The Benefits of getting Acupuncture in Del Mar, CA

This article seeks to share some positive lifestyle improvements that come along with acupuncture. 

Acupuncture is typically regarded throughout the West as being an effective treatment for pain, but few people are aware of the powerful benefits of acupuncture for acute injuries such as bruises, burns, sprains and strains, and even bone breaks. Not only does acupuncture help ease the pain of an injury, but it can actually help injuries to heal at a faster rate. Of course, if you have a serious injury requiring emergency medical attention, please don’t call your acupuncturist! In Del Mar, CA, there are plenty of medical personnel available to treat emergencies and serious, time critical conditions. However, after you tend to the immediate emergency, an acupuncturist can certainly help you recover.

Martial artists have known for centuries that acupuncture and herbal medicine assists in speeding recovery from traumatic injuries. In fact, martial arts helped form the basis for a variety of acupuncture techniques and herbal remedies. There are herbal formulations to be taken internally to help strengthen bones and tissues, and there are herbs that are used as poultices and compresses to ease pain and swelling. Western elite athletes and Olympians have caught on to the benefits of Chinese herbs and acupuncture to help them perform better and recover from injuries faster. Many top-performing sports teams regard acupuncture as their closely held secret for consistent wins.

Children can also benefit greatly from seeking acupuncture and herbal medicine during post-acute recovery from sports injuries and accidents. Since children are still growing, a slow recovery time from something such as a bone break can hinder growth, impair development, and lead to chronic pain and repeated injuries. A knee injury in a high school basketball player can lead to chronic knee pain as an adult if post-acute recovery care is not sought out in time.

There are several different modalities an acupuncturist may utilize in the treatment of injuries during the post-acute stage. These include: acupuncture, cupping, guasha, herbs applied to the affected area, herbs taken internally, nutritional recommendations and supplementation, and moxabustion. The precise type of therapy used will depend upon the stage of the injury.

For instance, it is generally recognized that there are three stages of injury. The first stage, typically lasting 48 hours - 1 week, involves a lot of pain and swelling. This stage requires cooling the injury to reduce inflammation. The second stage lasts 2 - 3 weeks, and there is still usually some swelling and pain. Treatment involves pain relief, nutrition, and herbal therapy. The final stage involves stiffness and achiness which can become chronic if the sufferer does not seek treatment. If acupuncture is used throughout each stage of injury, a complete recovery is most likely, and the third stage of injury will be short greatly reduced.

Foods and culinary herbs for decreasing inflammation include: ginger, turmeric, garlic, pineapple, tart cherry, organic berries, and green leafy vegetables. Used in combination with Chinese heat-clearing herbs, they can assist in healing during the inflammatory stage

of an injury. During the second and third stages of an injury, it will be important to include protein-rich foods such as pasture-raised meats and eggs into your diet. Your acupuncturist may recommend making homemade bone broths, as well as taking customized formulations of Chinese tonic herbs, to assist in the healing process during these latter stages.

 

Latent Pathogenic Factors in Chinese Medicine

There is a category of illness in Chinese Medicine that Western Medicine is so far unable to describe. In the ancient texts, it is referred to as latent pathogenic factors (LPF). While improvements in medical technologies may someday “discover” latent pathogenic factors, so far conventional medicine has no answers for many patients with symptoms of unknown cause. However, Chinese Medicine does have answers for these patients with the explanation of latent pathogenic factors.

So what is a latent pathogenic factor? It is generally regarded to be a pathogen (such as a bacteria, virus, or parasite) that enters the body without causing an appropriate immune response that kills the pathogen. The pathogen then “lurks” deep within the body and may not produce symptoms right away. Months or years later, symptoms occur and disease emerges -- seemingly from an unknown cause.

There are many different ways this can play out, and there are a multitude of illnesses that can occur as a result of a latent pathogenic factor. This depends on both the type of pathogen that invading the body as well as the individual constitution (or genetics) of the patient. Within the context of Western Medicine, some diseases such as AIDS, hepatitis, Lyme Disease, and herpes could definitely be classified as being caused by a latent pathogenic factor since symptoms do not occur immediately.

However, there are a variety of other things that can be caused by a latent pathogenic factor, even though the pathogen is not detected by conventional medical techniques. In most cases, an acupuncturist will diagnose a latent pathogenic factor based on the patient’s health history and palpation of the pulse and acupuncture meridians. The appearance of the patient’s tongue may also be an indicator of a latent pathogen. These methods of diagnosis take years to learn, and often require the acupuncturist to see many cases of latent pathogenic factors to be able to recognize them.

Autoimmune disease of all kinds, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, autism, asthma, Crohn’s disease, chronic sinusitis or post-nasal drip, and chronic cough may all be caused by latent pathogens in some cases. A patient may experience a cold or flu-like illness, subsequently seems to recover in a few days, and soon after develops a new symptom such as asthma or fatigue. In children, a parent may observe that the child developed asthma or behavioral problems after suffering from an ear infection or a common cold. This is what an acupuncturist in Del Mar would diagnose as a latent pathogenic factor.

The great news is that there are solutions in Chinese Medicine to latent pathogenic factors. The treatment period could take several months or longer, depending on the severity of the pathogen, the strength of the patient’s will to get better, and the period of time the pathogen has been lodged in the body. While a total “cure” may not be possible in some cases, the patient will often become asymptomatic for many decades. Sometimes the acupuncturist can detect if the latent pathogen has been completely eliminating by noticing a subtle change in the pulse quality or disappearance of nodules in the affected acupuncture meridians.