The Spice Doc: Food Noise : the Diet Post

The Spice Doc: Food Noise : the Diet Post

Yes, you CAN cure the common cold. And don't you forget it.

   If you or a loved one are prone to colds and flu and respiratory allergies, a really useful concept to get a grasp on is the way the Chinese look at contagious respiratory illnesses.  It is really much more complicated than what I am about to tell you - entire books have been written on "external pathogenic invasions" but in a nutshell:
   There are two temperatures of pathogens (viruses, bacteria, pollen, extremes of temperature, etc)  that invade the respiratory tract: hot and cold.  TCM calls these pathogens Wind Heat or Wind Cold, as they seem to enter "on the wind".
   When someone first contracts a wind cold, the  pathogen causes any combination of the following: a headache in the back of your head/neck, sneezing, a CLEAR runny nose, a cough with thin, watery mucus, body aches, simultaneous fever and chills with CHILLS more predominant,  and NO sweating.
If you have a sore throat, it is mild.
   In contrast, wind heat pathogens cause feverish feelings or true fever, sweating, sore, dry or scratchy throat, headache (usually frontal) thirst, cough with thick or sticky yellow mucus, and thick and yellow or green nasal discharge.
   Lots of people pop Echinacea at the first sign of a cold or flu, and sometimes it works, yet other times it doesn't.  Why does it work sometimes and not others?  Because Echinacea is a cooling herb.    So which type of pathogen do you think it would effectively treat?  That's right, a wind heat invasion.  It cools down a wind heat invasion and makes it more difficult for the pathogen to multiply.  If you take Echinacea when you have  a wind cold,  not only will it not help, but it could make your illness worse.
Use Echinacea only for signs of wind heat.
   For a wind-cold, cut about 2 inches of raw ginger into medallions about as thick as a quarter and put them into a quart of  water.  Boil and steep for 20 minutes.  Pour this ginger water into a tub of hot water and get yourself into the tub.  Soak until you work up a good sweat, and then soak some more. ( You can even bundle up really warm  and make yourself continue to sweat in bed, too if you can stand it. )  Ginger is very warm, so its good for wind cold invasions.  Wind colds tend to slam the pores shut, so you don't sweat, and you are therefore unable to "sweat it out."  Ginger effectively remedies this problem.
   So next time you feel that familiar scratchy throat, or those body aches, pay specific attention to those symptoms, and treat accordingly.
   And in case you don't know it, acupuncture can also help your body get rid of the bug.   Acupuncture and herbs was the only form of medicine in China for thousands of years, so they had plenty of time to figure that one out!
   That is it for now.  Tomorrow is another day.  Enter it well.

Phlegm Misting the Orifices (or PMO, as I call it)

   My brother thought that the concept of "Phlegm Misting the Orifices" (or "PMO" if you are like me and gravitate towards acronyms) was really good fodder for jokes.  I told him that people with PMO often have a "slippery left distal" and that "their windows of perception are muddy" and that set off a big round of guffaws.  I admit, it is pretty hilarious to throw the term around when people act flat-out crazy.  We used it to describe a couple of the residents in my Dad's neighborhood in a retirement village in Ocala, Florida, and actually, it really, really describes a cousin of mine...... she is as PMO as they come.  

   But what does PMO mean?  Well, if you have Phlegm misting the orifices...  your windows of perception are muddy.  Like everything else in Chinese medicine, your windows of perception can be physical or emotional.  If your physical windows of perception are muddy, you might be deaf.  You aren't perceiving sounds the right way. You might be blind.  You aren't perceiving sights the right way.  You might have Alzheimer's disease, and can't perceive what happened ten minutes ago. 

 

   If your emotional orifices are muddy, you don't process the emotional reality of what is going on around you. Maybe your spouse is staying out all night,  comes home smelling of cologne that isn't yours, yells out a name that  yours in the middle of sex... and you are blind to the fact that he or she is cheating on you.  Or maybe your drug-crazed child steals hundreds of thousands of dollars from your father on his deathbed, yet you continue to see her as "a good girl." Or maybe you just talk and talk and talk for 45 minutes to your friend on the phone, and then tell her how very much you enjoyed the conversation, and it never registers with you that she said just  "hello." and "good-bye" and you said absolutely everything in between.  Maybe you are just black-out drunk - in which case you are both physically and emotionally PMO.  No matter which way the ball bounces, you aren't picking up on physical or emotional cues going on around you.

