen tonificationSP5(fire)

SP2(water)

HT4(fire)

KD2(water)

Lung tonificationLU5

(earth)LU9

(wood)SP9

(earth)LR3

(wood)

Kidney sedationKD10(earth)

KD3(wood)

SP9(earth)

LR3(wood)

Gall Bladder sedationGB34(earth)

GB43(water)

ST36(earth)

UB66(water)

Small Intes. tonificationSI8

(earth)SI2

(water)ST36

(earth)UB66

(water)

Stomach tonificationST41(fire)

ST44(water)

SI5(fire)

UB66(water)

Large Intestine tonification LI11

(earth)LI3

(wood)ST36

(earth)GB41(wood)

Urinary Bladder sedationUB40(earth)

UB65(wood)

ST36(earth)

GB41(wood)

Left side of the bodywood (jing-well) → fire (ying-spring) → earth (shu-stream) →

metal (jing-river) → water (he-sea)

tonify sedate tonify sedateLiver sedation LR3

(earth)LR8

(water)SP3

(earth)KD10

(water)Heart tonification HT7

(earth)HT3

(water)SP3

(earth)KD10

(water)Spleen tonification SP2

(fire)SP10

(water)HT8(fire)

KD10(water)

Lung tonification LU9(earth)

LU11(wood)

SP3(earth)

LR1(wood)

Kidney sedation KD3(earth)

KD1(wood)

SP3(earth)

LR1(wood)

Ginger Decoction in the next 4 weeks because her chronic qi and blood stagnation required herbal medicine to assist the recovery more effectively.

At the second visit two days later, the patient reported a main-tained improvement. The patient was given a wood (jing-well) → fire (ying-spring) sequence Lung tonifi-cation on the left side of the body. At the third visit the patient reported further maintained improvement and an increased lung capacity. She was able to breathe in deeply without eliciting the extreme pains.

On the following visits, she was given one of the left or right side treat-ments, all of which gave an additional reduction of fibromyalgia and TMJ pains. The bilateral treatments also were equally helpful. The improvement progress was linear and smooth. There

was an increased sense of well-being and energy. By the end of two and half months of treatment, she had the symptoms improved by at least 90%.

At the 10th week, the patient re-ported progressively worsening of the bowel movement, which she did not mention because of the excite-ment from multiple improvements. She was having bloody diarrhea 5~12 times a day, especially a few minutes after each meal. She had increased flatulence and felt bloated.

In the next four and a half months, the patient checked into an outpatient hospital. After MRIs, CT scans, stool sampling, and blood tests, she was diagnosed with three problems in the intestines: diverticu-litis, clostridium difficile, and col-lagenous colitis. Several courses of



Ten years later: A Perspective on Chinese Medicine EducationBy JAson BlAlACK

Ten years after graduating from Pacific College, I returned last weekend to attend the annual

Pacific Symposium and to visit the campus. It was very exciting to see classmates and how well they were doing. I spoke to current teachers and students and was happy to hear about recent PCOM advancements in the classroom and clinic, and plans for the future. Many things have changed: the curriculum has evolved; Bob Damone, one of the best teach-ers when I went to school, is now the Academic Dean; and from my observation, the quality of teachers continues to improve.

After graduating, I moved to Boulder, Colorado, where I have been fortunate to have a busy full-time practice. My education at Pacific College enabled me to successfully enter a very difficult practice market. In addition, I have traveled to China eight times, and have studied exten-sively with multiple famous doctors. As a result, I was able to translate and write a book with one of these doctors, which documented the clinical methods of one of the most influential physicians and teachers in Chinese medicine: Qin Bowei. My education at Pacific College provided me with the foundation necessary to demonstrate to doctors in China that I knew what was “going on,” which helped open doors to many opportunities.

Although I am not currently af-filiated with any school, I have given quite a bit of thought to the state of Chinese medical education in the West, as well as in China. After seri-ously considering (and foregoing) a PhD from a Chinese university in China, I can assure you that many of the challenges faced by students of Chinese medicine in the West are also faced by their counterparts in China. This is partly because of the diversities in the vision and ways of practice of Chinese medicine, as well the historical impact of some fairly severe turbulence in the field within the last 100 years. Given this, I hope to discuss in this brief essay my experience with Chinese medical education, some of the modern chal-lenges of a Chinese medicine educa-tion anywhere in the world, and to discuss the excellent (and from an historical perspective) somewhat rare opportunity that is in front of you.

In the early part of the 20th cen-tury, Chinese medicine schools in China were shut down and the pro-fession was foreseen to become ex-tinct. In the 1950’s Chinese medicine, under the direction of Mao Zedong,

became institutionalized and was es-sentially saved from oblivion. Ever since, there have been vociferous de-bates about curriculum, teaching ma-terial and methods, clinical training, and the necessary quantity of bio-medicine. There are strong arguments on all sides, thwarting any immediate resolution. Nevertheless, schools in the West as well as in China continue to evolve.

Pacific College, as well as all oth-er Chinese medicine schools outside of East Asia, is still a small institution. In comparison, many Chinese medi-

cine universities in China have a stu-dent population of 10,000 or more. Despite its smaller size in relation to its Chinese cousins, Pacific College is among the better-developed Chinese medicine schools in the West; thus, it attracts high-level teachers. In con-trast, many non-Asian countries have minimal formal Chinese medicine ed-ucational opportunities. For example, Germany, which has a fair number of Chinese medicine practitioners and hosts the largest symposium on Chinese medicine in the West, does not offer many such opportunities.

Thus, I have met numerous Germans that must travel often to China to ob-tain a satisfactory Chinese medicine education.

While attending Pacific College, I had my share of complaints, actually probably more than most. I remem-ber many complaining that the tests are too hard, that they are too easy, that we are not learning enough, that we are learning stuff that is not rele-vant, and where are the classics? The list goes on and on. No doubt, there were real concerns and many that I am proud to say that I voiced.

My subsequent studies in China though, have influenced my atti-tude towards my Chinese medicine education. In China, one must build relationships with doctors, clinics, hospital administrators, etc. Without doing so, it is very difficult to pen-etrate into the culture and to find people who open up and share their deeper knowledge. In China, paying the tuition and fees just gets you into the door, and usually only grants you superficial observational experience and knowledge. My experiences led me to feel less entitled to a certain amount of knowledge—because I pay tuition—and more motivated to cultivate relationships with the teach-ers and administrators who were trying to provide the students with a solid and genuine foundation in Chi-nese medicine.

Chinese medicine is a vast field and we all have things we are in-terested (and not interested) in. Consequently, any educational insti-tution will inevitably leave holes in one’s “desired” education because of the diversity and complexity of the material to be delivered. However, schools such as Pacific College do provide students with a solid TCM education with ample exposure to various other modalities. There-fore, students today do have a great opportunity.

You have access to a wealth of knowledge and to people willing to teach you. I want to encourage you all to make the most of this op-portunity. If you are diligent in your studies, you will gather more than sufficient educational and clinical ex-perience upon which you may base

your life-long practice. oM

Warm Regards,Jason Blalack

If any students who read this want to further this conversation, please feel free to email me at [email protected].

* SCHOOLS SUCH AS PACIFIC COLLEGE do provide students with a solid TCM education with ample exposure to various other modalities


Pain is NOT the same for everybody?By hAunAni ChonG, Dipl. O.M., L.Ac., E-RYT, AWC

The recent NPR article, When it Comes To Pain Relief, One Size Doesn’t Fit All is exciting

for me as a scientist at heart and soci-ologist by training.

“Researchers now confirm what many pain specialists and patients already knew: Pain relief differs from person to person.”

Duuuh! I mean, yaaaah, finally!Imagine me, driving along the

highway, listening to Morning Edi-tion on NPR, the biggest smile on my face, cheering for science and the latest research, as I hear modern sci-ence backing up the biological proof of “individual differences” and “one size doesn’t fit all.” Yeeehaw!

If you are a holistic minded per-son, someone who is fascinated by humans and their patterns, medicine, or science, you already know this: everybody, or every body, is differ-ent and responds differently to our surroundings and stimuli, including medication.

Then I hear,“If the first painkiller a patient tries

doesn’t seem to be working, then a doctor should look to find an alterna-tive reliable drug and see if it is more effective in that individual patient.”

Huh?! Noooooooo. My optimism crushed.

It’s not that I’m against pills. Not at all. Honestly, life would probably be a lot easier, maybe not as fulfill-ing, but definitely easier if every-thing came in pills: my meals, my water, my computer, my schedule, my life. Pop, swallow, done! My in-stinct, gut, intuition, whatever you want to call it tells me otherwise. It has since I was a child and this is why I’m talking to my radio again.

“It’s not just about the pills and the band-aid quick fix. It’s about un-derstanding the nature of pain and how to treat pain differently. Come on! Tell me, what are people’s other choices for pain besides a pill?!”

If I could call-in, I would.Thankfully, the piece finishes

with a little more Truth, motivating me to blog.

“More is not necessarily better, and certain high doses of individual medications as well as certain combi-nations of pain drugs can be toxic to the liver and kidneys. That’s reason enough to check with your doctor first about safe doses and safe combina-tions of pain medications.”

OK, better. Kind of.If pain pills aren’t one size fits all,

then maybe researchers should ask,


A journal for practitioners

www.thelantern.com.ausubscribe online

All the

things

that made

you choose

Chinese

medicine

Vol 3–244

n Xiaoyao Xingzhe considers himself a carefree wandering pil-grim, having lived and worked all over the world, including dancing professionally, teaching banjo in China, waiting tables in florida, and lecturing in Sydney.

Yang Sheng

Walking the road home

By Xiaoyao Xingzhe

A ChoRD IS STRuCk wIThIn You, your interest is piqued, and you decide to look

further into the life practices of ancient China. Almost immediately you are overwhelmed with choice.

“Should I learn Taichi, or Qi Gong? If so, what type? I like Zen stories, but is that the same as Chan? What about Kung Fu? Or is it Gong Fu? And I have seen some classes with yoga-like move-ments that they called Yi Jin Jing, or Ba Duan Jin, or Hua Tuo Wu Qin Xi. But then I saw another class, and they didn’t do anything: they just stood there! Should I study the Yi Jing, or Lao Zi, or learn Feng Shui? What should I do, if I want to be healthy, or maybe wiser than I am right now (hard to imagine, I know)?”

If all one wants is a weekend hobby, most areas in the world now offer classes that can serve as an introduction to at least some of these activities. But if you want to go deeper, any of these can be a path leading one towards that secret garden that is the inner core of Daoism and Buddhism: a unity of being that is ultimately supportive and nourish-

ing. Some of the paths do not lead very far towards that goal, it is true, and many are so overgrown it is now impossible to proceed down them safely and sanely. After a certain point on the route to this garden a guide is necessary for almost all wayfar-ers, but guides who have traversed the whole path and returned are few, and they seldom — if ever — advertise.

Furthermore, if one is starting from a different place (like a different culture, or the mindset of a bygone era) the path will naturally follow a differ-ent course. This is why, every so often, there has been a need to re-forge pathways for new feet and changing terrain.

Lao Zi discusses this idea, in the very first chap-ter of his Dao De Jing, which says in paraphrase: One may speak of “a path” but there is no single unvarying “Path”, any more than there is only one name for an object. You can name things, for con-venience, but over time those names will change. If you are stuck on the name, you are trapped in the Ten Thousand Things. Look beyond, to the reality where there is no name. Cut away your de-sire for objects and you will see how they separate you from everything; when there is no desire for objects (and the satisfactions they bring), you will begin to observe Subtlety!

... it’s illuminating reading!

The Lantern 45

feature

By Sharon Weizenbaum

W EN JING TANG (Warm the Menses

Decoction) 1 has always been a favourite

formula of mine. I have probably prescribed it

hundreds of times. A formula becomes a favourite

when I begin to feel I know exactly how to use it

and it is remarkably effective. How I have come to

think of Wen Jing Tang over the years is probably

how many of us think of it; when a patient comes

in with dysmenorrhea due to cold on a background

of blood deficiency I use Wen Jing Tang. When the

diagnosis is right, the effect is rapid and almost

magical. Yet, as can happen when one is busy with

a clinic year after year, my understanding of the

potential of this classic formula became rather

myopic in that I thought of it only for painful

menstruation from cold. The fact that Formulas

and Strategies lists indications for Wen Jing Tang

such as dry lips and mouth, low grade fever at dusk

and warm palms and soles went over my head; I

focused on its ability to treat pain and cold.

