EXPERT
Jeff Rippey
Acupuncturist
- Saint Joseph, MO
- Colorado School of Traditional Chinese Medicine
- Accepting new patients
Why It's Hard To Tell Patients Where Needles Might Be Placed
I've been answering questions on this site for a couple of years now. There's been a recent trend towards acupressure questions which I addressed in my first blog post. Generally,...
Why It's Difficult to Answer Acupressure/Pressure Point Questions
As part of this site, patients have the capability of asking questions of practitioners and subject matter experts. Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of questions that take the...
What helps with chronic knee joint pain?
Chronic pain rarely "just happens". There's a history to what's going on, and without that information there's not a lot I can offer in terms of potential solutions.
If you haven't done so already, get with your primary care provider and at least get an x-ray. We won't be able to see soft tissue on an x-ray, but sometimes we can make educated inferences based on what we can see. Knowing what's going on in the joint will help figure out the best course of treatment.
Can hypertension be fixed with diet changes?
You could try eating magnesium rich foods or adding a magnesium supplement to see if that brings your blood pressure down enough.
Chinese medicine and acupuncture have a pretty good track record with hypertension. In the Chinese system, there are multiple different potential causes so you'd need to see someone who understands that and knows how to differentiate the diagnosis to get you the most effective treatment. In other words, a chiropractor or a physical therapist are likely not going to be much help. You need someone who attended and graduated from a school of Chinese medicine and is licensed as an acupuncturist.
Balancing QI
Most modern western interpretations of the Chinese character we pronounce as "qi" are fundamentally flawed/inaccurate. It's a term/idea/understanding that we probably should have adopted rather than attempted to translate.
That being said, if you're not experiencing any residual pain and there's no infection at the removal site, there's little call to do anything from a treatment perspective.
Can chronic knee pain be fixed?
Your first stop should be your primary care provider for at least an x-ray of the joint. Having some understanding of what the problem is will help to level set expectations about possible treatment outcomes.
Allergy
If this is something along the lines of seasonal allergies, acupuncture and Chinese medicine can often help. In time, seasonal allergy can often be reduced to the point that it's not a major life event. I used acupuncture and herbal medicine to manage my seasonal allergy and it took 2 years to get them to the point that I don't notice the season change.
If this is a food allergy, acupuncture can still help. For a time you will need to avoid the food item or items that are causing the issue.
If this is some other allergic type reaction, I'd need a lot more information.
Carpal tunnel
Miscarriage or periods
Your images could be clotted blood, could be pieces of placenta.
Pain during acupuncture
I have a few guesses here:
1. Your patient has a severe allergy to surgical stainless steel.
2. Your patient has been in chronic pain long enough that he has become centrally sensitized and his brain is now interpreting most signals as pain signals.
3. The acupuncturist is needling too deeply and/or has one track they use to treat issues like this and can't think outside the box enough to come up with another way that fits this patient better.
As far as the herbs go - it's very easy to miss on a Chinese diagnosis and get the wrong herbal formula. Most folks see "inflammation", think "heat" and go for heat clearing herbs. Sometimes this is the case, and sometimes it's a lot more complicated than that.
I'd have to see/evaluate the patient to give any more/better advice in this case. My best suggestion would be to see if you can find an acupuncturist who practices either Tung/Tan or has more of an ortho/sports medicine focus. You need someone who can either treat the painful area without needling in the painful area or someone who can address specific structure in the painful area with a high degree of accuracy. Unfortunately, most acupuncturists practice so-called "TCM" acupuncture and this leaves them limited when local needles either don't solve the problem, cause more problems, or both.
What medications help with allergic rhinitis?
Can fatty liver be fixed?
The liver is unique among organs in that, if enough of it is healthy, it can regenerate to a degree. I've worked with several NAFLD (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease) patients and, assuming we can get the diet under control, there is almost always some progress that can be made. A complete fix, in certain circumstances, is unrealistic.
Can ankle sprain be fixed with exercises?
Can nausea be prevented?
1. Over the counter anti-nausea pills like Dramamine can help if the nausea isn't too severe. Dramamine can cause drowsiness, so keep that in mind.
2. Prescription anti-nausea like meclizine or scopolamine can also be effective. Some of these medications also have a tendency to cause drowsiness.
3. Acupuncture has a pretty good track record managing nausea. You'd want to try to get a treatment immediately before flying which is sometimes impractical.
4. Most pharmacies in the US sell a product called "Sea Bands". These go on the wrists and look like the old 70s-80s sweat bands. They have a small plastic protrusion on the inside that places pressure on a wrist point often used in acupuncture for the treatment of nausea. For some folks this is enough to get them through their trip.
Can an ear infection be fixed without medications?
Can insomnia be fixed?
The only way to figure out which bucket you're in (resolution vs maintenance) is to try treatment and see where you end up.
How can I prevent panic attacks when flying?
If you have day-to-day anxiety, getting treatment for that will lower your overall anxiety levels and should result in lowered anxiety around flying. Therapy, Chinese medicine, conventional prescription medication can all help to improve this situation.
If you are relatively anxiety free except when flying then you're probably looking at some combination of therapy and conventional prescription meds to manage things when you need to travel by air.
Can obesity be reversed?
The first thing I'd do is get with your primary care provider and get a full workup. At the same time you should get their opinion on exercise - whether or not you'd be clear to engage in some level of activity.
The next thing you need to do is adjust your diet. More than half of any weight loss is going to be diet driven - it is virtually impossible to out exercise a poor eating plan.
Different people do better or worse on different eating plans. There are a variety of ways you can approach this: vegetarian/vegan, keto, paleo, mediterranean, intermittent fasting. You're going to need to research these and try a few in order to see what works best for you and your situation. When I say try, I mean you're going to need to be serious about that eating style for at least 90 days.
There are meds on the market which can help. The GLP-1 receptor agonists (ozempic, trulicity, etc.) have been shown to help people eat less and lose weight. These meds have potential side-effects and it would be up to your primary care provider to decide whether or not they're appropriate for you.
If you're clear for exercise, start exercising. Walking, even short distances, consistently will help. Any sort of weight-bearing exercise will help to build muscle which will increase your overall metabolic rate. Look for low impact initially and ramp things up as the weight starts to come off.
Many people who struggle with weight have issues around food. Sometimes they grew up in a food insecure environment, sometimes they use food as a band-aid for other psychological injuries. Getting some therapy is often very beneficial for understanding why a person has certain behaviors around food, and therapy can help to change those behaviors.
Here's, at least in my opinion, the most important thing: you are going to fail and you're going to backslide. You have to be able to pick yourself up, realize what you were doing wasn't working, and try again. Obesity isn't going to be corrected in a few months; it's likely going to take you a year or two to get the weight off in a healthy way.
What helps with both anxiety and depression?
I generally recommend most folks start with therapy and Chinese medicine. If that's not providing enough relief, then adding prescription medications is often necessary.
Can hemorrhoids be fixed in a natural way?
Can chronic headaches go away?
After that, you have a variety of options.
Lifestyle can be a player in headache - repetitive motions, high stress situations, exposure to chemicals can all potentially cause chronic headache. Reducing/managing/eliminating these causes can sometimes have a big effect on headache.
Massage can help, especially if the headache is stress based.
Physical therapy can help if the headache is related to posture or repetitive motion.
Acupuncture and Chinese medicine can help with just about any headache cause.
Prescription medication can help.
Is insomnia serious?
There are a variety of potential treatments. Lifestyle and "sleep hygiene" changes, over the counter sleep aids, prescription sleep aids, acupuncture and Chinese medicine, or some combination of all the above.