The Vulcan Mind Meld

As some of you may know I write for the blog Hopefulparents once a month. This is a great blog dedicated to parents of children with special needs. This was my latest post for the site and I thought my readers here might enjoy it.

Are there any Star Trek fans out there? Well, I am one, of both the original and The Next Generation. Going back decades (but that’s why reruns are a wonderful invention),  there was an episode of Star Trek called “Devil in the dark”  (1967).  The story was about the Horta, one of the few life forms made from silicon. The Horta had been killing people on a mining colony and the crew of the Enterprise was called in to find the creature and kill it. Well, Dr. Spock discovers, through a mind meld with the Horta, that her murderous behavior was intended to defend her 1000s of silcon babies who the miners had been killing. The Horta, as any empathic mother would be, was in a great deal of pain and desperately attempting to defend her young.  The Horta, under her stone-like appearance was very sensitive and very misunderstood. In the final analysis, she was just another mother trying to save her babies.

I thought that many of the parents who read this blog (Hopefulparents) might be able to relate to this particular Star Trek episode. It can be difficult dealing with a world that will sometimes misunderstand your child and create more harm than help. And, in response, I’m sure that you know parents who have had to develop a hard shell to guide their children through the school system, medical establishment and social mine fields. The shell, just like the Horta’s exterior, becomes a way to protect deeply vulnerable emotions that are exposed when we have to protect the people most near and dear to our hearts.

Too bad we all don’t have a Dr. Spock and the crew of the Enterprise to help us understand and negotiate peaceful solutions. I wonder how difficult it is to learn the mind meld technique and is it only offered on the planet Vulcan?

Acupuncture Can Cool Down Hot Flashes

A new study shows the benefits of acupuncture for relieving menopausal symptoms. The report, published in the journal Acupuncture in Medicine, found that acupuncture reduced the psychological and physical effects of menopause.

The research included 53 postmenopausal women and assigned 27 of them to a five-week course of acupuncture, twice a week. The rest of the women got sham treatments. Those who received acupuncture showed more relief from their symptoms than the placebo group. Both their hot flashes and mood swings were less severe.  Plus the estrogen levels were significantly higher for the women in the acupuncture group compared to the control group.

The Turkish researchers suggested that acupuncture may offer an alternative for women who can't or don't want to use hormone replacement therapy to ease menopause symptoms. I think this is a great suggestion!

Acupuncture With Jenny Dubowsky, A Massage Therapist’s Perspective

By Sue Shekut, Licensed Massage Therapist, Owner, Working Well Massage  ACSM Personal Trainer, Certified Wellness Coach

By the time I met Jennifer Dubowsky, I had already been happily receiving acupuncture for many years. Jenny joined our River North  Wellness Center group 10 years ago, right around the time I was opening up my own massage therapy practice. I received some treatments from Jenny and was so happy to find that she does not use the super huge needles I had in Chinatown years ago!

One thing I like about Jenny’s style is that she tends to use the Balance Method of acupuncture. From what I understand this allows her to needle me in places like my forearm or feet to induce changes in areas that in other styles may require a more direct needling of the effected area. For me this style works great. And I am glad that she is not sticking needles in my throat (for a sore throat) or my gall bladder!

I was so happy when Illinois recognized Acupuncture as a legitimate alternative medical treatment (around 1997) and it became legal to practice without a medical degree or chiropractic degree. Then in 2004, the Illinois government amended the Illinois Acupuncture Practice Act to no longer require Acupuncturists to have referrals from a medical doctor to practice acupuncture on patients.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not anti-Western medicine. I am also not so naïve as to think that all acupuncturists are good practitioners either. (There are a good docs and bad docs, good dentists and incompetent dentists. Same goes for alternative medicine practitioners.) But for some diseases and illnesses, I tend to favor Acupuncture over Western medicine. In my case, I use acupuncture and herbs for common colds, muscle pain and to promote healing. For surgery and mammograms, I see my Western medical team. My original acupuncturist was able to help me heal from a bad groin injury when two medical doctors could not find out what was wrong with me and did nothing to treat me. It was my massage therapy teacher that finally released the scar tissue from my injury and allowed me to walk without pain. And it was my Acupuncturist that helped me heal well enough to allow my massage teacher to do his work. Based on my own experience, my health care team consists of medical docs, acupuncture and massage therapy with a periodic chiropractic adjustment when needed.

