Dr. Tom Ingegno has been a licensed acupuncturist since 2001. He is the best-selling author of The Cupping Book: Unlocking the Secrets of Ancient Healing; and owns and operates Charm City Integrative Health, a multifaceted clinic NYT bestseller and futurist David Houle called the “Future of Medicine.” Dr. Tom also has taught at two universities of East Asian medicine and served as chair of the Maryland Board of Acupuncture and VP of Public Affairs for the Maryland Acupuncture Society. He has been featured in both consumer and professional media, spreading his message of health using modern research, traditional practices, and humor to make complex theories and treatments understandable.
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.