pain relief

Avoiding Bruising During IVF Injections: Tips from an Acupuncturist

Avoiding Bruising During IVF Injections: Tips from an Acupuncturist

I’m an acupuncturist who has been supporting fertility patients for the last several years and I recently finished my own first round of IVF. Having gone through the onslaught of multiple daily injections, I realized I may have an approach to injections that the average fertility patient may not know could help them. So here’s how I avoided bruising during my treatment and you can too.

The basics? Palpate, ice, alcohol swab, let the alcohol dry, distract, inject, sustained pressure, ice again.

Let’s go over this in more detail including why these steps are helpful:

Self Care Tips for Menstrual Cramps

Self Care Tips for Menstrual Cramps

Cramps are the worst. Among the common symptoms we complain about when we bleed, this one ranks among the highest. But just because painful periods are common doesn't mean we have to accept them.

Patients sometimes ask me about the most surprising thing I learned in acupuncture school. I was definitely the most blown away by learning that you don’t have to be in pain during your period. You don’t need to have any symptoms, in fact. Just bleed, stop bleeding. That’s it. “WHAT?!” I thought. “Why doesn’t everyone know that? What do I need to do? Sign me up!”

While I was in grad school I had acupuncture treatments every week and took a formula daily for a year. My periods shifted dramatically and my pelvic pain (pain with intercourse or what’s medically referred to as dyspareunia) disappeared. I was in awe. I felt I had been given a key and I wanted to share it SO badly.

999 Sutter and a Sign of Relief

999 Sutter and a Sign of Relief

I’m moving my acupuncture schedule full time to the Healing Arts Building on Sutter and Hyde in San Francisco this September, which is a big milestone to celebrate. I love how calm this clinic is and patients often remark how relaxed they feel. I’m glad to be spending more time with you in this beautiful healing space!

When I visited before deciding to rent here in Spring 2018, there were many things I loved about the whole building right away. It's beautiful with a lot of old-style character. The Sutter Healing Arts building is brick, which always feels warm to me, was built in the 1900s in Beaux Arts style, and originally housed a urology practice on the first floor with the doctor living upstairs. So there’s a lot of history here as a medical space, yet it’s also been a home from the beginning, making it the perfect place to create a clinic that’s not clinical.

Can Acupuncture Treat ...?

Can Acupuncture Treat ...?

It's a very common question: "Does acupuncture treat …?" The short answer is YES!, no matter the condition, because acupuncture is a complete medical system.

While it’s tempting to hear that as equivalent to a specific drug being touted as a panacea, it’s really like saying all of medicine can address a wide variety of ailments. We’re much more comfortable with that concept. Western or allopathic medicine can help with lots of things to varying degrees. It’s much the same with acupuncture. That’s one of the reasons it’s more accurately referred to as a complementary medicine, rather than alternative medicine.

Need a Massage? Introducing Tyler

Need a Massage? Introducing Tyler

Update: July 2019 – Note that Tyler is now seeing patients on Tuesdays only in this space.

I’m pleased to announce that Tyler Chamberlain, Certified Massage Therapist is now sharing our San Francisco clinic space at the Sutter Healing Arts Building. He’s seeing clients on Saturdays, Sundays, and Tuesdays.

Tyler’s style is in harmony with my approach to gentle, personalized treatments. He offers time-based appointments that are then tailored to your needs on a given day using his massage skillsets including Swedish, Deep Tissue, Ortho-bionomy, Energy, and Lymphatic/Detox. Having experienced his work myself, I highly recommend his thoughtful, effective, and deeply relaxing care.

His introduction to you in his own words:

Joyful Movement

Joyful Movement

For most of my life if you asked me to describe myself some of the first words out of my mouth would be, "I'm a dancer." I danced consistently from age 7 into my 30s, first jazz, then contemporary. As much as possible I arranged my work and graduate school schedules around dance. I joined a local company and performed to a paying audience. Then suddenly I couldn't anymore. Or not the way I had, anyway. Thanks to incorrect repetitive movements and a loss in the genetic lottery now sometimes dancing hurts (honestly, sometimes walking hurts too). And even though I've learned to adapt with better body mechanics and supportive footwear, even though most of the time it doesn't hurt anymore because of those changes (and of course regular acupuncture and moxibustion), I feel as though I'm always having to evaluate how I'm doing. I'm in my head instead of my body, thinking, "Is today an okay day? Should I be doing this step this way?" I can't just let go and move the way I used to.

The point of all of this is to say that I had to contend with the challenge of how to get enough exercise only in the last few years. And after trying a wide variety of activities I finally found my new movement obsession that I can complement with occasional yoga, dance, or weights: choreographed lightsaber combat.

Contact Needle Treatment for Cancer Pain

Contact Needle Treatment for Cancer Pain

The week before Thanksgiving I attended a lecture and demonstration on using contact needles for cancer treatment related pain by Dr. Keiko Ogawa of Kanazawa, Japan. Dr. Ogawa published a study in 2013 on using contact needles to treat chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN). I was excited to see research on contact needles available in English and to learn this was the first time she was teaching in the US. There is a wealth of research on contact needle therapy in Japanese, but most of it has not been translated for a Western audience.

I often use a specialized silver contact needle tool in my treatments. Dr. Ogawa performed her study using disposable silver needles more similar to the stainless steel needles we use for insertion needling. Regardless of the tool, the method is to settle the needle on the relevant acupuncture point rather than inserting the needle into the skin. This is a painless form of treatment that has the added benefit of reducing infection risk, a key feature in treating cancer patients who may have weakened immune systems due to their cancer and/or their Western treatment (chemotherapy, radiation, etc).

Acupuncture Better Than Morphine for Acute Pain in Recent ER Study

Originally posted as Acupuncture Beats Injected Morphine for Pain: Groundbreaking Study by Sayer Ji

An amazing new study has found that acupuncture, the ancient practice of using needles to stimulate bodily self healing, is more effective than intravenous morphine for pain. 

A truly groundbreaking study published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine titled, “Acupuncture vs intravenous morphine in the management of acute pain in the ED,” reveals that acupuncture -- one of the oldest techniques to treat pain -- is more effective, faster in relieving pain, and with less adverse effects, than intravenous morphine.