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As an acupuncturist, a professor, and someone who has benefited from acupuncture and Chinese medicine personally, I am deeply motivated to advance the integration of acupuncture and Chinese medicine and allopathic medicine in the United States.

If you’ve ever wondered why you cry when you get angry sometimes, or why and how we get depressed, the element cycles have the most elegant way of helping us understand. Grief is a powerful emotion, and it’s arguably the most painful emotion, the cause of much of our experiences…

Have you been keeping up? In my June article, I dove into introductions (think a 30-second “elevator pitch”) and then in August I expanded on that, knowing that you all would have compelling introductions which would get people to ask for more information. Since August was all about storytelling, now…

The most common and expensive HIPAA violations involve three critical areas: failure to perform a data security risk analysis; failure to sign a HIPAA-compliant business associate agreement (BAA); and improper disclosures of protected health information (PHI). Acupuncturists can easily avoid making these mistakes by understanding what is required and following…

In the first two parts of this series, I talked about how we can be mindful of the ebb and flow of the grieving process, and help our patients work through the pain of grief and absorb and anchor the love and tenderness that can follow in its wake. We…

Using points for their spiritual connotations is key to resolving illness at the mental or spirit levels. Each of the acupuncture points has a name, translated from the Chinese characters, which offers insight into the unique spiritual gifts the point offers. When we are internally quiet, curious and fully present…

One of my favorite characteristics of both Chinese medicine and acupuncture is their ability to become catalysts for deep, transformational healing. It is not uncommon to see photos in magazines or online featuring a patient covered in 10-15 needles; or a massive wall of bottled herbs used to create a…

“Should Acupuncture-Related Therapies Be Considered in Prediabetes Control?” That’s the title of a new meta-analysis of 31 randomized, controlled trials involving 3,000-plus patients; results of the analysis, published in the July/August issue of Holistic Nursing Practice, offers evidence that acupuncturists can help mitigate the evolving epidemic of type 2 diabetes.

Post-COVID syndrome, often referred to as “long COVID,” encompasses a constellation of potential symptoms experienced by patients four weeks or longer following infection with SARS COV-2. In terms of prevalence, the Mayo Clinic states: “Research suggests that between one month and one year after having COVID-19, 1 in 5 people…

According to the Sleep Foundation, insomnia is the most common sleep issue in adult depressed patients, affecting an estimated 75 percent. New research suggests electroacupuncture and standard medical care (guided by psychiatrists) is more effective than standard care alone or sham acupuncture with standard care in improving both conditions.

The Whole Circle went live on 1/1/06, but the design began when some were still using dial-up to get on the web. Bandwidth was a crucial issue and compressed mp3 audio downloads were the most universally-accessible way to reach a wide audience. Well, the world has moved on and many…

Western medicine identifies three healing phases, namely inflammation, proliferation and remodeling, for sports injuries great and small. When these three phases proceed naturally, healing progresses quickly. When healing is disrupted, problems arise: poor circulation of blood and lymph, as well as chronic pain and its associated disability.

As a clinical research director for numerous clinics, I am asked to consult in some very interesting cases. A recent patient was a runner – and not just any runner; she was a former Olympic runner. After a thorough case history and examination, our working diagnosis was chronic mid-portion Achilles…

The power of grief is the power of opening to the depth of the present moment and feel both its pain and its love and tenderness. Grieving is one of the strongest opportunities to feel the texture and touch of the ground of being that we are. That ground is…

As a registered nurse and an acupuncture student, I know all health care professionals share a goal of providing relief for patients’ chronic pain. I also know that as a nurse, I do not have nonpharmacological tools to achieve that goal. It wasn’t until I worked alongside qualified acupuncturists that…

The Lyme disease spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb), is one of the most sophisticated bacterium with 853 genes that encode a variety of bacterial proteins for their complexed cellular structure. These proteins can trigger a broad-spectrum immune response which damages multiple organs.

In the Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC), Chinese medical physicians performed mei rong (“beautiful appearance”) acupuncture and herbal medical treatments on the empresses’ and emperors’ concubines to enhance natural radiance, maintain a youthful and lustrous appearance, and delay signs of aging. In 2014, an NCCAOM survey, “Acupuncture Facial Rejuvenation Certification Needs…

Question: I am typically paid by insurance with no problems and most often code lower back pain. However, I have had a slew of denials recently, with the denial indicating my diagnosis is incorrectly coded per the ICD-10 guidelines. What should I do?

The basis for Chinese medicine is embedded in its theory. In fact, the treatment is the diagnosis (e.g., spleen qi deficiency), and the diagnosis is essentially all our fundamental theory strung together to create a pattern.

Since 2020, the world has been gripped by a pandemic generated by a flu-like virus. Management of this crisis has been fraught with controversy and some degree of hysteria. However, treatment resources have been largely ignored in favor of a vaccination policy. Several treatment options have been suggested by medical…