This past autumn I travelled to Nan Jing with

a small group of practitioners to study with Dr

Huang Huang. Wen Jing Tang is just one example

of a prescription for which my limited, stuck-

in-a-rut thinking was put back on the road

with expanded possibilities. During the course

we were impressed and inspired by the way Dr

Huang opened our minds to the way of the jing

fang , or classic formulas, of Zhang Zhong-

Jing. Yet this was not a simple case of “new uses

1. From here simply referred to as Wen Jing Tang.

for old formulas”. What Dr Huang opened us to

was the logic and intelligence behind the Shang

Han Lun (Discussion of Cold-Induced Disorders)

formulas. One could say he taught us more

thoroughly how to understand and utilise the old

uses for the old formulas. There have been several articles written about

Huang Huang in recent issues of The Lantern,

including one interview with Dr Huang.2 Chris

Eddy and Michael Max and Dr Huang himself

have done a good job of describing the method of

diagnosis by body type and treating by matching

the presentation with the formula. In this article,

I would like to continue to fill out the reader’s

sense of Dr Huang’s teachings and perspective by

looking at how he uses one particular formula,

Wen Jing Tang. I will base this on Dr Huang’s

lectures, a case from Dr Huang’s clinic and

information from his book Zhong Yi Shi Da Lei

Fang (The Ten Major Formula Categories in

Chinese Medicine) 3. Finally I will present a case

from my own clinic for which I would previously

have never given Wen Jing Tang. You will see for

yourself the efficacy of this approach. Wen Jing Tang presentation The Wen Jing Tang presentation in Dr Huang’s

view is a subcategory of the Gui Zhi presentation.

In fact, Wen Jing Tang is made up of Gui Zhi Tang

(Cinnamon Twig Decoction) with additions. The

Wen Jing Tang patient will mostly appear as a Gui

Zhi (Cinnamomi Ramulus) body type, which

means they will generally be deficient and thin

with finely textured skin. They will be sensitive to

2. The Lantern: Volume 4-1 and 4-2.

3. Huang Huang (1995) Zhong Yi Shi Da Lei Fang (The Ten

Major Formula Categories in Chinese Medicine), Jiangsu:

Science and Technology Press. (Now being translated by

Michael Max to be published by Eastland Press.)

When one is busy with a clinic year after year, one’s

understanding of classical formulas can became myopic

and limited.

Wen Jing Tangaccording to Huang Huang

n Sharon Weizenbaum has been

practising Chinese medicine for 24 years and has lectured around

the US. In 1998 she founded White Pine Healing Arts, a cen-

tre dedicated to the practice and teaching of Asian medicine.

Sharon is also a Frances Perkins Scholar at Mt Holyoke College

where she has been translating her teacher’s book on herbal

gynaecology.

The Lantern �1

feature

By Mazin Al-Khafaji

s he WAs MY LAsT PATienT, and although I

can always muster an interest in a new case,

it had been a gruelling day and I was keen to

head off home. No question about it, it was her

eyes that made me wake up and pay attention.

I felt a shudder run down my spine. I had seen

them, or something very similar, many years ago.

They had haunted me ever since, and although

the passage of time had faded the impact, it all

came flooding back again. Sixteen years earlier a young woman in her early

20s had walked into my practice with severe, wide-

spread eczema. The eczema was so intense that the

unfortunate woman could not sleep at night nor

rest in the day. Not only had the years of incessant

itching worn her down and convinced her of her

hopeless plight, but the stigma of having dry red

scaly skin condemned her to a lonely existence.

Instead of leaping into adult life, her teenage years

had been a nightmare as she became increasingly

isolated and unable to socialise with her contem-

poraries. She had struggled for almost her entire

life and her grip was slipping. I could see that her

eyes, when she mustered the courage to look at

me, were empty and lacked that indefinable glint,

betraying years of desperate and anonymous suf-

fering. This sparkle, which I have ever since asso-

ciated with motivation, fulfilment, and the will to

live, was utterly absent. Having taken a full case

history and written the prescription, I ushered her

to the door, my heart heavy, determined I would

do all in my power to get her better. I don’t re-

call her exact words, but as she walked out of the

door she mumbled something about nothing be-

ing worth it. A week later her inconsolable mother

called to tell me that she had taken her own life.

Mercifully it is rare that I see such eyes, but

when Anne walked in at the end of my day, there

they were again. She was 31 years old and suffered

with widespread atopic eczema. Almost her en-

tire face and neck were covered with a dry scaly

erythema, punctuated by eroded, excoriated le-

sions where she had dug her nails deep into her

skin in an attempt to quell the unrelenting itch.

Around her ears I could clearly see yellow crusts

that betrayed recent exudation of serous fluid, in-

dicating localised infection. Around her desperate

empty eyes she had darkening of the skin that was

thickened and swollen from the constant rubbing

and scratching that continued even in her sleep.

The oedema around her eyes was accentuated by

two deep lines that ran from just below the inner

canthi around the lower border of her eyes, the so

called Dennie-Morgan lines, so characteristic of

the more severe cases of atopic eczema. The few

areas of her face that were not livid red with in-

flammation were unnaturally pale. Both inner and

outer aspects of her arms were also covered with

red macular papuler lesions, with the telltale exco-

riated scratch marks. Scattered across the outer as-

pect of her forearms I noted pustular lesions, and,

as with the area around her ears, yellow crusted le-

sions could be seen spread around her wrists and

on the dorsum of her hands. Between most of her

fingers a multitude of vesicles were apparent, sur-

Wind of the Four Crooks

n Mazin Al-khafaji gradu-ated in acupuncture at the

international college of oriental Medicine, england in 1983,

attended a postgraduate course in nanjing, china and followed

this with intensive studies in modern and medical chinese

at the Taipei Language institute in Taiwan. he earned the first

sino-British scholarship to study internal medicine at the shanghai

college of Traditional chinese medicine alongside chinese stu-

dents and graduated as Doctor of

chinese Medicine in 1987. since his return to england he has been

in private practice in Brighton. in 1991 he returned to china to

work in the dermatology depart-ment of the Affiliated hospital in

nanjing, and subsequently estab-lished The skin clinic for treat-

ment of dermatological disorders

with chinese herbal medicine.

A case study on atopic eczema

Vol 4–24

By Bruce Bentley

GUA SHA IS TYPICALLY PERFORMED

by rubbing a smooth-edged instru-

ment across the skin surface where a

subcutaneous injury or imbalance resides. When

treatment is effective, distinctive reddening of the

skin, known as sha, is observed. This is a posi-

tive response and brings the immediate and last-

ing benefit of dispelling wind, reducing heat and

inflammation, eliminating coldness, and releas-

ing pain from the superficial and deeper levels of

the body. Gua sha is used to treat many acute and

chronic health problems including colds and flu,

fever, headache, indigestion, dizziness, injury, joint

pain, fibromyalgia and heat exhaustion. It is also

commonly performed to relax tight and aching

muscles and to relieve tiredness and fatigue. The

stroking action of gua sha to the points and chan-

nels can also be practised as a health enhancement

method, and can even be performed through light

clothing (without the intention of raising sha).

Meaning of the term

You may know it as “spooning”, “coining” or

“scraping”, but all these recent English language

substitutes fall short of the tidy meaning that gua

sha has in Chinese language. The term gua sha

comprises two characters. The first, gua, means

to rub or to scrape, and the second, sha, is the

name given to the distinctive type of red dotting

and discolouration that appears at the skin sur-

face during and after treatment. Gua sha therefore

means to rub out sha.

For this reason, I will no longer italicise these

Chinese words, as the real meaning is so much

better conveyed when left as Chinese terms to

become part of the common vernacular. Another

term commonly used by the rural population in

China is gua feng, meaning to “scrape out the

wind”. The Vietnamese call it cao gio (pronounced

“gow yor”) meaning “to scrape out wind”. This is

interesting because it specifies the etiology of the

problem being treated – wind typically being held

responsible in rural or traditional communities

for just about every type of common illness.

Historical and social background

Like many traditional medical practices, gua sha

was probably performed as a folk method long

before its first written recording, which dates back

around 700 years ago in the Chinese tradition. It

may have been discovered way back in prehistoric

feature

Gua ShaSmoothly scraping out the sha

Bruce Bentley has studied with expert gua sha practitioners at

the Shanghai Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine (China),

and with Mr Trang Lee when he completed a 12-month research

project for the Victorian Government titled Folk Medical

Practices within the Vietnamese Community. The latter proved

an outstanding opportunity to gain rare information about

gua sha from a lineage known as the Buddhist

wandering monk medical tradition.

feature

The

LanternEditors

Steven Clavey

Bettina Brill

Michael Ellis

Contact us

email:

[email protected]

website:

www.thelantern.com.au

snail mail:

The Lantern

160 Elgin St, Carlton

Australia 3053

Subscriptions

Australia: This journal is available

by subscription via our website,

or email us for a subscription

form. In Australia, single issues

are for sale through China Books.

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Ganzheitliche Medizin

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We also encourage letters of

feedback, via email or snail mail.

Cover

This image, entitled Eye

Medicine, is from an anonymous

painter of the Song dynasty.

the pulse

Vol 4–32

AT OUR HERB PHARMACY, we use traditional scales when we weigh out the

herbs for a prescription. Patients waiting and watching assume it is for the

spectacle, which is not untrue, but the basic reason is more important: the tradi-

tional scales are faster and more convenient. They are lightweight, designed to be

carried, and with the moveable fulcrum the desired weight can be rapidly set; you

can have several of them going at once, and fill a prescription twice as quickly as

you could with the fixed-fulcrum Western scales. It is a bit like Chinese medicine

itself: everything good nowadays is up-to-date and shiny and modern, so a lot of

people think it would be nice to throw out that old medicine and just keep the new

one … if only that old one wasn’t so darn useful.

The thought occurs however that we are in fact more than useful, we are crucial: as

representatives of a type of thinking that is desperately needed in order to balance

attitudes and assumptions that have led human society to catastrophic levels of

consumption and waste. Interestingly, these attitudes are rather new in human his-

tory, but have demonstrated their destructiveness in an unprecedentedly short time

— less than three or four human lifetimes. I am speaking of course of certain ideas

and values that have driven the West to consider unlimited expansion, production,

consumption and discard as a survivable strategy. Linked to greed and short-term

vision, those ideas and values appeal to the worst in human nature; coupled with a

loss of the discipline and restraint previously developed in traditional societies, they

have spread around the globe.

Most traditional societies have (or had, until seduced) a longer term view, a feeling

for balance, and a more realistic view of their own precariousness. We in TCM are

The Lantern is a journal of Chinese medicine and its related fields, with an emphasis on

the traditional view and its relevance to clinic. Our aim is to encourage access to the vast

resources in this tradition of preserving, maintaining and restoring health, whether this be via

translations of works of past centuries or observations from our own generation working with these

techniques, with their undeniable variability. The techniques are many, but the traditional perspec-

tive of the human as an integral part, indeed a reflection, of the social, meteorological and cosmic

matrix remains one. We wish to foster that view.

Ah! A traditionalist …

The Lantern is a journal designed for

Oriental medicine professionals, and

treatments described herein are not

intended for self-medication by those

without training in the field.

The Lantern and its editors are not

responsible for any injury or damage

that may result from the improper

application of the information supplied

in this publication.

Photographs by Davina Martin

Vol 6–24

feature

DURING THE QING DYNASTY, this theo-ry was very well known; its major pro-

ponents included names such as Zhang Yin-

An, Zhang Ling-Shao and Chen Xiu-Yuan.a

More recently, however, knowledge

regarding the theory of qi transformation in

the Shang Han Lun has faded to the point

of almost disappearing. Some scholars

[due to Maoist influence] even criticise it as

“metaphysical” [which in a Maoist context

is damning].In my opinion, however, this method of a.

.

pattern differentiation developed as a result

of the world-view of Chinese medicine that

regards heaven and man as one mutually

influential organism. It uses the influence of

the six meteorologic qi on the human body

as the foundation to differentiate patterns.

Its establishment as a theory means that it is

the crystallisation of the essence of progress

[to put it into terms Maoist scholars can

accept]. In developing our views, we should

analyse a situation carefully [in the best

communist tradition], rather than generalise

carelessly and risk throwing the baby out

with the bath-water.In the original preface to the Shang Han

Lun, Zhang Zhong-Jing wrote “the five

phases extend throughout heaven, effecting

the ten thousand forms” and with this

statement shows the deeper intention of the

book: the mechanism of qi transformation.

“Through the channels, collaterals, organs

and points, yin and yang move in concert”

means that all the aspects of the body,

channels, collaterals, organs and points, are

in active yin-yang linkage, and this extends

through man to the heavens.It is quite clear that Zhang Zhong-Jing

Qi transformation theory in the Shang Han Lu n

n Liu Du-Zhou (above, 1917-2001) was a world-renowned expert in the teaching and study of the Shang Han Lun (Discussion of Cold Damage), with numerous books on the subject. He was also the main editor of the educational textbook Zhongyi Jichu Lilun (Basic Theories in TCM). He was the teacher of a number of Shang Han Lun experts who have lectured in Australia

over the past few years.

by Liu Du-Zhou

Delving into the theories of the Shang Han Lun reveals a field

that is rich and rewarding. Top of the list would be what we

could call “the theory of qi transformation”, which takes the

theories of six qi (liu qi), six stages (liu jing), and branch and root

(biao ben)1 as a guide for six stage pattern identification and

treatment.