I don’t understand all the intricacies of Acupuncture (I think I’d need 4 years of training in Chinese medicine to know all that!) But I envision a world in which we can all work together and help keep our patients and ourselves as disease free and able to heal from injuries as rapidly as possible. I am grateful to work alongside Jenny and benefit from her gentle needling techniques when I need acupuncture. It’s also a nice benefit to know I can get Chinese herbs I may need when I get an illness or when my immune system needs help.

When people ask me if acupuncture hurts, I can honestly say, yes, sometimes it does. But no more so than a deep tissue massage initially hurts when I first press on someone’s trigger points. Like in massage, once the needles are in place, the pain subsides and I actually forget they are there. And then I can relax and enjoy the peace and calming effects of the acupuncture treatment!

If you enjoyed this post check out ~ "My First Experiences With Acupuncture ~ From Disbeliever to Passionate Convert" Also by Ms. Sue Shekut. 

Thanks Sue!

Treat Yourself, Help Others

 

Join Us on Thursday, March 24th, from 10am - 4 pm at 325 W. Huron Street. We will be happy to provide and demonstrate some of our services as we raise money for The Greater Chicago Food Depository. 

  
River North Wellness Center is offering a day of free services and, in return, is asking for a monetary donation to the Greater Chicago Food Depository. Just like the need for good health is on-going, so is the need for food.

Dr. Bonny Flaster, A chiropractor and acupuncturist, will be doing treatments using gentle pressure on points in the back. People can expect to feel more relaxed, less tension in their muscles and joints, and a decrease in overall pain. Most people get up from this treatment with a smile on their face and comments like “I feel taller.”

Jennifer Dubowsky, M.S.O.M., L.A.c., Acupuncturist and herbalist, will provide you with a personal demonstration of the ancient art of acupuncture. Experience first hand how acupuncture can alleviate your pains and enhance your well-being.

Helen Freeman, Advanced Practitioner of Ortho-Bionomy®    The work is an effective, gentle form of bodywork using comfortable positions to ease pain and tension anywhere on the body. Based on osteopathic principles, the client and practitioner work together using the body’s information to help release discomfort and pain in a natural way.

 River North Wellness Center 

325 W. Huron Ste. 308 

Chicago IL, 60654 

312-642-7545

Celebrity Chinese Medicine Enthusiasts

When you and I have a great acupuncture treatment, we tell a couple of friends or family members. When celebrities have success with this ancient technique, their publicists tweet thousands of fans and the media writes article about it. Just to keep you up to date, here are some of the celebrity enthusiasts.

On 8/27/10, the Associated Press reported that Kim Clijsters, the former No. 1 ranked tennis player, used acupuncture to help her hip problem which had troubled her on the court. The Belgian tennis player went on to have an amazing winning streak at the U.S. Open.

Basketball greats Charles Barkley, Kevin Johnson, Hot Rod Williams, Jeff Hornacek,  Steve Nash and Grant Hill all get acupuncture treatments to offset the pounding that their bodies suffer on the basketball court. Houston Rockets’ superstar, 7 foot 6 inch basketball center, Yao Ming, an amazing Chinese import, used Chinese medicine to help him recover after undergoing surgery on his ankle in 2007.

Happy moms Celine Dion and Helena Bonham Carter and soon-to-be mom Mariah Carey, all used acupuncture to enhance their fertility and were delighted with the results.

As a professional dancer (TV hosting produces other types of stress), Paula Abdul has had a long history with pain. She undergoes acupuncture treatment a few times a week for pain relief. Paula told Access Hollywood that the only drugs she takes are prescription medications that encourage nerve growth, related to her severe spinal cord injury. Other than that, she sticks to acupuncture.

A few years back, after Matt Damon was spotted with ear needles, his rep admitted that, "Matt had a terrible spasm in his neck/back and he had to have acupuncture Those are acupuncture needles in his ear."

Acupuncture and Chinese herbs are very effective treatments for many ailments as well as for maintaining overall well-being. The celebrities who I mention in this article are all people who want to remain active. We have seen that people copy celebrities’ bad habits - why not duplicate the positive examples and give acupuncture a try?

Relationships That Go Bad, Slowly

By Dr. Linda Edelstein, who has a wonderful blog, Life Ain't For Sissies.

Remember the story about the frog in the pot of water? No? Here it is…Put a frog in a pot of water on the stove – if the water is hot, the frog will jump out. Put a frog in a cool pot of water, heat it by degrees, and you get boiled frog. I use the story to talk about relationships –  ah, there was a connection.