   So what brings me to this topic tonight?  I think it had a lot to do with the way the day went.  I decided long ago that there is phlegm misting the orifices of the collective unconscious in America, and it was totally reinforced today when I tried to pick up my Dad's prescriptions at the pharmacy.

First, there was a (thankfully) short period of time when we thought he no longer had prescription drug coverage.  For someone who takes 17 prescription drugs a day, one of which is Plavix, two more of which are insulins,  this would have bankrupt him by the end of April, if not by the end of the week.  (Turns out he IS covered, so we only need to worry about bankrupting Medicare, instead.)  Secondly, I picked up a prescription for some kind of solution that was supposed to help his amputated toe wound heal.  $83.  Turns out it is a mild bleach solution -  had I known in advance, I could've mixed the same thing up for 83 cents.  Thirdly, everyone I told this story to just clucked.  No outrage, no desire to go to the picket lines, no boycotting the pharmaceutical companies, nothing.  Just clucks.  Cluck, cluck, cluck.

Clear Phlegm America!  Wipe clean the windows of perception!

  .  Our problem in America, is not that people don't have insurance.  It is that :

#1: Without insurance, you cannot afford western medication.  It shouldn't cost a month's wages to treat a case of strep throat. 

#2. People will dicker and bargain for days over the price of a car, but never even ask the price of a knee replacement.  The fact that someone else pays for our medical treatment eliminates the very best benefits  of capitalism  from our health care system. 

#3: There are very few pharmaceutical medications that you should have to take "for the rest of your life".  Yet the statistics on medications that people take every day with no exit strategy in sight are staggering, and nobody thinks twice about it!!! 

     When I was put on blood pressure medication 12 years ago, it was with no exit strategy in sight.  I questioned my doctor about it and he looked at me as if I had three heads.  "How long should I take this?" I asked.   "Forever." I was told.  Well, do the math.  I was 38 at the time.  If I died at the young age of 72, at a copay of $30/month - $360 per year - that is $11,520 over a lifetime in medication alone.  Not counting the doctor visits to renew the prescription, the $$$$ out of pocket I had to pay for investigative studies when the beta-blockers I was taking  caused a heart arrhythmia........  Criminy.  

So, here we are, with poor Daddy, taking 17 medications for the rest of his life.  Who knows if it was actually the diabetes that led to all of this, or if a lot of his problems aren't drug-related..... once you mix three or more pharmaceuticals, there is no way to know how they interact with each other.  But in the eyes of a lot of  Americans, that is all right - no cause for concern, as long as someone else PAYS the BILLS - because there is a rampant case of drug-induced PMO going on right now..... 

Bye for now. 

    

   

Pain Management Article in Time Magazine

So.... This morning, I was perusing a March issue of Time Magazine and the article on Pain Management in it.  I was absolutely horrified by the article on herbal therapies.  The article mentioned that the only herbal remedy found to be effective for pain management was Thunder God Vine.  I absolutely feel the need to get on my soapbox about this article and this reference to Thunder God Vine.

First of all, Thunder God Vine (AKA Lei Gong Teng, or Tripterygii wilfordii radix) is listed in the Chinese Herbal Medicine Materia Medica as being "very toxic with many side effects."  I surely hope a lot of people who read this article are not actively searching out Thunder God Vine and I hope if they find it, responsible sales people won't sell it to them.  Our Materia Medica does not recommend its use because of the toxicity and low benefit-to-harm ratio. If one does choose to use it, the two bark layers must be removed and it must be cooked for at least three hours to reduce its toxicity.

Herbalists in the US would be wise to pay attention to the chinese way of prescribing herbs: Chinese herbs are most often prescribed in combinations, or formulas, that combine herbs in ways that minimize toxicity and synergistically maximize treatment effects.  The classical  Chinese herbal formulas in our  Formulary have been used for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years, with minimal or no side effects.

So there is a huge disparity between western research on chinese herbs and the way they are actually used by chinese medical practitioners.  What good does it even do to perform research on gingko as a single herb, and claim that  research shows it is ineffective, when it isn't meant to be used as a single herb in the first place?

I have a dream that one day somebody will have the money and the desire to research the effects of Chinese herbal formulas, instead of single herbs.  But I doubt that dream will be realized in my lifetime, since, in comparison to pharmaceuticals,  there is no real money to be made on herbal formulas.   Can't be patented, don't you know?  What a pity that so much of our health care system is based on what can make somebody rich, instead of what can make somebody well.

Okay, need to go clean my house so I am down off my soapbox for now.  I don't imagine I will stay there long.   I think I have a lot of social activism in me.

CELEBRATE!

