By Adam Cantor, MS LAc
Guest Writer for Wake Up World
Chinese medicine treats a lot more than just pain, and yet it oddly remains highly under-utilized in the mainstream treatment of conditions that aren’t categorized as painful. Acupuncture, a central component of Chinese Medicine, is a modality that is still widely viewed as a sort of superficial “somatic” medicine in the West, despite the fact that countless Chinese clinicians and scholars have been successfully working with and treating the entire “human experience” for millennia.
Several thousand years ago, East Asian physicians discovered that the body forms disharmonies as a result of the various physical and mental stresses of life. Oriental medical theory explains these disharmonies as an imbalance of opposing forces called yin and yang. This imbalance disrupts the movement of the body’s vital energy (qi) along the meridian pathways, channels through which the qi flows. By inserting and manipulating thin, hair-like needles at specific points on the body, acupuncture can return the body to its natural balance and promote the body’s innate ability to heal itself.
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Because acupuncture works by activating the body’s own healing resources, it can be beneficial for an extremely wide variety of health conditions. The World Health Organization (WHO) has documented many symptoms, diseases, and conditions that have been shown in controlled clinical trials to be effectively treated with Chinese medicine.
Some of the more common conditions that I treat in my private practice include structural and musculoskeletal complaints, sports injuries and physical trauma, digestive and gastrointestinal issues, respiratory conditions, GYN and urogenital problems, allergies, headaches, issues of mental and emotional well-being, as well as the overall management of pain. For a more detailed list of conditions that acupuncture can address, please visit my website. Please note however, that this list is by no means exhaustive; Oriental Medicine has proven effective at treating a wide variety of ailments far beyond those listed.
In fact, some of what acupuncture can do for you isn’t necessarily what you might expect since acupuncture requires us to think about health in entirely new ways. For example, by soothing the nervous system and getting you more in touch with your body, acupuncture can help you sleep better at night, feel less stressed out, more energized, open minded and help you go about your day with a clearer head. Chinese Medicine has never had a problem with the link between body, mind and spirit because its science is that of energetic holism.
Also see: 13 Ways Acupuncture Can Change Your Life
At this point, you might be wondering about ailments that Western medicine finds challenging to resolve. Research shows that Chinese medicine and acupuncture are highly effective in the treatment of frustrating conditions such as insomnia, hot flashes, and endometriosis, and can even help relieve conventional cancer treatment side effects, just to name a few.
What about that nagging pain of yours? The most prevalent pain complaint in the United States is back pain and studies show that acupuncture is more effective than taking pain medication or NSAIDS for relief. Perhaps you have struggled with pain for years and think that that’s just how life has to be? Not necessarily so… acupuncture can ease chronic pain and help you regain your health!
As I always tell my patients, Chinese medicine is a system of healing that has been in use for nearly three thousand years. Prior to China opening its doors to the West in 1949, this medicine was used to treat everything the Chinese people experienced… everything.
Acupuncture is a safe, effective, and chemical free way to treat what ails you. To learn more, please visit my website mbm-acupuncture.com.
In Health,
Adam Cantor, MS, L.Ac
Previous Articles by Adam
- What Martial Arts Can Teach Us About Acupuncture and Ourselves
- Om for Everyone: Meditate Your Way to Better Health
- Acuptuncture & the Qi Phenomenon
- Promoting the Body’s Ability to Heal: Acupuncture Physiology 101
- Breaking the Western Medicine Paradigm: How Double-Blind Studies Sell Acupuncture Short
About the author:
Adam Cantor, MS, LAc. is a nationally certified acupuncturist, licensed in NY, who has studied in the US as well as China. He combines bodywork (tui na) with classical Chinese acupuncture to treat a variety of ailments and conditions.
Drawn to Oriental medicine because of its effectiveness in treating the whole person instead of just their symptoms, Adam’s holistic approach helps to prevent the recurrence of illness and discourage new ailments from arising by treating body, mind and spirit, together.
Adam owns and operates Mind Body Medicine Acupuncture in Glen Head, NY, and is also currently associated with NYU Langone Medical Center’s Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine in Manhattan, NY. To learn more please visit: www.mbm-acupuncture.com
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
