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Our health has immeasurable value.  If we are not well or function at near 100% we are unable to keep up with all the tasks our lives demand of us.  In my practice one thing that I have noticed over the years is people often become perplexed that as their bodies age things start to go wrong.

  It is true that as our bodies begin to age we lose some of our abilities to recover as quickly from most ailments.  Like with our vehicles some basic maintenance will keep the body running well for a long period of time.  This maintenance in my opinion is vastly neglected in our culture as a whole.  Taking time for one’s own health and sanity is often seen as weak in many people eyes.  Another statement I hear often is, “I just don’t have the time or money to get a maintenance treatment.”  We must remember that in order to keep putting out as much energy day in and day out, the body needs time to reset its neurological system.  Without resetting and taking just a few minutes each month to take care of yourself and unplug from the world around us, our bodies slowly start to break down.  Furthermore our minds begin to have problems focusing and keeping on task.  Many of these symptoms of exhaustion and fatigue can be helped with basic acupuncture treatments, giving your body the ability to function at higher stress levels for longer then what it would normally. 

So give your body the maintenance that it needs and help extend your life, increase productivity and enjoy life more with acupuncture.  You will be pleasantly surprised at the quality of life change that this ancient modality can bring to your life today.

There are many simple things we can do or not do every day to help keep our bodies healthy.  In my practice I do my best to communicate these simple tools to my patients.  I believe that education is an important stepping stone in having the knowledge to make better decisions about your health.  Let’s face the facts, our culture has some unhealthy habits as do many cultures around the world.   Often unhealthy does not always mean bad.  Take for example drinking wine.  We know today that a few glasses in moderation each week of red wine can be very beneficial for one’s health. Red wind contains one of the most powerful antioxidants know to man, resveratrol. 

With that said our culture has come up with some bad modern habits.  At some point in time it became vogue to try to be nonhuman.  Today people go to great lengths to try not to let others see their human side.  Here is the big shocker; no matter how hard you try to be super human it’s just not possible.  We are what we are and there is no getting around it. 

My point in all of this revolves around the simple act of sweating.  One of the best ways our body has to detoxify itself.  The groin and the armpits are the two areas of our body where the lymph system drains most of its toxins when sweating.  The latter is the one I would like to talk about here.  Almost all of my patients are using antiperspirants these days.  To find an antiperspirant 15 years ago was hard, but today to find just a deodorant is just as hard.  In 15 years the market has switched over to almost exclusively antiperspirant use.  I’m of the opinion that this is a very bad thing for your health.  Preventing one of the largest lymph detox areas from doing its job is a bad thing, it goes against the design of our bodies. 

So feel free to be human and use a deodorant only and maybe by the end of a long day you will start to smell like a human.  Don’t freak out, just go into the rest room and clean up a little and reapply some more deodorant.  By letting your body excrete the toxins from its lymph system in the way it was designed, you are helping prevent illness.  Keeping your house clean is the best way to keep bugs from coming to live with you. This is also true when speaking of your body.

When trying to come up with a subject for my first blog I ran the idea by a long time patient of mine. Her recommendation was to bring more light to the subject of how acupuncture really does not hurt and is very relaxing. I have to be honest after practicing acupuncture for some 15 years now I often forget what is going through a first time patients mind when contemplating acupuncture treatment. When most people think of a needle our faces tighten and our eyes close and we slip back to a time of being a child. Going to the doctor’s office to get a shot of some kind and being told, “This is not going to hurt at all.” Boy did they lie! We often then, consciously or unconsciously, use an image like this when thinking about what an acupuncture treatment would be like. I understand why people react with the statement, “How can that be at all relaxing, being stuck with a bunch of needles.” They would be correct if an acupuncture needle was anything like a needle used to inject a substance into your body.
I often encourage people not to draw assumptions about things they have never experienced. These assumptions might very well prevent you from experiencing something very positive in your life. I’m sure you can reflect back on your life and think too many times where at first your preconceived assumptions about how something would feel or “must be” were completely wrong when you actually gave it a try. I would encourage you to open your mind to acupuncture as one of these things. Did you know that you can place more than 20 acupuncture needles into the hole of a standard injection needle used to give shots? Most acupuncture needles are as thin as a single strand of human hair. Acupuncture needles do not cut the skins surface, instead they pierce through the skin when entering it and upon removal the skin closes around the needle hole. So in most cases there is no bleeding where the needle was inserted. Most of my patients report that when the majority of the acupuncture needles are inserted, they feel almost nothing. Other patients might feel a slight pinching sensation when the needle is inserted. If there is ever any pain or discomfort when the needle is inserted it is immediately removed. Our goal is to help your body enter a place of deep relaxation so that your energy can balance, not to have you sit in pain.
As you can see acupuncture is quite different from anything that most people have ever experienced. I would like to encourage you to find out for yourself. Step outside your box and grow a little. Chinese medicine has been around for over five thousand years, it has a lot to offer patients in today’s fast moving world.
Thanks for your time,

Ashley Dunn, A.P., C.H.