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Working as part of the sports-medicine team with USA Volleyball, I’ve learned that the key to managing potential and current chronic overuse conditions is to biomechanically anticipate strengths and weaknesses due to compensation patterns from continual practice, game schedules and traveling year round. Many of these athletes play overseas on…

Recently, I was interviewed by Cosmetic Surgery Magazine for an article on the merits of facial acupuncture versus Botox. While the article was perhaps, a little surprisingly, even-handed in its treatment of facial acupuncture (even going so far as to include a series of three before-and-after photos taken over a…

Ju hua cha (chrysanthemum flower tea/ Flos chrysanthemi ) commonly is consumed in main-land China almost as much as green tea, and especially during the summer months, due to both the medicinal effects, along with an excellent taste!

We came home from a teaching trip in Great Britain and found two e-mails posted on the same day. One was an inquiry from an oil contractor who wrote: “Do you know of anyone practicing dry-needle therapy in the Houston/Galveston, Texas area? I have had great results from treatment I…

The patient is a 28-year-old female, single and employed as a wardrobe consultant in the live entertainment industry. In her initial examination, employing the diagnostic criteria of odor, color, sound and emotion, she emitted a scorched odor; expressed a lack of red color, and ashen-gray skin tone lateral to her…

Most people would not think to ask this question because they would never believe an answer exists. Take my client Mark, a practical, solid fellow in his 40s. He is a fourth-generation stone mason who runs his family’s construction business. He’s the kind of man who values a solid foundation,…

I am going to start off my new column with a subject that is near and dear to my heart: fertility and menstruation. Today, many women are delaying childbirth into their 30s and early 40s. We are now generally filling our 20s with career-building or fun, and waiting until we…

The 2007 Annual Conference of the Society for Acupuncture Research will be held at the University of Maryland in Baltimore November 8-11. The Status and Future of Acupuncture Research: 10 Years Post-NIH Consensus Conference will mark a decade of research since the November 1997 landmark report put out by a…

This simple question is at the heart of health care, yet modern scientific medicine fails to explore it beyond the mechanics of how to control symptoms. The effectiveness of both Western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) are often measured by their ability to control symptomatic expression. Patients want to…

I recently had the privilege to be on the presenting faculty of the annual conference for integrative medicine for health care organizations. The theme was “Toward Creating Optimal Healing Environments.” This presented a unique opportunity to interface with other medical providers from all other medical professions, as well as the…

The latest incarnation of the Federal Acupuncture Coverage Act (H.R.1479) is in the process of wending its way through the House of Representatives, after having been introduced to the current congressional session on March 12, 2007. The bill, known as the Hinchey Bill for its sponsor, Maurice Hinchey (D-NY-22), would…

I am an acupuncture patient. For more than two years, I have found relief from a chronic medical condition through an acupuncturist’s skillful placement of needles. I also am an archivist. I manage a 3,500-linear-foot collection of historic manuscripts and institutional records at a public university in Wisconsin. One would…

The Minnesota College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (MCAOM) at Northwestern Health Sciences University, in collaboration with the Woodwinds Health Campus, is offering a one-year postgraduate, paid fellowship opportunity. Launched in November 2006, the fellowship provides a licensed acupuncturist with postgraduate experience in a hospital setting.

The comment period for a set of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) draft guidelines to regulate complementary and alternative medicines will come to an end on May 29, 2007. The final version is intended to serve as a guideline for whether CAM products are subject to regulation under the…

As of February 1, the unification of the AAOM and AOM Alliance became official. And with Dr. Will Morris leaving his position as AAOM president and becoming the recent president emeritus, I officially left my positions as president and director of the AAOM. The newer organization, the AAAOM, now begins…

Early last year, I visited Shanghai and contacted my old friend Zhou Luwei, professor of physics at Fudan University. I knew him when he was chairman of the physics department, but he recently was promoted to the vice president in charge of all research activities at the university. I was…

Qigong practice is on the rise here in the U.S. and has the potential to soon be as popular as yoga. Qigong literally means “energy practice.” The theory behind qigong is that the imbalance of mind, body and spirit is behind all physical and emotional disease. The practice of medical…

In my previous two columns, I explored ways to potentially integrate Chinese and Western medicine in the treatment of respiratory issues. I would like to finish our discussion on respiratory issues by introducing treatment methods from the Indian medical system, including ayurveda and its sister science, yoga. Both of these…

There is a rapidly growing trend among American acupuncturists of offering various forms of facial rejuvenation as a service in their practices. This is in response to a massive demand for anti-aging, rejuvenation services from the baby boomer generation, which spends billions of dollars each year (and growing) in pursuit…