Vol 6–��4

feature

iT is quiTe TeLLing that in modern dis-

cussions, palpation is invariably listed as

the fourth of the si zhen – as though the

least significant of the traditional diagnostic

methods. In my Chinese medicine courses

there was no unit on palpation per se, and

beyond pulse taking no discussion of sub-

stance or instruction that I can recall. Cer-

tainly none of the texts I studied on herbal

medicine recommended palpation of the

tissues or channels as part of the diagnostic

process, aside from the odd reference to do

with differentiating abdominal syndromes.

Although a pillar of diagnosis, pulse taking

is often portrayed as the final assessment,

one that ought to be approached with a di-

agnosis already forming as a result of one’s

comprehensive questioning, observation,

listening-and-smelling. Then the pulse is

used for a confirmation or refinement of

one’s position. The few writers of journal

articles on palpation cited references in the

classics to other forms of palpation, point-

ing to phrases here or there but neverthe-

less failing to shake the impression that

when it comes to assessing the state of the

interior, in most schools and eras of Chi-

nese medicine, palpation of the exterior has

played the relatively minor role. However,

this impression is shifting with several re-

cent additions to the English literature ad-

vancing more compelling evidence of the

utility of channel palpation and its histori-

cal precedence, and advocating more com-

prehensive use of channel and abdominal

palpation in the clinic. And actually, the

deeper one looks into the Ling Shu and Nan

Jing the more one finds on the subject. It is

becoming apparent that the absence of pal-

pation from coursework has been more an

oversight than a reflection of its historical

prominence.

Palpation in practice

As we know, the Japanese acupuncture

tradition has maintained a strong emphasis

by Michael Ellis

Diagnosis by palpation is not always easy or clear-cut, which

perhaps explains its relative lack of development in the English

literature. In this article I will discuss the advantages – and

difficulties – of palpation and offer practical pointers on its use

in zang fu diagnosis.

Practical palpation

Clinical use of

the fourth zhen

Classical essays

Ancient case histories

Practical techniques

Embodied theory

Daoism & yang sheng

LanternThe

www.thelantern.com.au

NOW INTABLET FORMAT!

Lantern ad PCOM.indd 1 24/11/11 12:04 PM


Treatment Principle: Nourish the Liver and Kidney

Representative formula: Mīng Mù Dì Huáng táng (Bright Eye Rehman-nia Decoction)

Ingredients: See Table 2Modifications: For cases with sta-

sis papules on the tongue, and thin retinal vessels, add chuān xiōng (Rhi-zoma Chuanxiong, Sichuan lovage root) 10g, jī xuè téng (suberect spatholobus stem) 10g, niú xī (Radix Achyranthis Bidentatae, two-toothed achyranthes root) 10g to strengthen the effect of quickening the blood and opening the collaterals.

For cases with dry mouth and constipation, add zhī mŭ (Rhizoma Anemarrhenae, common anemar-rhena rhizome)10g, huā fĕn, Radix Trichosanthis, trichosanthes root)10g, xuán shēn, Radix Scrophulariae, fig-wort root ) 10g, jué míng zĭ , Semen Cassiae, cassia seed) 15g to eliminate heat by nourishing yin, loosen bow-els in order to relieve constipation.

3. Spleen Qi DeficiencySyndrome characteristics: night

blindness, progressive constriction of visual field (tunnel vision), white face and fatigued spirit, loose stool, heavy limbs, reduced eating and general fatigue, pale tongue with white coat-ing, weak pulse.

Treatment Principle: Strengthen Spleen and Boost Qi

Representative formula: Modified Bŭ Zhōng Yì Qì Tāng

Ingredients: See Table 3Modifications: Add chuān xiōng

Rhizoma Chuanxiong, Sichuan lovage root) 10g, dān shēn (Radix et Rhizoma Salviae Miltiorrhizae, dan-shen root) 15g, jī xuè téng suberect spatholobus stem) 10g, niú xī two-toothed achyranthes root) 10g to enhance the effects of nourishing and moving the blood.

acupuncture therapy: Local acupoints include EX-HN5

(tài yang), BL 2 (cuán zhú), ST 1 (chéng qì), BL 1 (jīng míng), GB 20 (fēng chí) , SJ 23 (sī zhú kōn), GB 1 (tong zi liáo), EX-HN7 (qiú hòu), EX-HN4 (yú yāo), GB 14 (yang bái).

Distal points, include BL 23 (shèn shù), BL 18 (gān shù), GB 37 (guāng míng), LI 4 (hé gu), ST 36 (zú sān li), SP 6 (sān yīn jiāo), Lv-8, K 10, K-7.

For cases with congenital defi-ciency, debilitation of the life gate fire, add RN 6 (qì hǎi), DU 4 (mìng mén), BL 23 (shèn shù).

For cases with liver blood de-ficiency, and deficiency of kidney-essence, add BL 17 (gé shù), BL 26 (guān yuán shù), RN 4 (guān yuán), KI 3 (tài xī).

For cases with spleen-stomach deficiency, insufficiency of essen-tial Qi, add BL 21 (wèi shù), RN 12 (zhōng wǎn), ST 36 (zú sān li).

Needle Technique: • Localacupointsarecombined

with distal and selected according to the underlying pattern.

• Select30-321.5-2inchacupunc-ture needles for the local ocular acupoints. Perpendicular insertion is suggested, slowly insert the needle and obtain a qi sensation.

• Useaneutralneedle-manipulationtechnique and retain the needles for 30 minutes.

• Treatonceeveryday.Thereare 10 treatments in a course of treatment.

Patients may take a rest for 3-5 days between two courses, and 2-4 courses of treatment may be needed.

Wearing protective SungLaSSeSRP patient should wear sunglass-

es regularly in order to protect the eyes and reduce the UV stress that may cause accelerated degeneration of the outer segments of the retina. The best lens colors for sunglasses are shades of red, purple, or violet. For RP patients, I do not suggest wearing blue-black, brown, or green color sunglasses.

StreSS anD the eyeSAs with all chronic health condi-

tions, it is advised to manage and avoid excessive or prolonged mental and emotional stress. Under stress, the blood catecholamine levels in-crease, causing the choroid blood vessel to constrict; reducing the blood flow to the retina. Reduced blood flow will result in reduced oxy-gen and essential nutrients like glu-cose, fats, and antioxidant vitamins and minerals to the eyes. It will also impair the ocular detoxification pro-cess. Accumulated wastes will speed up the degenerative process of the retinal cells and result in accelerated vision loss.

Qi Gong can be used to adjust the cerebral cortex stress response and has a systemic relaxing effect on all organs of the body. By learn-ing to strengthen and use one’s own intention (mind power), we can increase qi and blood flow to the eyes. In my first book, Healing Your Eyes with Chinese Medicine, I have specific eye exercises.

A good basic Qi Gong exercise for RP is to first relax the body and mind completely. Then, gently visual-ize the energy building in the lower Dantien (Ren 6 area) for 10 minutes. Next, visualize the bright-white energy rising up to the eyes for the next 10 minutes. If one willingly perseveres with Qi Gong practice, it is possible to arrest the degenerative process com-pletely. In my clinical practice, I have not been very successful in getting my patients to do Qi Gong religiously. I

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do believe that if they did, this alone is the best thing they can do for their eyes. Of course, a healthy diet and exercise is critical as well.

SummaryHistorically, acupuncture and

Chinese medicine have been treat-

ing degenerative eye conditions like RP for thousands of years. Western medicine currently has little (if any-thing) to offer people going blind from these conditions. I believe that this is mostly because the conven-tional Western model rejects the ho-listic concept that all eye diseases are

shú dì 20g Radix Rehmanniae Praeparata prepared rehmannia root

shān yào 15g Rhizoma Dioscoreae common yam rhizome

shān zhū yú 10g Fructus Corni Cornus

gŏu qĭ zĭ 10g Fructus Lycii Chinese wolfberry fruit

tù sī zĭ 10g Semen Cuscutae dodder seed

dù zhòng 10g Cortex Eucommiae eucommia bark

dāng guī 10g Radix Angelicae Sinensis Chinese angelica

ròu guì 5g Cortex Cinnamomi cassia bark

zhì fù zĭ 10gRadix Aconiti Lateralis Praeparata

prepared aconite root

taBLe 1

taBLe 2

shú dì 15g Radix Rehmanniae Praeparata prepared rehmannia root

shēng dì 15g Radix Rehmanniae rehmannia root

shān yào 10g Rhizoma Dioscoreae common yam rhizome

shān zhū yú 10g Fructus Corni Cornus

zé xiè 10g Rhizoma Alismatis water plantain rhizome

mŭ dān pí 10g Cortex Moutan tree peony bark

chái hú 10g Radix Bupleurihare’s ear root; bupleurum; thotowax root

fú ling 10g Poria Indian bread


wŭ wèi zĭ 6g Fructus Schisandrae Chinensis Chinese magnolivine fruit

taBLe 3

huáng qí 20g Radix Astragali milk-vetch root

tài zĭ shēn 20g Radix Pseudostellariaeheterophylly false satarwort root


bái zhú 10gRhizoma Atractylodis Macrocephalae

white atractylodes rhizome

chái hú 10g Radix Bupleuri hare’s ear root

shēng má 6g Rhizoma Cimicifugae black cohosh rhizome

chén pí 10g Pericarpium Citri Reticulatae aged tangerine peel

gān căo 3g Radix et Rhizoma Glycyrrhizae liquorice root

systemic problems, not isolated eye conditions.

Currently all people diagnosed with RP are told by their ophthalmol-ogists that there is nothing that they (or anyone else) can do for them. True, there is no drug or surgical pro-cedure that can help RP, but there is a world beyond drugs and surgery. The integrative approach poses one solution for helping patients with RP to manage their condition.

Doing research that may dem-onstrate efficacy should help raise awareness and help get more people under TCM care. In addition to get-ting the word out that acupuncture can be very helpful for people with RP, it is my hope that our research study will be a catalyst to generate more interest and research in Integra-

tive Ophthalmology. oM

anDy roSenFarB, ND, L.Ac. is the au-thor of “Healing your Eyes with Chinese Medicine” and co-author of “Ophthal-mology in Chinese Medicine.” He is in private practice in Westfield, New Jersey. www.acupuncturehealth.net.



* Yogurt, cheese, cottage cheese, and stored or over-fermented cul-tured buttermilk should be avoid-ed after sunset.

* Try to eat your meals at about the same time each day.

* Consider fasting with liquids that include fresh fruit juices, light soups, or pureed vegetables once a month or once a week if your body constitution allows it. Consider a partial fast, which includes a regular lunch and liq-uids for your evening meal. This gentle kind of fasting provides lightness in the body and clar-ity of the senses. It stimulates digestive fire and increases en-ergy. DO NOT fast for more than twenty-four hours without a phy-sician’s guidance.

Charaka Samhita is the most important and authoritative of the ancient writings of Ayurveda on In-ternal Medicine. It is believed to be the oldest of the three ancient trea-tises of Ayurveda, written sometime around 400-200 BCE. It is still central to the modern-day practice of Ay-urvedic medicine.

The following are the ten basic principles from this famous classic, from the chapter about the quantita-tive dietetics. This chapter describes in detail the various attributes of food, its ingredients, preparations, and the effect on the human body:* Eat your food hot, or at least

warm. Cold food and drinks de-crease the digestive power. Our digestive enzymes function well at body temperature. Lowering stom-ach temperature with cold food lowers the rate and efficiency of the digestion. Warm food not only maximizes the efficiency of the digestive enzymes, but will also bring out the flavor that uncooked food may not have.

* The food should be moist and unctuous. Slightly oily food gets disintegrated quickly and also helps the downward movement of vata, an air energy in the body (same as qi), which strengthens the senses, promotes strength, and improves complexion.

* Eat food in the proper quantity, which is actually 3/4th of your ca-pacity. Don’t eat till you become completely full. Leave some room

for the action of vata, the mix of food with digestive enzymes. Do not drink water right after you eat. Sip in between if your food is dry, but more importantly, drink about an hour later to help with the digestion.

* The food should be eaten only af-ter your previous meal is digested. Allow at least 3-6 (depending on your constitution) hours between meals. You can take a cue from your body to know if the previous meal is digested if there is some lightness in the body and a clear sensation of hunger. This way, we know that it’s true hunger and not just the emotional desire of food, which can lead to overeating and extinguishing your normal diges-tive fire.

* The food ingredients should not be contradictory in their potency. An example of potency opposites is milk, which is of cold potency, and salt, which is hot potency. The mixing of opposite food items leads to the formation of a toxic substance that dampens digestive fire, disturbs digestion, and causes skin diseases.

