The Small Business Association’s Vermont district office recently announced the Vermont Small Business Person of the Year for 2024: Dr. Kerry Boyle, a doctor of acupuncture and the owner of Integrative Acupuncture in Montpelier, Vt. She is also the founder of Chi Chi Wellness, “a chocolate company that infuses Chinese herbal medicine into organic chocolate bars.”
“We congratulate Dr. Kerry Boyle on her award,” said Darcy Carter, district director of the Vermont SBA office, in a release announcing the 2024 recipient. “Dr. Kerry sees an opportunity in every day to make her vision a reality and to make a difference in the world. Through her several businesses, she seeks to improve the health and happiness of Vermonters. She truly enjoys the challenge of building a new business and is an inspiration to others seeking entrepreneurship.”
Dr. Boyle graduated from Bastyr University with a master’s in acupuncture in 2003 and later completed a doctorate in acupuncture from Pacific College of Health and Science.
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.
Research supports the effectiveness of selecting the distal acupuncture points for the treatment of microtrauma and for relieving pain, particularly in cases of chronic shoulder pain. But to make the treatment results long-lasting, clinical experience and research suggest that instead of treating the most painful structure first, we identify the inhibited driver, restore reliable recruitment, confirm it with immediate re-testing, and only then address the painful area as a branch of a deeper pattern.
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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.