Lisa Rohleder, LAc, is one of the cofounders of Working Class Acupuncture and of the Community Acupuncture Network. She is also the author of The Remedy: Integrating Acupuncture into American Healthcare. Readers who are interested in social entrepreneurship and community acupuncture can get more information from her book and by visiting the Community Acupuncture Network at www.communityacupuncturenetwork.org.
Structured water (H3O2) can be considered a fourth state of water between liquid and solid. It has the hexagonal structure of ice; however, missing a critical bond, it behaves more like a gel than a solid, but retains some of its crystalline structure.
In the past five years of my clinical practice, I have seen an astonishing upsurge in the chronic use of proton-pump inhibitor (PPI) medications for the gastrointestinal issue diagnosed by allopathic medicine as GERD. It is not uncommon to encounter patients taking these prescriptions for five-plus years.
Working with chronically ill patients entails acknowledging the reality that not all patients will survive their diagnosis. Chinese medicine and acupuncture play a crucial role in palliative and end-of-life care, addressing medication and disease side effects, alleviating pain associated with death, reducing anxiety and stress, and helping patients find peace during the dying process.