* The food should be eaten in a pleasant atmosphere with the re-quired accessories. If not done so, emotional strain will occur and may cause anger, anxiety, and confusion affecting digestion.

* The food should not be taken in excessively fast. Take at least twen-ty minutes to finish your meal and sit for few minutes after your meal. Do not eat on-the-go. You will not enjoy the flavors, and also might not notice any contaminants like dust or hair etc. in the food.

* The intake of the food should not be too slow. It will not give you complete satisfaction, and you will eat more as a result. The food will become cold leading to ir-regularities in the digestion.

While eating, one should only concentrate on eating. You should not talk or laugh excessively while eating. This includes not eating while you work, watch TV, or read. Not only might you choke, but also you will not enjoy the flavors, and you will not know how much you ate.


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The ‘Why’ of Chi Nei TsangBy sCoTT sTone, LMT

Acompletely integrated mind, body, and shen are necessary to experience true health

and live a complete and comfort-able human experience. Through the course of our lives, we accumulate a variety of situations and experiences that create obstacles to the correct synchronized operation of our won-derfully complex being. Emotional blockages can stem from various traumatic scenarios, or stem from fears we encounter. These obstacles manifest in the organs, and create significant impediment to the opera-tion of the body as a whole. They can last a whole lifetime, and prevent us from enjoying all the blessings re-served for us.

In the practice of Chi Nei Tsang, we are able to resolve these vari-ous blockages using qi (life energy). Addressing these blocks using the body’s own energy allows us to free the body to heal itself. Our natural energetic tendency is to strive toward balance, toward health and fullness. Health is the birthright, the divine inheritance of everyone.

In order to efficiently target the most significant blocks, we can utilize how the navel pulls as a diagnostic tool. The navel will reflect the as-sociated emotional and energetic state of being, accurately describing a roadmap of past transgressions and allowing us to confront fear and in-jury to ourselves; real or imagined. Its relationship to the Tan T’ien, or spirit seat, gives us a look at what energies are clamoring most for attention and lets us address these blocks and dis-solve them with true love.

The spleen and stomach (SP/ST) energetic system is responsible for processing our food. It assimilates the qi from food and fluid, and gov-erns the descending action of qi in our body. The SP/ST system is also where we store our emotional con-tact with the earth. Our relationship with earth energy gives us our capac-ity to be practical and grounded. It’s responsible for our walking in the light of balance and abundance, it allows us to love ourselves and to be sympathetic and to provide and care for ourselves and others.

Blocks in this system can mani-fest in ulcers, heart burn, nausea, vomiting and a host of other diges-tive problems. Emotionally speaking, blocks and deficiencies in the ST/SP system will reflect excessive and unfounded worry of survival issues; it can cause us to become obsessive in thought and often makes the client/student feel overwhelmed. It can pro-duce addictions stemming from fear of not having what you thinks you need. It can become a severe block in your ability to love yourself.

Additionally, the relationship be-tween the SP/ST will also affect the pancreas, which is responsible for transporting and transforming the qi into usable energy for the rest of the body. Also related to our earth con-nection, the spleen and pancreas help us find our spiritual foundation and purpose, allowing us to seek the nourishment for our shen, as our shen is also hungry and needs to be fed.

Experiencing general worry, confusion, and an emotional heavi-ness and lack of spiritual direction points to a blockage in the spleen and pancreas area. This can also produce low immunity, muscle cramping, edema, hernia, and, of course, diabetic issues, to touch a few. We can see this blockage in the navel, as these problems tend to give the navel a distinct upper left pull, distorting the rim of the navel.

Pulling down to the lower right, our navel can tell us there is a block in the small intestine (SI) system. This system separates the pure from the impure in our bodies; it digests and absorbs the essential substances. It is one of our connections to the fire element, and it’s the seat of our intuition. It’s where we house our will power and inner guidance.

When this particular system is blocked, we can expect to see consti-pation, diarrhea, allergies and other di-gestive problems. Emotionally, we will be fearful of our own intuition and instincts. Suffering from this type of block can rob us of our ability to navi-gate life with assurance in ourselves, living a life full of inhibition and fear of trusting what we believe and how that can set our feet in the right place at the right time to receive blessings the universe has promised us. Unfortu-nately, this can result in many ill-timed actions, propelling us into uncom-fortable situations and adding to the blockages already present. Intuition, instinct, and will power correctly uti-lized lead us to light and health.

Keeping us close to the wood el-ement, our liver and gall bladder LV/GB defend our body against rough and hampered qi flow. It stores and purifies our blood. The liver gener-ates a growing, moist, warm and nur-turing energy. It’s where we house our compassion for others and their place in life. It allows us to take our life lessons to a productive, posi-tive place and continue to grow in the face of setbacks and problems. It allows us to forgive ourselves and others. Our LV/GB fosters our devel-opment by allowing us to access new insights and see our position from a more productive point of view.

Pulling to the upper right, the navel will reflect the blockages of the LV/GB. We can also expect to see toxicity of the body and its systems. When this system is in distress, we will also see hormonal imbalances, eye and vision problems (the liver opens into the eyes) cysts and tu-mors as well. Emotionally, anger is related to blockages of the liver; rage and frustration too. One of the most insidious emotional poisons, resent-ment, stems from this malfunction as well. Resentment can prevent us from forgiving ourselves and others. It can imprison us in a horrible cell of bitterness and anger and destroy our ability to connect with our fellow man in a loving, caring and nurturing way. Resentment can keep us from growing into a fully realized human. It can literally destroy you.

The lungs and the large intestine (LU/LI) connect us to metal. The an-cient Taoist referred to this energy as gold, being the most precious and refined of metals. This reflects the importance of the job of the lungs; it is the body’s energy forge, our generator. The LU/LI are responsible for taking air qi (kong qi) and food qi (gu qi) and combining it with our original pre-natal qi (yuan qi) to pro-duce two separate types of qi; nutri-tious and defensive.

The lungs control our rhythmic actions, regulates water passage, dominate kong qi and control our respiration. Courage, our sense of justice, our ability to be joyful in our present situation and the excitement felt at creating and participating in positive change reside in the lungs.

Excess of grief, sadness, and fear of any type of change can come from a block in the lung system. It can also express itself as fear of an un-known future. This will bring about respiratory issues, frequent colds and flu, and all types of breathing problems. The lungs will manifest in a lower left pull but can also appear with an upper pull.

Our large intestine receives and forms waste, excretes it and also takes advantage of the remaining fluids, salts and minerals passed on from the small intestine. It holds our courage and our personal power. When our LI system is unencum-bered, we can expect to flow through changes with dignity and grace; to struggle no more than appropriate. We will be capable of letting go of those things that are unnecessary, emotional or otherwise, and to be fully present and able to provide what the moment requires of us.

Pain of loss. Pain of separation. Fear of letting go. Greif. Sadness. All these negative, prohibitive emotions stem from blockages of the LI system. As I stated earlier all of these nega-tive emotional states of mind, and all the other ones previously addressed, stem from illusionary fear. The fear you are not going to get what you want, and the fear you are going to lose what you think you possess. If the L. intestinal system is blocked, we can also expect to see various bowel problems, constipation, diar-rhea, colitis etc. The navel expresses this blockage with a lower left pull of the navel.

These are just of a few of the systems in your body, and just an in-troduction of their interrelated nature to emotional operation. A path of truth and light leads to health and a full expression of the wonderful gift of humanity. Complete and full, we have the opportunity to live and give and receive a never-ending celebra-tion of blessings. Chi Nei Tsang can give us the chance to revisit some of the events in our life that would stand in the way of us being com-

pletely ourselves. oM

sCoTT sTone is a massage therapist liv-ing and working in the San Diego area con-centrating on therapeutic techniques target-ing mental health and addictions.


Systematic Review: Generating Evidenced-Based Guidelines on the Concurrent Use of Dietary Antioxidants and Chemotherapy or RadiotherapyBy KARen AllAdin

Recent studies show that an increasing number of Ameri-cans are seeking complemen-

tary and alternative Medicine (CAM) (1,2). Cancer patients are among those interested in CAM to improve their disease status and quality of life. Many cancer patients use dietary sup-plements with antioxidants during or after conventional cancer treatment attempting to enhance the benefits of treatment, prevent or alleviate side effects, or maintain or improve gen-eral health and well-being (3-5). Can-cer patients do this regardless of a relative lack of high-level evidence of antioxidant’s safety, efficacy, or bene-fit when combined with conventional cancer therapies. Antioxidants are widely viewed by patients as safe, healthy means to protect cells and tissues from damage caused by free radicals, thus providing a preventive measure against the onset of cancer and side effects of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Antioxidants act to quench free radicals or prevent the formation of free radicals. Free radicals are highly reactive chemi-cals with incomplete electron shells, making them chemically volatile and prone to taking electrons from other molecules (e.g., lipids and nucleo-tides), which can lead to damage of cell membranes or DNA. Dietary an-tioxidants take part in cellular redox reactions and can act as either anti-oxidants (electron donors) or prooxi-dants (electron acceptors), depending on the physiological environment, their concentration, or general oxida-tive state, working to protect cells and tissues from damage (6).

There are conflicting arguments regarding the concurrent use of di-etary antioxidants while a cancer patient is undergoing chemotherapy or radiation therapy. One side of the argument posits that antioxidants help protect and repair healthy cells that are damaged as a consequence of chemotherapy or radiotherapy, which can result in fewer or less severe side effects. Proponents of this argument also assert the ability of the antioxi-dants to directly induce apoptosis, or cell death, in malignant cancer cells and to enhance antitumor effects of chemotherapy in vitro and in vivo (7-10). The other side of the argument is concerned that antioxidants directly oppose the mechanisms of chemo-therapy and radiotherapy, working to repair and protect cells from oxidative damage, while many cancer treat-ments aim to destroy cancer cells by causing oxidative damage (11, 12).

Many published studies have reported the effects of antioxidants as an adjuvant therapy for cancer pa-tients while undergoing conventional cancer therapy. Recent reviews have come to divergent opinions about the appropriateness of recommendations for (9, 10) or against (13, 14) the concurrent use of antioxidants with either chemotherapy or radiation therapy. Although questions about the risk-benefit ratio have apparently been adequately answered for some, intriguing results from various studies have prompted many to call for more research (13, 15-18).

A systematic review was con-ducted of the published clinical tri-als examining the effects of dietary antioxidants taken concurrently with chemotherapy or radiation therapy in an attempt to (a) characterize the research and clinical questions under investigation in these studies, (b) de-termine what further research would be necessary to strengthen efforts at clinical guidelines and development, and (c) identify areas of promise for future research.

After extensively filtered literature searches of MEDLINE, via PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library, fifty-two clinical trials were found that investigated the concurrent use of diet-derived antioxidants with che-motherapy and/or radiation therapy. The most popularly investigated anti-oxidants were glutathione or reduced glutathione (GSH), vitamin E, and N-acetylcysteine (NAC). A smaller num-ber of studies researched vitamin C, selenium, coenzyme Q10, and zinc.

The studies investigating GSH reported varying levels of dosage of GSH administered to patient, and no dosage study was found regarding the optimal dosage of GSH. In two studies observing GSH used in ovar-ian cancer patients undergoing che-motherapy (19, 20), researchers found less toxic damage to the kidneys and improvement in kidney function, as well as significantly better quality of life in the treatment arms receiving GSH versus those receiving placebo. One of the studies’ results, how-ever, was not statistically significant. In a colorectal cancer trial, patients receiving GSH were found to have significantly reduced nerve damage compared to the control group with no reduction in activity of the chemo-therapy drug oxaliplatin (21).

Vitamin E was studied mostly for its effectiveness at reducing the side effects of conventional cancer therapy. One study observing head

and neck cancer patients showed a lower rate of mucositis, or pain-ful inflammation and ulceration of mucus membranes in the group re-ceiving vitamin E versus the control group (22). However, another study showed that the group of cancer patients receiving vitamin E supple-ments showed a higher rate of sec-ond primary cancers or recurrences of the original cancer during the time of supplementation, but lower rates after discontinuing the supplements (23). In addition, they did observe less acute adverse side effects to the radiation treatment in those receiv-ing vitamin E versus those receiving placebo. Two other studies reported less nerve damage in those receiving vitamin E, and another study on lung cancer patients showed those receiv-ing vitamin E displayed less radia-tion-induced lung toxicity as well as enhanced survival (24,25).

The studies measuring the effects of NAC on preventing treatment-related side effects showed less nerve dam-age and cardiomyopathy, or deteriora-tion and damage to the heart muscle in patients receiving the antioxidant supplements versus placebo (26,27). The NAC studies observing its effect on tumor-outcome-related endpoints in lung cancer patients did not report any statistically significant benefit for the antioxidant groups (28, 29, 30).