Well, I was so busy celebrating that I almost forgot to post today with the good news!  I am now officially a licensed acupuncturist in the state of Georgia (and I will say there has been LESS than 300 acupuncturists licensed here, if you can believe it.)
Yes.  I picked that puppy up from downtown today in the midst of gale force winds.  Sunny, warm skies, but gale force winds.  I hear there's bad weather coming in.... guess Hell's mad that it wasn't able to deter me from this goal.
So many people have helped me.  So many people have offered up so much support in so many ways.  I can never thank you enough.  I would name you all by name but the list is endless.
My first patient as a licensed acupuncturist was my Dad!  How special is that?   He is my biggest fan and I am his.
So tonight, I feel very grateful and fortunate and lucky and happy to be alive!

Sunday Night Can't Sleep Musings

   My friend Angie Middleton just put up her website.  It is so fresh and clean and honest and beautiful, just like Angie is.  The website really matches her personality!  Her business is Angie's Acupuncture and it's in Gainesville, Florida.  Her domain name made me laugh... when we were students, her husband always told her she should name her business "Needle me, Angie!" and that is what she chose to use for her domain.  I think it is very clever and catchy.  In any case, Angie will give you a really extraordinary treatment if you go to her....she is wonderful in every way.
    Mark spent the day working on shelves and tables for my clinic.  What a help he is!  He has become quite the craftsman!  They are great and I am lucky that he is as excited about my business as I am.   Today, he picked up our first piece of store-bought furniture ... a desk to use for pulse-taking.  It is pretty funky and cool and I really love it!  It matches well with the furniture he has made.
   Things are moving right along and I guess they better be because opening day is not that far off!  I ordered business cards today, and some magnets, and a couple of t-shirts just to see how the quality of the t-shirts are with vista print.  Ordering the business cards was quite the job for someone who is as technologically challenged as I am.  I went on a supply-buying mission to Fayetteville and I won't be doing that often without other chores to do in that direction with gas at $4 a gallon.  I shouldn't have worked at all today, although I enjoyed what I did.  I told myself that Sundays would be as they should... a day of rest.  But I didn't rest.  And now I can't sleep.  Augh!  So I play with photo booth!

two heads are better than one

T

How Acupuncture First Got its Name

There is some significance to the name Acupuncture First .....a  bit of  a story behind it, I guess you’d say.   As a student,  I was observing a master acupuncturist at a clinic one time when a weekend warrior with a bum knee came in for treatment.  He told me that he had torn up his shoulder several years ago.  He’d gone to the doctor and all kinds of  therapy with no success.  Finally he tried acupuncture.  In his words,  “Acupuncture fixed me right up!"  He then proceeded to tell me a similar story about his elbow. He wasted tons  of money and lots of time in pain running around from one person to the next with no relief.  He finally ended up in Louise's office one more time and again  she "fixed me right up!"  The time I met him  he was in for his knee, and it was a three-peat of the other two times.... once again, the acupuncturist was his last resort.  It was surprising to me, because he seemed like an intelligent man and had many accomplishments to his credit, not a slow learner at all.   Finally I said to him,  "It sounds to me like  if you have another injury, you might just want to try Acupuncture First!"  And that is the story of how my clinic got its name.

Acupuncture is Coming Soon to the Southside!!!

Yay!  I am crossing my fingers, hoping that very soon (like, as in this Friday, April 1) I will officially have my  license to practice in the fair state of Georgia and can seriously work on  getting my clinic up and running!  For those of you that don't know, I am planning on opening a neighborhood-style  acupuncture clinic inside the Newnan School of Gymnastics.  (Thanks to Cricket and Kathy for that!)  It will be in the old preschool room... very exciting!  Max Fried, who is an awesome acupuncturist, will be working with me.
If the state approves my license, (and there is no reason why they shouldn't) we are shooting for a May 5 opening date.  Do you realize that this will be the only neighborhood-style, low-cost acupuncture clinic anywhere close to Newnan and Peachtree City?  It will be no frills so we can keep the cost down.   The name of the clinic will be Acupuncture First.  More about how it got its name tomorrow!

Musings about how acupuncture works

A note to the reader:  This is a somewhat lengthy blog, as I can be long-winded when I discuss my favorite subject!  So for those of you that really just want an overview, read the bold-face sentences and skip over the rest!

   For some reason, you want to learn more about Oriental medicine.  Perhaps there is a new acupuncturist in town and you have always been curious about acupuncture.   Maybe you have a pain in your thigh or low back that no doctor has been able to diagnose, much less treat, and you have heard acupuncture can help.   For whatever reason, if you are like most Americans, you may very well be subjecting yourself to a major paradigm shift by learning about acupuncture – a change in the way you think about health, medicine, and the human body. 

