Qi Detective Work
I was delighted to read Dr. Andrew Rader's article about cell phones in the October issue of Acupuncture Today. As a licensed acupuncturist, massage therapist and feng shui practitioner, I also consider the client's environment. I am concerned about the electromagnetic influences that can have a toll on the qi of the client. I call this "detective work." Here are some questions I may ask if there is insomnia or allergies:
As a practitioner of kinesiology, I use my skills to discover probable causes of the client's symptoms. In addition, I will test the cell phone to determine its energetic influence. Living in proximity to cell towers, radio towers and even refrigerators or water beds can influence the qi of the room, home and health of the client.
Maxine Shapiro
Via e-mail
Fertility acupuncture sometimes gets presented as a narrow protocol: a handful of reproductive points applied uniformly across patients. What this case reinforced for me: The most powerful work happens when we read the whole picture. The hormone data, the constitutional tendency, the sleep, the digestion, and the menstrual pattern, so we can treat the environment the ovaries live inside.
Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) affects more than 15% of the U.S. population but evades most practitioners’ radar. Just five years ago, it wasn’t even on my radar, despite already having 20 years of experience as a clinician at that time. The more I dug (similar to leaky gut and post-COVID syndrome), the more I found my patients were suffering from this disorder.
The motivation behind our practice of medicine is important, impacting not just our experience but also the experiences of those we treat. It is perhaps for this reason that the aspiration to help not just some, but all beings heal, has historically been an important part of the medical tradition. To explain this, we need to consider how medicine is interwoven with other social domains.