Based on the existing clinical tri-als, it is difficult for both physicians and patients to make confident deci-sions in weighing the risks and ben-efits on concurrent use of antioxidant supplementation and conventional cancer therapy. Many of the trials studying these combinations are small-sized trials, and lack statistically significant data to provide definite answers to questions regarding the safety and efficacy of these antioxi-dant supplements when combined with chemotherapy or radiation ther-apy. Our systematic review identified a wide array of antioxidants under investigation, including glutathione, vitamin E, NAC, vitamin C, selenium, coenzyme Q10, and zinc, as well as some combinations of antioxidants. The studies also lacked consistency and failed to provide reasoning be-hind the dosages of the antioxidants. Many studies used different forms of the same supplement, especially those studying vitamin E, which was administered in various isomeric forms and with differing methods such as orally or intramuscularly. The studies also failed to state why they chose their particular combination

between the antioxidants with the form of conventional cancer therapy or the specific type of cancer.

Several steps are needed in order to optimize the chance for ongo-ing and future research endeavors to lead to a satisfactory evidence base for development of clinical practice guidelines for the concurrent use of dietary antioxidants and conventional cancer therapies. First, a community of interested researchers must come to a consensus and focus efforts on one, or a small number of antioxi-dant and conventional cancer therapy combinations and specific research questions. Initial efforts should focus on a rational approach to selection of the antioxidant and chemotherapy or radiation partner. Second, studies are needed that reveal the mechanism(s) of action of specific combinations of antioxidants and conventional cancer therapies. Next, a concerted effort should be made to determine the op-timal formulation, dose, and schedule of the antioxidant under investigation in combination with a specific chemo-therapy regimen through appropriate-ly designed, dose-escalation studies.

Finally, given these important inconsistencies between reports, we suggest that journals considering future articles on this topic require authors to adhere to a few basic criteria, which would improve future summary analy-ses on this topic. Perhaps, it is also the lack of understanding regarding the pathways involved in the cytoprotec-tive and therapeutic augmentation effects of dietary antioxidants with spe-cific cancer therapeutics that may be one reason the combinations have not

been more thoroughly studied. oM

Nakayama A, Alladin KP, Igbokwe O, White JD. “Systematic review: generating evi-dence-based guidelines on the concurrent use of dietary antioxidants and chemo-therapy or radiotherapy.” Cancer Invest. 2011;29(10):655-67.

reFerenceS

1. Eisenberg DM, Davis RB, Ettner SL, Appel S, Wilkey S, Van Rompay M, Kessler RC. Trends in alternative medi-cine use in the United States, 1990–1997: results of a follow-up national survey. JAMA 1998;280:1569–1575.

2. Tindle HA, Davis RB, Phillips RS, Eisenberg DM. Trends in use of com-plementary and alternative medicine by US adults:1997–2002. Altern Ther Health Med 2005;11:42–49.

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fRoM The TRenChes: The CAse foR insuRAnCe continued from page 18

pAin is noT The sAMe foR eVeRyBody? continued from page 18

5. If you decide to accept insurance, put some office policies in place that you stick to without fail. For example, I lost a great deal of money deferring to patients who insisted they had coverage when they did not. Now, in my of-fice, regardless of the amount of coverage my biller determines, it is office policy that patients pay in full the first visit or two until we receive back the first EOB (Explanation of Benefits) and see what their insurance pays. In truth, you don’t know WHAT a carrier pays until it is billed the first time. Often, even if a patient has met their deductible, a carrier will find some reason to deny a payment or two. If a patient argues with me over this point prior to the first visit, then I refer them to another provider. Period.

6. Consider using an Advance Billing Notification (ABN) for balance bill-ing. An Advance Billing Notifica-tion is one way to not only protect yourself from unpaid claims, but allows the patient to determine which additional services they want for their session and to bill accord-ingly. For some acupuncturists who practice community acupuncture or more of a TCM style, an HMO fee schedule may be fine. But how do you reconcile yourself to $40 for a 5-elemental or Japanese style acu-puncture which usually is a longer, 2-sided treatment, involving moxa and fukushin?

The truth is, you don’t. My own acupuncturist said it best: “I am sick of filling the holes in the US healthcare system and not being compensated for it.” In truth, many of us are practic-ing far beyond our original scope of practice, becoming primary

care providers, including coun-seling, ordering labs, nutritional assessment, massage, managing toxic poly-pharmacy, and other skills that we learned at the post -graduate level. Ninety percent of this is NOT included in an HMO/PPO fee schedule. The ABN was what allowed me to finally ac-cept some of the HMO based fee schedules and build an a la carte practice. Many of my HMO pa-tients opt for higher co-pays to enjoy the benefit of kyutoshin, massage, or nutritional assess-ment, none of which is covered by their HMO. I let the patient decide what aspects they wish to pay for and treat accordingly.

When all else fails, remember a few things - 1. You will make mistakes that cost

you money, sometimes quite a bit. This is a PRACTICE--you will learn as you go. Sometimes you have to pick your battles. No amount of money is worth your peace of mind. The longer I am in practice, the better I get at letting things go. Nothing, in my experi-

ence, uses up the desire to serve more than doing it constantly without compensation.

2. You will not get paid on many cases. In my practice, the reality is that I write off a few thousand annually in unpaid claims, due in part to mistakes, unscrupulous companies and their practices, and clients who skip out of pay-ments. I won’t deny that this has been a difficult journey, saying c’est la vie to a case when I don’t get paid, but I get better at it ev-ery day. Releasing the bad case opens me to the next client who pays fully and gratefully enjoys all that I have to offer.

3. Billing is a SERVICE that you are not obligated to provide. Many of my patients pay my full fees, re-gardless of their coverage and I bill for them as a courtesy, particularly if their chief complaint is internal medicine or fertility and we know a carrier will not cover treatment. For carriers who are problematic, I issue a superbill and let them deal with it. In the end, the patient has a relationship with the insurance company, not me.

I have learned that patients have no understanding of their own insurance coverage. Southern CA, where I practice, is the most heav-ily infiltrated region in the country with regard to HMO coverage, and there is a great deal of entitlement for some patients who have been lured into thinking that every aspect of their care requires nothing more than a $10 co-pay. They have little understanding of the time, effort, and expense associated with trying to bill for their care. That is fine, but I no longer feel obligated to provide this service for free.

As practitioners, it is vital to protect ourselves from resentment, whether from clients or insurance companies. Resentment is an emotion that eats away at satisfaction, regard-less of clinical success. Most of us are extremely idealistic and altruistic in regard to helping patients achieve wellness and it can hurt when some patients have no more commitment to you than a co-payment.

I have learned to set boundar-ies that protect both my cash flow and my peace of mind, and it has ultimately resulted in both more joy and financial abundance in my prac-tice. I hope more of you will take the plunge into the insurance maze, with the vision that both your own practice and our profession prosper

medically and financially. oM

JenniFer moFFitt, L.Ac, MSTOM, Dp.OMis a magna cum laud graduate of Pacific College of Oriental Medicine. For-merly a Clinical Instructor in Family Medi-cine at UCSD, she continues to lecture and serve as an academic advisor for graduate student research in complementary and in-tegrative medicine. She maintains a bilin-gual acupuncture practice in San Diego. You can reach her at [email protected].

“Is pain one size fits all?“According to Chinese medicine

and Ayurveda (a whole system of medicine from India that pre-dates Chinese medicine), pain is just as var-ied as medication. As you might have felt, headache pain feels different from a burn, different from a needle prick, different from chronic arthritis, and different from a “thrown out back.”

If there are different types of pain sensation, why don’t our gen-eral physicians prescribe medica-tions specific to the type of pain we are experiencing? Novel idea, right? I wish I knew the answer. Perhaps modern research hasn’t proven or ap-proved this idea into their accepted point of view. Just saying.

The good news is this concept is not so revolutionary if you’re an acu-

puncturist or work in some form of holistic medicine. In Chinese medi-cal school, we study the different types of pain extensively. We learn about sharp pain, dull pain, pain that comes and goes, burning pain, ra-diating or tingling pain, numb pain, weather contingent pain, etc. We also spend years learning how to treat and manage these variations in pain at the root level. Your licensed acu-puncturist might use specific herbs (internal or external), acupressure or acupuncture, manual therapies like gua sha, cupping, and stretching, diet changes, heat or cold therapy, and even certain exercises to help reduce and alleviate your pain.

So if you’re one of the millions of people out there asking what are your options other than popping pain kill-

ers, or you are sick of your meds not working, or maybe you’re sick of the side effects, look into visiting your lo-cal acupuncturist. I bet you’ll find an-other option and some relief. After all, you’re unique and amazing and you

deserve to be treated as such! oM

haunani chong, Dipl. O.M., L.Ac., E-RYT, AWC graduated among the top of her class from Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, receiving a Master of Science in Traditional Oriental Medicine. She is cer-tified and licensed by the California Acu-puncture Board and designated as a Diplo-mate in Oriental Medicine by the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM). While interning at Pacific College Clinic, Haunani participated in many semester-long intern-ships, including the Pacific College Clinic in New York City, the University of California

San Diego’s Integrative Clinic in down-town, Rady’s Children’s Hospital Oncology and Chronic Pain department, and UCSD RIMAC Sports Medicine department. As a recognized physician of Oriental medicine in the State of California, she integrates her additional studies in athletic training, Ay-urveda (Holistic Medical system of India), Hawaiian Healing, and yoga to allow for a deeper understanding of each client, a per-son’s condition and how to approach the treatment plan from a truly whole-person perspective. Haunani also holds a B.A. in Sociology from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. You might also recog-nize Haunani from teaching yoga classes, leading workshops on holistic health, or volunteering her time with non-profit or-ganizations in the San Diego and North County areas. She is an active leader and proponent for integrated, person-centered care that allows people to be treated as the unique individual that they are, rather than their disease.


ARoMATheRApy: nATuRe’s MAGiC continued from page 12

citrus essential oils such as tanger-ine, orange, grapefruit, lemon, lime, and neroli alleviate depression and stress. One of the most effective ways to use aromatherapy in your practice is inhalation. Simply have your client inhale the scent from the bottle or diffuse an essential oil in the room before the client enters. Spruce (Piceae mariana) essential oil helps a person to communicate. You can implement essential oils to strengthen, detoxify, and balance the body, as well as to protect you from environmental toxins.

A friend in my old condominium complex was a nurse and she told me she had an ovarian cyst. I asked her to apply frankincense (Boswellia carteri) over the area. Within a week, her cyst was gone. The best frank-incense comes from the deserts of Oman. The aroma is incredible.

My spiritual mother fell and hit her head. She refused to go to the hospital and when we got her into the house, she had a large hematoma on the side of her head. I applied the essential oil helichrysum (Helichry-sum italicum), within minutes, the blue areas began to disappear, and the swelling reduced.

My own experience was similar to my spiritual mother’s. I was play-ing touch football with my family. I tripped and hit my head and I could feel the area begin to swell. I asked my brother to get the helichrysum (Helichrysum italicum) out of my purse and put in liberally on my head. The pain soon left and the swelling disappeared with repeated applications.

The last experience I’ll share is from a friend who got on a delayed and full plane. Everyone was com-plaining and some had anxiety about connections. After the plane was in the air, he went into the bathroom and put lavender (Lavendula au-gustifolia) in the palm of his hand. He rubbed his palms together and inhaled the aroma. His anxiety soon left and he returned to his seat. He noticed that within 10 minutes the noise and complaining ceased. Ev-eryone was soon quiet. The aroma of the lavender circulated throughout the plane. He realized everyone ben-efited from his lavender.

These are a few examples of the amazing effects of organic and 100% pure essential oils. All essential oils are amazing. Every essential oil has

what I call a specialty. Something it does well quickly. The highest quality essential oils produce dramatic results. Be aware that these powerful oils can have safety issues and contraindica-tions. These are listed at: http://kalas-

gems.com/safety.html. oM

“Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so called scientific knowledge. Remedies from chemicals will never stand in favor compared with the products of nature, the living cell of the plant, the final result of the rays of the sun, the mother of all life.”

~ Thomas Edison

reFerenceS

http://www.rainforesteducation.com/medi-cines/PlantMedicines/rfmedicines.htm

Nature’s Medicine Joel Swerdlow, Ph.D

The Art of Aromatherapy Robert B. Tisserand

Aromatherapy with Chinese Medicine Dennis Willmont

Aromatherapy for Massage Practitioner Ingrid Martin

Disclaimer: These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Adminis-tration. Products and techniques mentioned are for educational purposes only. The in-formation provided is in no way intended to diagnose, treat, cure, prescribe or pre-vent any disease. The decision to use any of this information is the sole responsibility of the reader.