If you enter a new relationship with a boss, lover, friend and that person treats you badly, you will get out, quit, get some distance, fight back, or whatever else you need to do to protect yourself.  This is the same as throwing you or the frog into boiling water – you will both hop out.  However, if your boss, lover, friend starts off being friendly and kind (read cool water for the frog), you may stay for a long time. Certainly you will not imagine that you are going to be boiled.  You will not need to hop away. If behaviors change slowly, you will not immediately react; you will probably adjust. The water of the relationship gets hotter and hotter but you are getting used to it – it happens gradually – so it doesn’t seem like such a big deal.

If your partner suddenly turned to you one day and said, “As of today, you are not allowed to have any more emotions. You are not allowed to think certain ways, and you are not allowed to hold certain beliefs.  Get rid of them. Bury them someplace,” you would react strongly, you would fight.  But, when it happens a tiny bit at a time, you don’t always see it.  You know when someone beats you up and tries to steal your soul but, what if someone asks for a little bit more of you each day?  You might say yes.  You might consider it a compromise; that’s mature.  You don’t see where are headed. Little by little, you are boiled.

Frogs legs, anyone?

Take A Moment To Be Grateful For Your Friends

 

"A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out."~ Walter Winchell

My First Experiences With Acupuncture~From Disbeliever to Passionate Convert

By Sue Shekut, Licensed Massage Therapist, Owner Working Well Massage,  ACSM Personal Trainer, Certified Wellness Coach.

I admit, I was skeptical of Acupuncture at first. I grew up in a very Western medical household and wasn’t sure if it was a legitimate treatment. (My mom was a nurse and my brother is a doctor.) I’d already had good experience with chiropractic though and I was desperate for relief. After spending a few months battling a chronic sinus infection with 8 courses of antibiotics, visiting an ENT doc that did nothing for me (except charge me $250 for a very painful test in which he threaded a long plastic tube down my nose and throat like Arnold in Total Recall), I decided to give acupuncture a try. I was in so much pain I was ready to stand on my head if it made me feel better.

I got a referral from my friend and headed to my first acupuncture session. The doctor I saw was actually a Doctor of Oriental Medicine who had received all her training (including a surgical rotation) in China. She told me that in China, her patients might pay her with a chicken or food they cooked for her. (She was my age and had grown up in some of the poorest times in recent Chinese history.) Even though my Chinese doc had had extensive medical training in China, at this time, she was not recognized as a legit practitioner by the State of Illinois. Luckily for me, that didn’t keep her from helping me.

When she started my first treatment, she told me to keep my eyes closed because she was going to put a bunch of needles in my face and it might freak me out to see them. Some of the needles hurt a little bit going in but nothing like the pain I was experiencing from my sinus pressure! And after a minute or two I didn’t even feel the needles. I admit, I was tempted to open my eyes and see if I looked like Hellraiser. I behaved and after about 30-40 the doc came back and removed the needles. Then she told me to give up dairy and gave me some Chinese herbs to take (I think they were Pe Min Kan Wan aka nose allergy pills.)  After a few sessions and taking the pills, I actually got better. For the first time in months I did not have a sinus infection!

Over time, my new Chinese medicine practitioner got married and closed her practice to travel with her new husband. But I did not stop using Acupuncture and Chinese medicine. I soon found a few other great Chinese medicine practitioners who helped me with pain and overall health concerns.

My only painful experience with acupuncture came when I got stuck in San Francisco due to a blizzard in Chicago. I had a bad head cold and wanted to find some Pe Min Kan Wan. In Chinatown, I wasn’t sure about the safety of the herbs because I’d heard non-U.S. produced herbs may contain harmful metals. So I decided to try acupuncture instead. I went to an Acupuncturist and gave him my history and symptoms. He laid me down on a nice comfy bed and then stuck really large needles in my face and feet. (My U.S. Acupuncturist later told me this is the Chinese Way. Apparently we in the US are wimps!) He attached electrodes to the needles in my feet and applied some current. Now I had had had current applied before and it was no problem. But in this case, my foot literally flow off the table it was such a sharp jolt!  I had him remove the electricity and just lay with the larger needles in my face and feet. As much as the needles hurt, the treatment allows me to recover from my cold and get back to Chicago a few days later head cold-free. My U.S. trained acupuncturist at the time, Frank Scott, later told me that the Chinese tend to use thicker needles. This is a point I will long remember (Bad pun intended.)