TCM stands for Traditional Chinese Medicine and is a combination of techniques, including acupuncture, for preventative and reparative healthcare.
TCM recognizes that a health condition is rarely just one symptom and aims to treat patients holistically. In TCM, health history is examined for patterns to relieve not only the main complaint, but also address the whole system and root cause. For example, a migraine occurs in the head, but can also affect blood circulation in the whole body (pale face, cold hands), digestion (nausea and vomiting), neurological processing of light (dilated pupils), sound and smells.
TCM uses naturalistic terms to group symptoms together like:
- heat and damp: fever, inflammation, flu, edema
- stagnation: areas of poor circulation or movement
- deficiency: weakness, reduced functioning sometimes from genetics, exhaustion, aging
- excess: each emotion is okay, but excess emotion can torture us; fatty tissues, invading germs
- cold: odd, reduced or intense sensations; metabolic issues
With single-use needles, electrical stimulation, cupping, gua sha (stroking the skin with an instrument), heat, and/or massage, your acupuncturist helps tight areas relax and weak systems function better. The initial appointment includes an interview of your lifestyle patterns and health. Treatments are also tailored to your individual body instead of treating every person with a given ailment as the same.
In addition to your treatment, I may recommend lifestyle modifications to your food choices, sleep habits, and exercise. From my many years as a healthcare provider, I have a wide network of practitioners to which I can refer you if another modality of treatment might provide additional benefits.