Dr. Judyth Shamosh has been a continual student of herbal medicine since 1974. The founder of Greenfingers Herbal Medicine Clinic in Phoenix, Ariz., she practices ayurvedic, classical Chinese and Western herbal medicine. Dr. Judyth is the author of the double-award-winning book The Physics & Poetry of Eastern Herbal Medicine. Her considerable professional experience includes previous service as a lecturer of ayurvedic and classical Chinese herbal medicine at the Phoenix Institute for Herbal Medicine & Acupuncture; vice chair at RainStar University College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine; adjunct faculty at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine; and member of the credentialing committee for the Arizona Center for Health and Medicine. Learn more at www.JudythShamosh.com.
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.