Happy New Year and welcome to the year of the Dog — major traits of a "Dog" person are loyalty, compatibility, kindness and being responsible. As we enter into a new year we are going to find that these traits are very necessary for the success of the profession.
This medicine will survive in the U.S., the question is — who will deliver it? In my travels around the U.S. I hear so many varied opinions and each person believes that are right. Others do not want to listen or discuss, much less change their opinions.
This reminds me of packs of wild dogs. Some are filled with anger, while others with miscommunicated information — which creates division within the profession. The question is — why is there this issue within our profession? There are many outside entities and forces helping to push this medicine forward. And at this time it is especially important that we find common ground and work together.
Just recently in the state of California, the existing condition of multiple state associations and memberships came to attention of state legislator, Evan Low. This lead him to call for meetings in both Southern and Northern California, where he met with members and asked why there are so many associations? He stated that these groups need to come to the legislators with one voice — suggesting there needs to be unity within the profession to create one voice and message.
If this does not happen how will the state legislators know who to listen to? This could result in them not listening to anybody. He shared that other professions have one voice with a clear objective — acupuncturists being the only splintered profession. Whether it is local, state or national elected officials receiving different messages for the same profession they tend to stop listening, which accomplishes nothing.
So if you want to help you can do so by participating in these discussions and joining a group of concerned acupuncturists. Unity is important in California and every state across the U.S., especially when we speak to Congress, veterans, Medicare and more. Please start thinking about this and let your actions create strength in unity. This will allow us to create national standards for our profession, so this medicine can move forward and take its rightful place within the health care system.
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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