Americans are suffering chronic pain and poor health despite spending more on healthcare than any other nation. Almost every American has multiple health problems that decrease their quality of life and drain their bank accounts. And they’re mistakenly looking to specialists to treat them each individually. Health issues like asthma, hay fever, rheumatoid arthritis, atherosclerosis, periodontitis, Alzheimer’s and some cancers are now known to be caused — and made worse — by chronic systemic inflammation.
Chinese medicine has a saying that sums up the issue: “One cause, many diseases.” In other words, it is a single condition within the body that creates an internal environment ripe for pain, illness and disease to take hold, fester and become chronic. For many of the most pressing health concerns, that underlying condition is chronic low-grade inflammation, and it’s brought on by a diet extremely high in processed foods, foods soaked in herbicides and pesticides, drinks made from chemicals and the inability to manage daily stresses that dog the rich and poor, alike.
Signs, symptoms, conditions and diseases associated with inflammation include:
Acid Reflux — Acne — Arthritis — Asthma — Autoimmune Disorders — Bronchitis — Cancer — Candidiasis -Diabetes — Fatigue — Fever — Gout — Headache — Heart Disease — High Blood Pressure — Infections — Join Pain — Neuropathy — Osteoporosis — Psoriasis — Sciatica — Stiffness — Swelling — Urinary tract infections
HOW CHINESE MEDICINE CAN HELP
Acupuncture calms the nerves. As physicians of Chinese medicine, we will target specific organs in the body with out treatment. Every treatment has an overall nerve calming effect. Inflammation is a nervous system that has been taxed too much. The symptoms most people experience with inflammation will go away once the root cause is found. Most of the time it's food, but sometimes it's origin is an out of balance organ due to a variety of factors. We also incorporate Chinese herbs into the treatment to speed up the results. The herbs can increase your blood and yin (body fluids). This acts like water on fire. The nervous system is the fire. By reducing the fire with acupuncture and increasing the blood and body fluids to sedate the fire, we can create long term positive health benefits.
The end result is a body that is balanced, healthy and happy.
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As a practitioner of medicine, I have had access to thousands of articles and ideas on the perfect diet. So I am going to give you what I consume weekly for inflammation and balance. If you have a few different areas of pain, nothing is better than acupuncture. However, if you, like me, have pain in too many places to count (due to sports injuries, age, chronic disease, etc), then the best way to get rid of pain is to reduce inflammation. I have found the following to be very helpful.
ANTI INFLAMMATION HABITS
1. DR. WADE'S Summer Smoothie (3 mornings a week for breakfast)
organic spinach
organic soy milk
Pomegranate juice
frozen organic blueberries
ice cubes
Garden of Life Organic Green mix
Large Tablespoon of coconut oil.
2. Vitamins and Minerals
I do a very simple pack of combined vitamins and minerals from Standard Process.
3. Hot Yoga
Yoga in general is paramount to health. Stretching creates blood flow through tight muscles and large joints. Lack of proper blood flow promotes inflammation and pain. In my experience, Bikram has been designed to move not only blood, but also benefit the endocrine system. I have found it extremely helpful for overall pain from inflammation.
4. Meditation
Most meditation will reduce stress, calm your nervous system and reduce inflammation. Being overwhelmed with thought will cause the nervous system to be to 'buzzy'. This is inflammation. By stopping the mind and focusing on 'no thought', you stop the buzz and reduce inflammation.
5. Acupuncture and Chinese Herbs
Acupuncture calms the fire (nerves) and the herbs sedate the fire by building the yin (fluids in the body that balance the fire)