Lisa Conboy has conducted health research and taught research methodology to students of sociology, biomedicine and complementary medicine for over 30 years. With degrees in public health and sociology, she specializes in the study of traditional and complex health systems. She is published in the areas of women’s health, complementary and alternative kedicine, qualitative research methodology, and complexity science. An Instructor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, she is also the Director of Research and Special Projects at Seattle Institute of East Asian Medicine.; and chair of the Research Committee of the American Society of Acupuncturists.
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.