Tag: massage

All in your head… Coming down to earth with acupuncture

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I see a lot of clients who just can’t switch off their brains. It’s a modern malaise. Our lives are so full of ‘stuff’: work, relationships, children, friends, world peace… It’s hard to recognise that our feet haven’t touched the ground in a while.

It’s telling that mindfulness is becoming increasingly popular among city dwellers. We all need to stop and experience the moment. And you can’t do that if your mind is not connected to the rest of you.

For some, being in their heads all the time is an escape, others over-think everything or worry obsessively, or find they’re still stressing about work long after they’ve left the office. A busy mind can be pretty exhausting and it may also cause a series of other seemingly unrelated health issues, both physical and psychological. And it’s often these symptoms that bring them to see an acupuncturist.

Another reason to be in your head is when your body is in pain. It’s understandable that people living with chronic conditions shut down from the pain signals their body is experiencing. Clients have described their bodies as feeling numb, or not feeling connected to their bodies at all. When they are in extreme pain, their mind takes over and their bodies simply shut down. They feel stuck. This dissociation can be very damaging, bleeding through into other areas of their lives and into their personal relationships.

So how can Chinese medicine (TCM) help?
Clients can benefit from a range of therapeutic support. Acupuncture is renowned for its ability to reduce chronic pain, but it’s is also wonderful for clearing the head and relaxing the mind. Pain, according to TCM is the result of ‘stagnation’ in the body, and acupuncture is able to get things moving again. TuiNa massage works therapeutically to reduce tension in the muscles and joints and further support healing. A series of treatments allows the client space and time to heal, and a way to reconnect with themselves. Feet firmly on the ground.

 

Read Dan’s story here

Sciatica – a right pain in a**e!

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Sciatica can be a right (or left) pain in the a**e. For those of you who’ve lived with sciatica (as I have), you’ll appreciate just how much.

Sciatica is a common type of pain caused by compression or irritation of the sciatic nerve. Sufferers will usually experience sciatica on one side of the body, in the buttocks and often extending down the back or side of the leg, down to the feet. At it’s worst its a particularly disabling and chronic condition which can vary in intensity from manageable to excruciating.

*Common symptoms of sciatica include:

– Pain in the buttock or leg that is worse when sitting
– Burning or tingling down the leg
– Weakness, numbness, or difficulty moving the leg or foot
– A constant pain on one side of the buttock
– A shooting pain that makes it difficult to stand up

Chronic lower back pain or disc herniation is the most common cause but unfortunately patients will often just be offered pain medication by their doctors, which isn’t a sustainable option.

Acupuncture has a good track record in treating back pain, and along with Tuina medical massage can help to reduce pain and inflammation, and significantly lessen the need for medical intervention or pain killers. Patients will usually experience some immediate relief even after the first treatment with follow up treatments necessary to successfully manage the condition. However the more chronic the problem, the longer it takes to repair.

Many people live with chronic pain and only seek treatment when they’re in crisis. Don’t wait til you can’t get out of bed. Get help and start to feel better fast.

*source: webMD

 

Read Jacki’s story:

https://peachyacupuncture.com/2016/07/25/prolapsed-discs-sciatica-jackis-story/

Treatment focus: Acupuncture and Back Pain

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Most of us will know someone with back pain. It may have affected you personally, or someone you know – and I can tell you that it’s certainly affected me. Depressingly, if you haven’t experienced it yet, the chances are that you will at some point.

The condition affects more than 1.1 million people in the UK, with 95% of patients suffering from problems affecting the lower back. And it costs the NHS and care providers in the over £1b a year.*

There’s no surprise why that is – we spend too long lounging about in front of the telly, work in sedentary jobs and don’t exercise enough. Having said that, my dad had a slight dowagers hump, worked in an office, never exercised and loved watching telly – never had as much as a twinge…

Acupuncture is well known anecdotally as a treatment for back pain. But there’s also a great deal of evidence to support its efficacy. *Research has shown that acupuncture is significantly better than no treatment and at least as good as (if not better than) standard medical care for back pain (Witt 2006; Haake 2007; Cherkin 2009; Sherman 2009a). It appears to be particularly useful as an adjunct to conventional care, for patients with more severe symptoms and for those wishing to avoid analgesic drugs (Sherman 2009a, 2009b; Lewis 2010).

This encouraged NICE to recommend its use within the NHS. Your doctor can refer you for 8-10 acupuncture treatments as a first line treatment for persistent, non-specific low back pain. And that’s got to be a good thing.

It works in numerous ways: *providing pain relief, reducing inflammation, improving muscle stiffness and joint mobility, reducing the need for medication, complementing rehabilitation exercises and over the long-term, and is more cost effective than other treatments.

That’s the ‘science bit’, but it only tells part of the story, because studies will only have used specific acupuncture points in order to standardize their research. Traditional Chinese Medicine doesn’t really work in this way and your acupuncturist may feel that the reason for your back pain may be related to something else – and use other acupuncture points in their treatment.

It’s personalized, and that’s why individual experience will be based on the reason you have lower back pain. Which takes me back to my dad. There are people who are more prone to back pain, in the same way that others may be pre-disposed to stomach problems. What the acupuncturist offers is a genuinely holistic look at you. Not just your back.

  • Source: NICE
  • Source: BACC
  • Sources: Pomeranz 1987; Zhao2008
  • Kim 2008, Kavoussi 2007;Zijlstra 2003
  • Thomas 2006
  • Radcliffe 2006;Witt 2006
  • Ammendolia 2008; Yuan 2008