    Oriental medicine (“OM”)  is energy medicine.   It concentrates on  controlling the flow of energy in the body – making sure it goes the right way, to the right place, at the right time. It is like nothing most of us have ever experienced.  For starters,  the equipment used is very simple and low-tech  -  the most accomplished acupuncturist in the world can take all of his supplies with him on a plane trip, pack them in his personal luggage, and not incur any extra baggage charges.  Testing methods are unpretentious - an OM physician  will study your tongue, palpate your pulse, ask you some questions, and maybe even whiff the back of your neck – no bloodwork or x-rays needed, yet quite sophisticated information can be gleaned from this.  The diagnoses are different.  There isn’t such a thing as a “stomach bug” in OM – it’s “damp heat in the lower burner” – hives are an “external wind invasion” – and road rage is usually due to “Liver Qi Stagnation”.  Huh?   What?   Even some of the anatomical features of the body are different. (The San Jiao – a recognized body part in OM – is not mentioned in a single English language Anatomy and Physiology book.)   In short, it is very, very different than the medicine practiced by mainstream America. 

   One of the biggest differences is the approach to health and healing that OM takes.  It is said that an ancient Chinese doctor was not paid when  his patients became ill.   He was paid when they stayed well.   His job was in danger if his sick patients weren’t cured.  Stop reading for one minute and imagine that!   This was a powerful incentive for the practitioners in ancient China to work very diligently over thousands of years to learn a great deal not only about preventive medicine but about safe medicine, too.  The ancient Chinese understood that the human body has remarkable abilities to heal itself – much stronger powers than most anyone or anything else does -  and the role of the doctor was not to treat or manage sickness, but to maintain health and encourage healing from within.   Health preservation was an issue to be addressed every day, even at prime physical condition - not just when something went wrong or at a yearly physical.  OM physicians of today draw from this vast body of collected wisdom that has been tested and proven over thousands of years on millions of patients. 

      Most people don’t understand how Oriental medicine can work.  How can a needle in the little toe turn a breech baby around?  You probably can’t explain how an aspirin stops a headache, either.  But you pop an aspirin for a headache anyway. You know it is a painkiller, and you may even know that it inhibits prostaglandins , but could you give an educated lecture on the pharmacology of aspirin?  Most of us do, however, know enough to take the fear away, and make us comfortable with taking an aspirin.  Joe Blow in Beijing might not totally understand how sticking a needle in the top of the foot can soothe his bad mood,  but he does it anyway.  He might very well know that it drains excess heat away from the liver system, where a lot of foul moods originate. But he probably can’t give an adequate explanation as to why and how it drains the heat away from the liver.   That is the purpose of this blogspot – not to explain in depth how OM works, but to give you an overview so that the logistics of it make some semblance of sense, removes the fear of the unknown, and make you more at ease with it.

     To quote Julie Andrews, “We should start at the very beginning. It’s a very good place to start.”    So let’s start at the very beginning, with one of the most important concepts in Oriental medicine….. the concept of Qi.

What is Qi? (pronounced “chee”)  

What IS Qi?  It’s a  great word for acupuncturists 

to use in catchy phrases such as “Stay Qi-full!” or “He stagnates my liver qi! ”, but apart from that, what IS Qi ? It’s a notion that permeates a lot of everyday life in the Far East, and is fundamental to OM, but is very alien to most Americans.   It is nearly impossible to give a one English word translation of  Qi.  It is unquestionably a proper noun, as Qi is a substance (although often very ephemeral) and a force but there is no one-to-one correlation between an English word and a Chinese word that adequately describes Qi.  Some of the terms that have been suggested – none of which sufficiently explain Qi – have been potential energy, kinetic energy, electromagnetic energy, biochemical energy, life force, vital force, polarity, and spirit.  It isn’t even 100% accurate to say that it is definitely energy, because when slowed down, Qi can transform into matter  (explaining how cells can increase in size and number, and how tumors and arthritic bone spurs can form - remember E=mc².)  In short, it is a lot of things.  It is, in a way, like water – just as water can be steam, water, or ice – Qi can be matter, energy, and force.  It is what drives and sustains and gives rise to life….no cell can be without it.   With no Qi, you will quickly “swirl the drain” and possibly, quickly take a road trip  to the great beyond. 

Later, we'll talk about how qi moves and how acupuncture needles affect it.