Kathy paDecKy, AS, CMT, Aromathera-pist, CBS teaches Advanced Massage Mo-dalities and Aromatherapy at the Pacific College San Diego campus and Internation-al Professional School of Bodywork (IPSB) and School of Healing Arts in San Diego. Kathy has thirty years of experience in the holistic sciences. She has an Associate of Science in Holistic Studies from the Inter-national Professional School of Bodywork. She is certified by the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Body-work and is a Certified Massage Therapist by the California Massage Therapy Council. She is a member of Associated Bodywork and Massage Professionals and the National Association of Holistic Aromatherapy. She received her aromatherapy certification from the American College of Healthcare Sciences. Kathy is a Certified Biofeedback Specialist by the Natural Therapies Certifi-cation Board. She is the author of a compli-mentary monthly aromatherapy newsletter entitled Sacred Scents ©.

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The year was a good one for integrative medicine. Many of these developments grew

out of the mandated inclusion of integrative and complementary and alternative medicine practices in the Obama-Pelosi Affordable Care Act. Here is the Top 10 for Integrative Medicine Policy and Action for 2011. (Those interested in highlights for the years since 2006 will find links here.)

1. reportS capture groWing compLementary anD aLterna-tive meDicine uSe.

The summer months saw a tri-fecta of reports showing continued uptake of complementary and alter-native medicine (CAM) in the United States. A July Consumer Reports arti-cle headlined “Alternative Treatments: More than 45,000 readers tell us what helped” was re-published widely. A month later another media wave hit after publication of a study showing health care workers use integrative therapies and practitioners at higher rates than regular consumers. The conclusion that “personal CAM use by healthcare workers may influence the integration of CAM with conven-tional healthcare delivery” appeared prescient a month later. The Ameri-can Hospital Association published a report that 42 percent of responding hospitals offer some CAM, up from 26 percent in 2005. The trend-lines are steady. This consumer-led move-ment is not going away.

2. u.S. heaLth promotion eFFort LinKeD to integrative practiceS.

Integrative practitioners see themselves as focused on prevention and health promotion. Now for the first time a National Prevention and Health Promotion Strategy of the U.S., announced in June, includes refer-ences to integrative care. In addition, President Obama’s appointees to the Advisory Group on Prevention, Health Promotion, Integrative and Public Health include an integrative practice contingent that includes The Huff-ington Post contributor Dean Ornish, M.D., Janet Kahn, Ph.D., LMT, Sharon Van Horn, M.D. and Charlotte Kerr, RN, MPH, LAc. The public health-inte-grative care alliance is finally forming.

3. integrative m.D.S announce pLan to eStaBLiSh SpeciaLty BoarD.

Is “integrative medicine” a cam-paign to transform all of medicine toward a more holistic approach? Or is it an effort to establish a new specialty? In September, a coalition

of integrative medical doctors led by the Arizona Center for Integra-tive Medicine announced a plan to establish a formal board specialty in integrative medicine through the American Board of Physician Special-ties. The move is controversial. But it appears to be certain, for better and for worse, that integrative medicine will within two years have a formal, recognized guild as a guiding force.

4. inStitute oF meDicine’S pain “BLueprint” iS an integrative Strategy.

A pain initiative buried in Obam-acare led to the June 2011 publica-tion of “Relieving Pain in America: A Blueprint for Transforming, Preven-tion, Care, Education and Research.” The plan was developed by the In-stitute of Medicine of the National Academies. The document, from a committee that included Rick Mari-nelli, ND, LAc, the first naturopathic doctor or licensed acupuncturist ever appointed to an IOM committee on a regular medical topic, advocates an integrative, interdisciplinary strat-egy. The recommendations are laced with references to complementary and alternative approaches such as massage, acupuncture, chiropractic, mind-body and yoga. A broad alli-ance being organized to keep the blueprint from languishing on a shelf is similarly integrated.

5. “integrative oncoLogy” Becoming the norm.

An NPR spot in Seattle advertises a cancer center where naturopathic doc-tors and M.D. oncologists work side-by-side. The government of British Columbia announced that it is invest-ing to make the integrative oncology model of InspireHealth the provincial norm. In the U.S., Francis Collins, M.D., director of the National Institutes of Health, headlined the annual con-ference of the Society for Integrative Oncology (SOI). Even the conservative American Society for Clinical Oncol-ogy included at its annual meeting for the first time an integrative medicine track in 2011. Featured were a multi-disciplinary group including Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Gary Deng, M.D., Ph.D. and Columbia University’s Heather Greenlee, ND, Ph.D.

6. neW integrative meDicine cLinicaL piLot proJectS expLore coSt SavingS.

While integrative center opera-tors argue their services will be cost-saving, data are wanting. New pilots were announced in 2011 that will

help us find answers. The Institute for Functional Medicine, led by The Huffington Post contributor Mark Hy-man, M.D., engaged a Florida Med-icaid-backed program that expects savings via reduced ER visits and hospitalizations. A Grand Rapids ER doctor created a Center for Integra-tive Medicine that he anticipates will annually save Medicaid $150-$250 million once rolled out to eight hos-pitals. The Adolph Coors Foundation is giving Maricopa County employees access to integrative medicine ser-vices to test a model of payment for “sustainable wellness” through a pro-gram led by Andrew Weil, M.D. Key data may finally be forthcoming.

7. neW pLan From nih center (FinaLLy) FocuSeS on “reaL WorLD” anD “DiScipLineS”.

Missing data may also be forth-coming via the National Institutes of Health. Ask integrative practitioners to declare for the optimal research models and they will say look at the whole of what we do. This was the mandate from U.S. Senator Tom Harkin when he created the National Center for Complementary and Alter-native Medicine (NCCAM) in 1998. With a new 2011-2015 strategic plan, NCCAM is getting on track. One priority is “real world research.” An-other is to look at whole disciplines, such as acupuncturists or chiroprac-tors. This priority is linked to the comparative effectiveness research movement that was enshrined in Obamacare’s Patient-Centered Out-comes Research Institute (PCORI). Integrative practice researchers see PCORI as a philosophical ally. This movement plays to integrative medi-cine’s strength.

8. accountaBLe care organi-zationS potentiate integrative moDeLS.

Leaders of the accountable care organizations (ACOs) and patient-centered medical homes (PCMHs) prompted by Obamacare believe these new models will potentiate integrative approaches. A CEO of a major health system announced that when the Affordable Care Act “kicks in that supports keeping people healthy ... integrative medicine will be an asset.” Integrative medicine adopters of PCMHs are excited with the move away from fee-for-service payment to “unassigned dollars.” This fosters development of integrative medicine teams. A physician leader in Minnesota underscores the way ACOs promote a health-focus: “In-

tegrative medicine supports self-effi-cacy.” For the first time, the way we pay for care is aligned with health-focused, integrative principles.

9. meDicine’S move toWarD coLLaBorative teamS openS DoorS.

Integrative health care at its best is team care, using medical doctors, acupuncturists, chiropractors, coun-selors, coaches and others as appro-priate. So a May announcement by Obama’s administrator for the Health Resources Services Administration Mary Wakefield, RN, Ph.D. was a great step forward. She celebrated how a historic collaboration of aca-demic organizations for M.D., nurses and four other disciplines published the Core Competencies for Inter-professional Collaborative Practice. They committed to promoting an inter-professional education (IPE) model. Participation in a biennial IPE conference doubled. Meantime, five integrative practice fields (with which I am involved) announced a similar set of collaboratively produced com-petencies. These twin rivers point toward convergence. Not a moment too soon for our aging population!

10. your choice -- What’S miSSing?

What have I missed? As is my practice with these top 10 lists since I first published one in 2006, I leave a spot for reader suggestions.

I personally am struck by the influence of Obamacare. ACOs shift payment toward creating health in a population. Academic medicine el-evates team-care. Research engages the real world of what patients care about. The IOM’s brain trust delivers an integrative-oriented pain blueprint. Integrative leaders are included in the national health promotion strat-egy. These broad arcs of substantive change are each linked to the Afford-able Care Act. Together they made 2011 a surprising opening to inte-grative medicine’s potential for U.S. healthcare in 2012 and beyond. oM

Top 10 for Integrative Medicine Policy and Action in 2011By John weeKs, Publisher and Editor, Integrator Blog News & Reports

As seen on The Integrator Blog and the Huffington Post

* Now for the first time a National Preven-tion and Health Promo-tion Strategy of the U.S., announced in June, includes references to integrative care.


NEW YORk CHICAGO

SCOTT, FRANk ............................................................... 11

ARMSTRONG, DAVID J ................................................... 8

MEJIA, MARIA DELORE ................................................... 6

LEVY, RUTH A ................................................................... 5

GUILLAUME, kEVIN J....................................................... 4

MERCED, CONRAD P ..................................................... 4

MATTSON, BRENDAN E ................................................... 3

SHELDON, LYNN E ........................................................... 3

VOUDRIE, JENNIFER ........................................................ 3

kARSTEN, SUZANNE M .................................................... 2

INDA, GREGORY W ......................................................... 2

LAMADRID, EDWARD ...................................................... 2

SWENOR ,CHRISTOPHER ................................................. 1

nAMe yeARsnAMe yeARs

MC INTYRE, TAMMI D ................................................... 13GARWOOD, SHANA ...................................................... 12SANTANA, JOAQUIN ..................................................... 10NEIPRIS, CYNTHIA............................................................ 9LAIkEN, AMY ................................................................... 8LEPORE, GINA A .............................................................. 8TORRES-VELEZ, EDITH....................................................... 5ANDERSON, BEAU ........................................................... 5HUSBANDS, SHELDEANE ................................................. 5FERDY, JIM ....................................................................... 5MACCHIA, MARIA E ....................................................... 4JACkSON, DARRYL ......................................................... 3JOSEPH, JENNIFER .......................................................... 3MARTINEZ, CLAUDIA ....................................................... 3MUSICk, ALLISON k ........................................................ 3AGUILAR, ELISSA C .......................................................... 2kOHLMANN, ALLYSON .................................................. 2WILSON, SHAREEN P ....................................................... 2MOY, AILEEN 0 ................................................................. 1CATHEY- CASINO, MICH ................................................. 1BANJANY, ALANA ............................................................ 1BROWN, NYASHA ............................................................ 1PARISI, JOSEPH ................................................................ 1TORRES, AMANDA G....................................................... 1QUINONES, JESSICA ....................................................... 1

SAN DIEGOnAMe yeARs nAMe yeARs nAMe yeARs

GATES-MILINER, JOAN E. ...............24MILLER, JACk .................................23DAMONE, ROBERT .........................16 BAXLEY, GINA ANN ........................14GOMES, STACY L ............................14CRENEY, SHANNA J ........................14FLOYD, CINDY M............................12HALL, TROY W .................................11BROERING, NAOMI C ....................10kHAN, AHMED .................................7CORONA, NAYELI ............................7SMITH, JOELLA A ..............................7HINES, PATRICIA A ............................6

ZAkARIA, ROLAND L ........................6HANSEN, TIFFANY V ..........................6kORNSWEIG, JAIME M ....................5MLEkOWSkI, CHRISTINE ...................4RI0S, LINH T .......................................3CARO, BRENDA ................................3APOLONIA, JENNIFER ......................3VOGT, GAIL A ...................................3ROGERS, JASON L............................3LEVYA-PADILLA, BRENDA .................3DAVIES, DEBRA .................................2ROBBINS, TRACY ANN .....................2CUSTODIO, LESLEY A ........................2

POSTON, kYLE C ..............................2

MURYASZ, WALTER ............................2

SPERBER, GREGORY R .....................2

kAFkA, STACEY L ..............................2

TRUONG, kEN ..................................1

FLOYD, CHARLES W ..........................1

RIGGERT, BRIDGET ...........................1

EBLAMO, JAM G ..............................1

ELDER, FRANk L (BO) .......................1

RUSHALL, kATHLEEN k ......................1

HOLDWICk AIMEE C .......................1

RODGERS, JASON ...........................1

PCOM LAUNCHES STAFF ACkNOWLEDGMENT PROGRAMPacific College has launched its new Staff Acknowledgment Program.

As of January, 2012, Pacific College will be featuring shout-outs in each issue of the OM Newspaper to its amazing staff members, noting the length of time each has been with the college.

Incentives ranging from certificates to vacation time and gift cards will be awarded to employees as they hit specific milestones. “We realize we have a lot of very loyal employees, some who have been with us for many years, and some who have just joined our team with enthusiasm.

We want to make sure they each know how much we value their ser-vice and passion for what we stand for.” Says Elaine Gates-Miliner, Vice President of Operations and San Diego Campus Director.

PCOM is grateful for its motivated and talented staff members, many of who have been with the college for over a decade, and looks forward to growing its PCOM family over the many successful years to come. PCOM plans to feature staff milestones in each OM Newspaper issue going forward.


