At the top of the front page of the printed version of this issue, every licensed acupuncturist and doctor of Oriental medicine in the United States has been issued a unique personal user identification tag (ID) and password that allows access to certain areas of acupuncturetoday.com.* While the immediate benefit of these features will be the topic of discussion in chat rooms and online forums across the Internet for some time, the use of a user ID/password system opens up a world of opportunities for the profession and for acupuncturetoday.com.
In the next few months, you will be treated to features not usually available on most acupuncture sites. For example, the user ID/password system will be a key component to the eClassifieds, an electronic version of classified advertising that will let users post information on practices for sale; practices wanted; job opportunities; and other items.
Additional services will be added on an ongoing basis. Among the features being considered:
Acupuncturetoday.com's team of Web designers is also in the process of redesigning the site so that users can take full advantage of all the benefits a user ID/password system offers. Be sure to write down your used ID and password as it appears at the top of the front page of this issue, and keep that information in a secure place. Also make sure to visit acupuncturetoday.com, and to keep reading this column for continuing updates.
* Acupuncture students will be able to access these features once they are licensed.
Chronic pain afflicts over 20% of the adult population. Sadly, most MDs have essentially no education in treating pain, beyond offering a few toxic medications. Then they tend to steer people with pain away from those health practitioners who are trained. This puts the acupuncture community on the front lines for addressing this epidemic.
When the body is going through a stressful event, the sympathetic system is activated. This activation will help the body with a life-threatening situation. If this state is activated for prolonged periods of time, it starts to consume energy. These traumatic events that generate stressors in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) will eventually become internalized.
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One of the things that makes acupuncture so difficult to measure is that the medicine actually does contain some esoteric aspects. There have been numerous studies that demonstrate the neurochemical reasoning behind why acupuncture points stimulate the autonomic nervous system to enact change However, not all the benefits of TCM can easily be measured by randomized, controlled trials. But does that make them fundamentally and definitively untrue?
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