The Acupuncture Poll question for October 2004 was:
How many patients do you refer out to medical doctors or chiropractors each month?
Results:
These results are based upon 230 responses. As this is a voluntary, non-scientific survey, caution should be used in generalizing the results. Here is a sample of the comments made by those who took the survey and how they voted. Some comments have been edited for brevity.
Between 6 and 10: I get more referrals back from medical doctors and osteopaths as well as chiropractors - 13 this month so far.
Between 6 and 10: I typically get more referrals from chiropractors or medical doctors, since most of my patients have already tried anything else besides Oriental medicine first.
Less than 5: I don't refer many people to medical doctors. However, I frequently make referrals to a specific chiropractors who has a physical therapy orientation; also, to a psychologist I like, and to other acupuncturists with specific specialties.
To vote in the current Acupuncture Poll, or to review comments and responses to previous poll questions, visit www.acupuncturetoday.com/acupuncturepoll.
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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