The program launches at a critical time in the nursing field, as New York and many other states consider a proposal requiring all registered nurses to achieve a bachelor’s degree or higher within the next 10 years. Indeed, in light of rapidly expand-ing clinical knowledge and mounting complexities in healthcare, the Insti-tute of Medicine report on the Future of Nursing and a number of national nursing associations, including the American Nurses Association (ANA) and the American Association of Col-leges of Nursing (AACN) recommend the baccalaureate degree as the mini-mum educational requirement for professional nursing practice.

“PCOM’s unique new program offers RNs the opportunity to earn the increasingly important bachelor’s degree, with a focus on integrative care that is fast becoming the stan-dard for healthcare today,” said Dr. Carla Mariano, past-president of the American Holistic Nurses Association (AHNA) and a leader in developing national standards for holistic nursing education, practice and certification.

Dr. Mariano, who developed the cur-riculum for PCOM’s holistic nursing program and serves on the program’s advisory committee, also initiated the country’s first master’s nurse practi-tioner program in holistic nursing at New York University. Holistic nursing was recently recognized by the ANA as a distinct specialty in nursing at the bachelor’s and master’s degree levels.

Reflecting the rising interest in holistic approaches to healthcare, the latest studies indicate that 65 to 80 percent of the world’s population and approximately 38 percent of all Americans use CAM. An increasing number of medical centers now of-fer integrative services. According to a recent survey by the American Hospital Association and the Samueli Institute, a nonprofit research group focusing on complementary medi-cine, 42 percent of the 714 hospitals that responded offered at least one such therapy in 2010, a significant jump from just five years earlier, when 27 percent of hospitals offered such treatments.

“There is growing demand for economically feasible and compas-sionate health options grounded in holistic ideals,” said Dr. Mariano. “Consumers and even insurers are seeking out and expecting healthcare professionals who can focus on the whole person and incorporate an array of conventional and holistic therapies to enhance healing and cultivate wellness. PCOM nursing students will be prepared in holistic theory and therapies for health, heal-ing, and wellness as well as leader-ship, community, and research.”

According to the 2009 National Health Statistics Reports, 38.1 million adults made an estimated 354.2 mil-lion visits to practitioners of comple-mentary and alternative medicine in 2007. Experts see integrative medi-cine as a key to successful healthcare reform, as it puts the patient back into the driver’s seat of his or her health. One of the foundations of CAM therapies is the focus on pre-ventative care and lifestyle choices that keep people healthy and can reduce the number of return hos-

pCoM launches Bachelor’s in holistic nursing at new york Campus continued from page 1

pital visits for the same issue. Ap-proximately 75% of all healthcare spending in the US is currently for the treatment of chronic diseases, many of which can be avoided by self-care and a healthier lifestyle. PCOM’S Bachelor of Science in Nurs-ing program aims to provide nurses with the ability to impart the key principles of prevention and healthy living to each patient, enabling a patient to continue healing long after they leave the sick room

Consistent with the standards set forth by the AHNA, the PCOM program in holistic nursing takes an integrative relationship-centered approach, emphasizing the inter-connectedness of self, others, and the environment; the promotion and maintenance of health and well-being, not simply the absence of disease; and a commitment to professional self-reflection and self-care. The holistic nurse is educated as an advocate, collaborator and partner with the patient, his/or her family, the community, and other health disciplines, striving to identify and treat the root cause of illness. Classes include core courses such as nursing leadership, research, health assessment, issues and trends in healthcare, as well as courses in theories of holism and holistic inte-grative modalities. Electives are of-fered in Chinese medicine, nutrition, herbology, essential oils, and Asian Bodywork.

“PCOM has a history of excel-lence in educating outstanding professionals in traditional Chinese medicine through our unique ap-proach to integrating Western and Eastern approaches to healthcare,” said Dr. Gina Lepore, campus direc-tor at PCOM’s New York Campus. “Our deep experience in CAM and ability to offer some of our current courses as curricular and co-curric-ular options make PCOM a perfect venue for a bachelor completion program in holistic nursing.”

The PCOM Bachelor of Sci-ence Completion Program in Holistic Nursing is approved by the New York State Educa-tion Department Office of the Professions (NYSED) and is accredited by the Accrediting Commission for Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC).

PCOM is accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC). (ACCSC’s scope does not extend to PCOM’s doctoral programs). PCOM’s master’s and doctoral degree programs are accredited by the Accredita-tion Commission of Acupunc-ture and Oriental Medicine

(ACAOM). oM


While overseeing my cooking, my grandmother once told me that I over-handle my food. I would open the lid, add the ingredient, stir it, and taste it too often. “How do you know everything is perfect or if it tastes good?” I would ask. She said, “Be confident. Add all the ingredients--in-cluding your soul. Stir it once, cover it, and then when the aroma fills the room, you will know it’s done.” She also said that with experience, you will know if there are too much or too little spices and salt, and if it’s undercooked or overcooked! Well, I am still learning that, but I learned a valuable lesson: Too much handling or processing takes away the vitality of the food and can make it lose its flavor. According to my grandmother, no secret ingredients are needed. The same ingredients can produce very different dishes, but will always turn out good if handled much like the “Goldilocks” approach--just adding them in the right amounts. Anyone who has eaten even once from her knows that she had a simple but sophisticated style of cooking that would always produce something tasty that smelled simply delicious.


The topic of food is just not complete without mentioning her. Like the food critic in Ratatouille, my “perspective” is linked to childhood memories of my family traditions and roots, which mainly revolved around food. Just some food for thought...eating or serving ‘perspec-tive’ is not that abstract of a concept at all--we just have to connect to

ourselves: body and mind. oM

Sarita vighne, L.Ac. (M.S.T.O.M.), B.AM.S. is a practitioner of two of the mainstream Eastern medical systems -- acupuncture and Ayurveda. She earned her Masters of Traditional Oriental Medicine from Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in December 2009 and is certified and licensed by Cali-fornia Acupuncture Board. In her practice she focuses on various different disorders with the help of acupuncture and Ayurve-da using herbs as well as diet and lifestyle interventions.

* By incor-porating all six tastes into each meal, we ensure that these signals are adequately met, thus avoid-ing food crav-ings or the over-consumption of certain foods.

yin And yAnG continued from page 10

mind to fight Tao and does not try by her own contriving to help Tao along. All that comes out of her comes quiet, like the four seasons.”

When we learn to embrace life, to understand it, and relate to it in all its dimensions, then it may be said that we have gained total health. We attain the highest state of well-being,

unity with the Tao. oM

reFerenceS

Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching. (Feng & English, Trans.). New York, Vintage Books, 1972

Chuang Tzu. Inner Chapters. (Feng & English, Trans.). New York, Vintage Books, 1974

Ellen M. Chen. Tao Te Ching. New York, Paragon House, 1989

teD KarDaSh, Ph.D., has been on the San Diego faculty of PCOM since 1990 where he heads the Clinical Counseling program and also teaches Tai Chi Chuan. He is an ordained Taoist Priest and has taught vari-ous classes at the Taoist Sanctuary of San Diego including a 24-week course of his own creation on Taoist Philosophy. He also maintains a private practice as a Marriage Family Therapist.

2012

2012

Save the Date

November 8-11, 2012General Session

November 6-7Pre-Symposium

November 12-13Post-Symposium

www.PacificSymposium.org


Gluten-Free for GoodBy JessiCA lAw, LAc, Personal Trainer

Would you believe me if I told you that eliminating wheat and gluten trans-

forms lives? If you haven’t noticed, the food industry is finally paying atten-tion to gluten sensitivity. Because of this, gluten-free products, menu items, and supermarket advertisements are showing up everywhere. Is this yet another trend, or is there a connection that people have finally made be-tween their diet and their health?

My gluten-free lifestyle is not something that happened over-night…but rather over the course of a few years. Even with my height-ened awareness, I may still come across a gluten-exposure hidden in food. While I was studying at Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, I paral-leled my studies with the mission of achieving optimal health. I was deal-ing with numerous issues ranging from skin problems to fatigue to di-gestive disorders, and once I applied a gluten-free lifestyle, everything began to improve. My practice has allowed me to witness the improved health of numerous patients suffering from fatigue, anemia, GI issues, in-fertility, diabetes, arthritis, bone loss, seizures, cold hands and feet, mental disorders, and autoimmune diseases. The recommendation most often made to my patients, with successful results, is to remove the gluten from their diets.

Gluten is a type of protein that gives foods a sticky or chewy tex-ture. It is found in wheat products and various other grains (bulgar, rye, barley, triticale, spelt, kamut, and some oats). Gluten is broken down into gliadin and glutenin. Gliadin is the protein portion of the molecule, while glutenin is the sticky portion. Gliadin is broken down into differ-ent portions: alpha, beta, gamma, and omega. It is only the alpha por-tion of the gliadin molecule that is tested today for “gluten sensitivity” or celiac disease. You cannot find most cases of gluten sensitivity by only looking at gliadin antibodies. Many people can have a sensitivity to what is systematically overlooked. In a susceptible person, gluten causes inflammation and intestinal damage by eliciting activity by various cells of the immune system. These cells, in turn, harm healthy tissue in an at-tempt to destroy what they perceive to be an infectious agent.

So what is the path then to diag-nosis and treatment?

Scenario 1: Patient goes in with an array of complaints and will never even be tested for gluten sensitivity.

Scenario 2: Patient is adminis-tered a gluten sensitivity test and the results come back negative, when, in fact, they haven’t even been tested

for the entire gluten molecule. With this news, many patients are told they can continue eating gluten. The danger here lies in the fact that this patient could return in the future and have full-blown celiac disease. There is no degree of sensitivity that can be identified by your physician because their standards have to meet certain criteria, so from their perspective, you either have no issue with gluten or you have full-blown celiac disease.

Scenario 3: Patient has positive results for gluten sensitivity and, only then, the doctor will sometimes order a biopsy of the patient’s intestines to see if the villi of the intestines are flattened. Once all these criteria come back positive, then the patient is diagnosed with celiac disease. Yet, if the biopsy comes back negative then they could still be told that they can consume gluten.

The gluten we consume today is not what our ancestors or even our grandparents were exposed to in their diet. This modern commer-cial gluten that is found in our meals today has changed dramatically due to human intervention--not through natural causes, like drought or dis-ease. With the discovery of seeds, humans learned to domesticate crops and ultimately crossbreed different grass plants to create the modern staple grains that we see today. This advancement, however, came at a dear price: the emergence of an ill-ness now known as celiac disease. In Dr. William Davis’s Wheat Belly, he notes, “When compared to century-old strains of wheat, modern strains express a higher quantity of genes for gluten proteins that are associated with celiac disease.”

Identification of gluten as the trigger occurred after World War II, when Dutch pediatrician Willem-Karel Dicke noticed that a war-related

shortage of bread in the Netherlands led to a significant drop in the death rate among children affected by celiac disease--from greater than 35 percent to essentially zero. He also reported that once wheat was again available after the conflict, the mortality rate soared to previous levels. (Surprises from Celiac Disease, 2009 Scientific American, Inc.)

If the consumption of wheat and gluten is being linked to a never-ending list of symptoms and diseases, then shouldn’t practitioners be elimi-nating gluten from the diet as the first step to restoring health in patients? Educating and empowering patients and people so they become aware of the nutritional quality of the foods they choose to use to nourish their bodies is paramount. In the world of Eastern nutrition, food is medicine. The processing and hybridization of grains today makes it no longer safe to say that these grains should be used as part of a healthy diet.

People are sick, tired, and bro-ken and looking for a quick fix. It is likely that there are some elements of their diet and lifestyle that are just at odds with their genetics and a glu-ten-free regimen can be the fix that they’re seeking to arrive at optimal health. This is not just about gluten-free for celiac patients, but gluten-free for everyone! Who wouldn’t want to look, feel, and perform at their best?

aDDitionaL inFormation to Be aWare oF:

“Wheat-free”: Do not make the common mistake of confusing the term “wheat-free” with “gluten-free.” A food can contain no wheat and still have a high gluten content.

Cross-Contamination: Avoiding cross-contamination is the biggest challenge of living gluten-free…but it

can be done! Oversee food prepara-tion, ask a lot of questions, read all labels carefully, educate those around you about how cross-contamination works (e.g. separate utensils: the same knife used to cut bread should not be used to cut fruit).

Hidden Sources of gluten: soy sauce, beer, bacon bits, and other imitation bacon products, imita-tion seafood, blue cheese, brown rice syrup (made from a combina-tion of brown rice and barley malt), flavored and instant coffees, deli meats (make sure they say “gluten-free”), licorice (except pure licorice is gluten-free, salad dressings and marinades/gravies, seasonings and spices (in their pure form, these are gluten-free), soup bases (read labels on commercial bouillon cubes), food starches, modified food starch, food emulsifiers, emulsifying agents, food stabilizers, artificial food coloring, malt extract, flavor, syrup, dextrins, the word “starch” (seen in a lot of drugs), additives (too vague!), “natu-ral flavor”, “smoke flavor”, softener, germ, brewer’s yeast, glucose syrup (generally made from corn, potatoes, or wheat…check the source!).

FaSt FactS:• Abouthalfofadultswiththecon-

dition do not suffer from diarrhea at diagnosis.

• For every 1 person in a popula-tion that has the antibodies for Celiac disease, there are 24 that have antibodies to gliadin that may not have Celiac disease.

• In the past 50 years, Celiac dis-ease has gone from 1 in 700 to 1 in 100. Those with the greatest mortality were identified as hav-ing ‘silent’ Celiac disease.

• Schizophrenia is frequently found in people with Celiac disease and Celiac disease is frequently found in people with Schizophrenia.

■ In cultures where gluten grains are rarely eaten, Schizophrenia is rare or non-

existent. oM

JeSSica LaW, L.Ac has a unique approach of combining Eastern philosophy with cut-ting edge Western techniques as she ap-plies them to improving the wellness of her clients. With over 10 years of experience working in the health and wellness field, she truly invests in her clients and is com-mitted to achieving results. She has an un-dergraduate degree in Health Sciences and Nutrition from James Madison University. Recently graduating from four years at Pa-cific College of Oriental Medicine, Jessica has been practicing as a licensed acupunc-turist. Her collective training experience further helps her clients achieve their goals. She currently practices in San Diego and can be contacted directly at 757-831-4778 or [email protected]

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products, etc. and compile it into an easy-to-learn and easy-to-share for-mat that can be utilized by everyone.

What iS eSSentiaLLy pinK? Essentially Pink is an integrative

breast health campaign with a mis-sion to make breast health common knowledge. We are rooted in the phi-losophy of prevention and are here to popularize all the integrative prac-tices that create breast health.

Essentially Pink uses a tulip shape as its symbol for breast health. This tulip shape is created by “connecting the dots” between the acupressure points around each breast that, when stimulated, promote breast health.

We Say BreaSt heaLth iS S.e.x.y.S.E.X.Y. is an acronym to catego-

rize all the over-whelming informa-tion so we can access it and easily remember it and teach it to others. This is just some of the information to get us started.

S- Self-Breast Massage/Acupressure

E- Emotional/ Environmental Connection

X- Out Stress Y- Yes FoodsHere are a few quick breast health

tips from each of the S.E.X.Y. steps.

BReAsT heAlTh is The CuRe continued from page 11

For more in depth information, please check out www.essentiallypink.com.

Additional information – “S”In addition to standard acupres-

sure points for general health, such as liver 4, pericardium 6, and heart 3, we recommend doing the tulip tap. The tulip tap consists of stimulating the following 6 acupressure points: lung 1, spleen 21, liver 14, ren 17, kid 24, and stomach 15, around each breast. Visualize a tulip flower out-line around each breast, and then tap those points and connect them to-gether, just as you would a connect-the-dots game. For more information and a visual demonstration see the “Breast Health Video” on www.es-sentiallypink.com.

Additional information – “E”For emotional wellbeing, reciting

a self-love affirmation (such as the “I am love” affirmation found on Es-sentially Pink’s website) to oneself on a regular basis can help to balance emotions and serve as a reminder to take the time to nurture one’s / self. In regard to the environment, always do your best when cooking, eat-ing, and drinking out of plastic and canned items, to use products that are BPA-free. In addition to drinking out of glass and BPA-free water bot-tles, try to use aluminum-free natural

deodorants, eco-friendly/natural laun-dry detergents, dental care, beauty and personal care products.

Additional information – “X”Practice “Dragon Fire Breathing”:

Take a deep breath in and as you exhale, hiss the anger and frustration out of your body, like a dragon.

Deep breathing and aromather-apy are great ways to de-stress. Aro-matherapy in conjunction with deep breathing helps to activate the para-sympathetic nervous system (“rest and digest”), and keeps the system activated, while the essential oils help to guide breathing. Try using a bergamot or peppermint essential oil to energize and benefit breast health. Use a 4-5 second inhale, followed by a 4-5 second exhale as a part of your aromatherapy practice.

Additional Information – “Y”Indole-3-carbinol, primarily

found in cruciferous vegetables, is very important in maintaining breast health. Snack suggestion: pair broc-coli and cauliflower flowerets with an organic hummus dip. Add a tea-spoon of dill (a flavorful herb that helps clean the liver) and/or turmeric (anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-cancer) to the hummus dip for an enhanced breast health dish.

In 2011, thanks to sponsorship

and funding from the Keep-A-Breast Foundation and Emergen-C, Essentially Pink was able to conduct a breast health research study, which provided vital information about incorporating breast health into every day life. With that information, Essentially Pink is in the process of creating a “breast health road map” manual so we will have a fun and easy way to learn, organize, and integrate the important ways to keep our breasts and bodies healthy.

Creating and maintaining your health is both your responsibility and the greatest gift you can give to yourself, the people in your life, and planet earth.

Essentially Pink is leading the breast health movement - join us!

Look for our upcoming 2012 TV video blog series at essentiallypink.

com/news. oM

Lara KoLJonen is a licensed acu-puncturist and co- owner of Herbin Acu-puncture and Wellness in San Diego. She is also the founder of Essentially Pink. Essentially Pink is a breast health and can-cer prevention organization and was cre-ated to provide the world with fun, easy to integrate and important breast health infor-mation based on the principles of Chinese Medicine.


The Year of the Dragon has ar-rived! The date of the Chinese New Year varies every year,

as the Chinese Zodiac is calculated by the lunar calendar. Each month usually begins on the darkest day, and New Year celebrations typically last until the moon is brightest. This year, on January 23, 2012, the Year of the Dragon began. In ancient China, the Dragon represented the emperor. The Dragon has always been a sym-bol of power. Today, it is seen as an auspicious symbol of success, happi-ness, and good fortune.

The Chinese calendar is the old-est known calendar system, and the longest chronological record in his-tory. A complex timepiece, its param-eters were set according to the lunar phases as well as the solar solstices and equinoxes. This 2012, the Year of the Dragon represents year 4710 in the Chinese calendar. The Chinese New Year is the most social and eco-nomic holiday in China. As impor-tant a tradition as it is longstanding,

people in China often take a couple weeks of holiday to prepare for and celebrate the New Year. Ancient rituals and traditions help bring the current year to a close and manifest good fortune and wellbeing for the year to come.

For example, at Chinese New Year celebrations, people often wear red. Poems are written on red paper, fireworks are lit, and “lucky money” is given to children in red envelopes. Red symbolizes fire and is thought to drive away bad luck. Fireworks are rooted in similar customs. In ancient China, people would light bamboo stalks, and the resulting twinkling light was thought to drive away evil spirits. Cleaning house is one of the most customary ways to ring in the New Year. The Chinese believe a thorough house cleaning, even re-painting doors and windowpanes, will sweep away any traces of bad luck that may have accumulated over the past year and make room for good luck.

The New Year is a time to honor household deities, ancestors, and family. Family reunions and reconcili-ations are a priority. All past griev-ances should be put to rest before the New Year begins. Family mem-bers gather at each other’s homes for visits and shared meals, most signifi-cantly a feast on New Year’s Eve.

Legend has it that Buddha asked all the animals to meet him on Chi-nese New Year. Twelve came, and Buddha named a year after each one. He announced that the people born in each animal’s year would have some of that animal’s personal-ity. People born in the year of the Dragon are innovative, confident, brave, enterprising, and can be short-tempered. The Dragons of the zodiac are free spirits. They do not like re-strictions and must feel free and un-inhibited in order to create their best work and pursue their passions.

Dragons are extroverts, and ev-erything they do is on a grand scale. ‘Go big or go home’ is their motto.

This fearlessness in the face of a chal-lenge often means that Dragons find success in whatever they set out to accomplish. People born in the sign of the Dragon also like to lend help where they feel it’s needed, and they are loving and reliable friends. Drag-ons can have trouble accepting help for themselves due to their pride. This year of the dragon began on Janu-ary 23, 2012 and ends on February 9, 2013. Past years of the Dragon include 1904, 1916, 1928, 1940, 1952, 1964, 1976, 1988, and 2000.

Celebrating the Chinese New Year is the perfect time to put the past behind you, to dismiss resent-ment or any past misfortune. Regard-less of how each person honors and celebrates the New Year, the goal is always to have a fortuitous and happy year. The Chinese New Year is truly an illumination of the rich culture and values of the Chinese. Now it is time to honor the past, spend time with family and friends, enjoy yourself, and

ring in the Year of the Dragon! oM

Celebrate the Year of the Dragon!


TReATMenT of fiBRoMyAlGiA And ClosTRidiuM diffiCile usinG fouR needle TeChnique And fouR ConsTiTuTionAl MediCine continued from page 18

various antibiotics re-lieved some of the bloody stool and fre-quent bowel move-ment. But her diarrhea was still averaging at 10 times a day, which made the severe fa-tigue even worse. The fibromyalgia pains through this ordeal still remained less than prior to initial acupuncture treatments.

The patient returned to this clinic and resumed

treatments at twice a week visits in the first 3

weeks and once a week thereafter for 2 months. She was given wood (jing-well) → fire (ying-spring) sequence Lung tonification on the right side of the body. There was no less-ened pain after 25 min-utes of needle retention. The needling was then switched to a metal (jing-well) → water (ying-spring) sequence, after which there was a significantly lessened pain. Thereafter, the new right side acupuncture treat-ments for yin meridians were administered at each visit, and there was a consistent im-provement. Her improvement

rate this time was as quick as the initial sessions.

The irritable bowel symptoms were eliminated with a two-month

course of Regulate the Interior Decoc-tion with Evodia and Aconite, which addressed both the fibromyalgia and the clostridium difficile. Currently, the patient is on acupuncture mainte-nance once every two weeks.

DiScuSSion The positive improvements

through both acupuncture and herbal medicine demonstrate the possibility of using a common theory as an um-brella under which the two separate disciplines can be applied. Consti-tutional medicine can be used as a common link between acupuncture’s meridian theory and herbal medi-cine’s Zangfu theory.

The combination of both acu-puncture and herbal medicine made the treatment process faster. The im-provement was quicker and deeper, therefore, there was a lasting effect. Acupuncture alone is very helpful in reducing fibromyalgia pains, but the compelling role of herbal medicine in adequately balancing yin and yang cannot be overlooked.

This patient’s right side yin meridi-ans had a different flow of five element energies on the five transporting points of the limbs. It demonstrates the neces-sity of giving acupuncture one side at a time until both sides are known.

Syndrome differentiation was cru-cial in bringing the treatment efficacy higher. Cinnamon Twig, Pinellia, and Fresh Ginger Decoction contains many herbs that treat Spleen deficiency, but its indication for a Taiyang Exterior Syndrome addressed the musculo-skeletal pains but did not address the irritable bowel syndrome. Regulate the Interior Decoction with Evodia and Aconite addressed both the irritable bowel syndrome and the musculo-

skeletal pains because it treated at the deeper root level, which was the Jueyin Interior Syndrome.

Lesser Yins have a tendency to not do well with antibiotics. The cold nature of antibiotics makes the interior cold of the Lesser Yins more frigid, leading to a further break down of the internal balance. Often, there is a delayed improvement. What would normally take one or two days, may take up to one week for a positive response to occur. At the worst, there will be side effects and allergic reactions. The antibiot-ics will wipe out the harmful bacte-ria flora it is designed to eliminate, but they also inhibit the Lesser Yin

body’s ability to recover. oM

RefeRenCe

1. Kim, Joseph K (2001). Compass of Health: Using the Art of Sasang Medicine to Maximize Your Health. New Page Books: New Jersey.

2. Lee, Jema (1894). Longevity and Life Preser-vation in Eastern Medicine. Seoul, Korea.

3. Lee Sang H, Hahn SK (2009). Saam Five Element Acupuncture. Jimoondang Press: Seoul, Korea.

4. Song Il B (2005), An Introduction to Sa-sang Constitutional Medicine, Jimoondang Press: Seoul, Korea.

DaviD Lee, L.Ac, Ph.D. in Oriental Medi-cine. David received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from and studied pre-medicine at the University of California, Irvine. He completed an externship at Daniel Free-man Hospital in the city of Marina del Rey and at the University of California Los An-geles Student Health Center. He received his doctorate of philosophy in Oriental Medicine from the American Liberty Uni-versity in Fullerton, California in 2006. He is a professor in doctorate of Oriental Medi-cine. Dr. Lee has been practicing since 2000 in Thousand Oaks, California.

RIGHT SIDE LEFT SIDEyin meridians yang meridians yin meridians

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fire

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earth

fire

wood

earth

fire

wood

earth

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water

metal

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water

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OM Spring 2012 Issue