I’ve joined Heidi Kao’s Integrative Healing Clinic in Glen Park. Monday’s through Wednesday’s, I will be offering services in this wonderful, large, well-lit space. Saturday’s will also be available on and on-call basis. Thursday’s, Friday’s, and Sunday’s I will continue to be available out of my home. The clinic is easily accessible to Bart, Muni, and the freeway.
Integrative Healing Clinic
30 Monterey Blvd (at Joost Ave)
San Francisco, CA 94131
Acupuncture clinic helps night owls mellow out
By Trey Bundy, San Francisco Chronicle, May 18, 2009
It’s called a wince point. When Deb Follingstad runs a little metal rod along someone’s outer ear, she often finds a spot that makes the person grimace, which tells her whether the lungs or liver could use some TLC.
As an acupuncturist and doctor of Chinese medicine, Follingstad has great faith in wince points – tongues and pulses, too.
“They’re kind of our eyeballs on the body,” she says, “our X-rays.”
A longtime denizen of San Francisco’s music scene, Follingstad has started a Monday afternoon acupuncture clinic in her Bernal Heights flat to help bartenders, cocktail waitresses and others who spend their weekends working late hours in nightclubs detox from what can be a booze-fueled grind. Pitting 5,000-year-old techniques against 21st century toxins works well, she says, and the group setting feels more like a day off than a trip to the doctor.
“It’s me giving back to my music people who work really hard and party really hard,” she says. “I don’t want to see them hurt.”
Congrats on the great article, Deb! Best of luck in your practice!
Emotional Fitness: Life presents difficulties, so learn ways to overcome them
By Barton Goldsmith
Ventura County Star, Sunday, April 26, 2009
When emotional pain hits, one of the best ways to deal it is to meet it head on and talk out the feelings. That’s why good support from another human being helps our hearts. If there’s no one to talk to, writing also is a great way to release some of your inner anguish.
The point here is that the one thing you don’t want to do is hold your pain in. You need to find constructive ways of releasing your hurt without injuring yourself or anyone else.
For some, taking a drive, exercise, reading or meditation is helpful. Others need to process their pain verbally. Whatever way works for you is the one you want to try, but if it doesn’t do the trick, it’s OK to try something different.
There are numerous methods. Some are new, like visualization, positive psychology or guided imagery, and some are ancient, like acupuncture and massage. All have helped millions of people.
Over twelve years in health and fitness, as a massage therapist and during my experience as an acupuncture intern, many of the clients and patients I have seen have been seeking something to address emotional pressures in their lives. Some have been able to articulate this well, while others have struggled to define what led them to seek treatment other than some form of discomfort. I have come to believe that as a society, we have made a habit of overlooking and ignoring physical or emotional pressures in our lives in order to accomplish some goal, be it personal or professional.
I believe that one of the most helpful things we can do for ourselves is open ourselves to awareness not only that there are significant pressures influencing our daily lives, but acknowledging what those pressures are at a given moment. Through this acknowledgment, it is then possible to flow through the pressure and allow it to strengthen us in body, mind, and spirit; take steps to reduce the pressure; or seek help to face it as appropriate.
From personal experience, I know I do not always have the solutions to every challenge inherently within myself, and sometimes need to cultivate and seek the help from an extended personal network. I find this both from a personal perspective as well as a professional one addressing the needs of clients who come to me for treatment. I feel networking for health is every bit as vital, perhaps even more vital, than networking for business. Thus, I will always welcome new friends, clients, and colleagues into my network, and try to help others shape a network that is best to meet their needs.
Tags:
emotional health, mental health, networking
From Barbara Brody, Women’s Day Health Editor, in Daily Dose April 24th
When I got a massage for the first time about a decade ago, I was under the impression that it was something you did to pamper yourself when you had a little extra cash to burn (or better yet, a gift certificate). Now I’m beginning to think it’s a medical necessity.
Medical necessity might be a little strong, but as a massage therapist I certainly agree with the sentiment, especially with regard to health maintenance. Her post is short, but perhaps you’ll find some of your own issues reflected in what she writes.
Tags:
massage therapy
Weakness in the muscles that support the hips may be a common contributor to many overuse injuries in runners, a new research review suggests.For most runners, overuse injuries occur at or below the knee — including chronic knee pain, shin splints, Achilles tendonitis and pain in the sole of the foot. The new study, a review of previous research findings published since 1980, found that weakness in the hip muscles may translate into a higher risk of these lower-leg injuries.The findings are published in the journal Sports Health.
This is an article I read and thought, “Oh wow, that exactly describes some of my running experiences.” On the other hand, stretching works wonders for me in extending the time I can comfortably work out and reducing my recovery time.
Tags:
overuse injuries, running, sports training, strength training
From the ASU Web Devil
By: Rheyanne Weaver
Published On: Tuesday, May 5, 2009
A new Wellness Care Wing that includes massage therapy, acupuncture and chiropractic services will open today at the Campus Health Services building.
[...]
Dr. Allan Markus, director of Campus Health Services, said that Campus Health Services, Undergraduate Student Government and the Health and Counseling Student Action Committee decided to create the new wing because it would be best to put all the alternative services that students want in one place.
[...]
He said ASU is the first campus in the nation he knows that offers comprehensive wellness care in the nation, and that Campus Health Services is also working to create a wellness care package for the fall.
“Students will be able to pay one price and get a free first nutrition visit, a wellness profile and significantly discounted rates for massage therapy, acupuncture and chiropractic services,” Markus said.
He said that acupuncture has been available on the Tempe campus for three years, massage therapy since the spring 2009 semester and chiropractic services since last fall.
Here’s hoping that more wellness centers of this type develop across the country, that costs are reasonable for the clinics, and that they can help bring down overall health care costs through more preventative health maintenance.
Tags:
community health, community medicine, health care reform
Acupuncture Proven to Prevent Postoperative Nausea and Vomiting
Natural News.com Thursday, May 07, 2009 by: Dave Gabriele, citizen journalist
According to a 2009 review from The Cochrane Collaboration, an international not-for-profit and independent medical organization, stimulation of the acupuncture point P-6 (Pericardium-6) significantly reduces the symptoms of nausea and vomiting after surgery. The review was published in the second 2009 issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration. The review, led by Dr. Anna Lee of the Department of Anesthesia and Intensive Care at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, is an update of a previous 2004 Cochrane review, which fostered similar results.
This is a nice and brief article by a student of Chinese medicine. It includes source links as well as links to other research on the P-6 acupoint.
Tags:
Chinese medicine
This was almost an if-you-blink-you’ll-miss-it story, but it appears to be growing quickly. Being a political junkie like I am, torture revelations since the April 16th release of the Office of Legal Counsel memos by the Obama administration have heavily dominated the news. But that is most definitely not the only news out there. My previous post was about the increased possibility for health care reform this year due to choices made about how to conduct the legislative process. This story hasn’t been percolating in the background like health reform, but there have been precursors (SARS and bird flu). I might have skipped over the story entirely but for an off-hand posting by a friend suggesting a Mexico trip was no longer going to happen.
The New York Times and Washington Post reported stories Friday of a few cases of flu outbreak along the U.S.-Mexico border region that were novel because they contained strains of human, avian, and swine flu viruses. The cases in the U.S. have been mild, with all patients so far tracked in the U.S. having recovered. In Mexico, the virus has not been as benign, with at least 81 dead so far and over 1000 sickened.
At this point, Mexican President Felipe Calderón has taken steps to isolate flu victims, cancel public events, have health officials and soldiers pass out masks, and check travelers for symptoms before they leave the country. President Obama has been briefed and the administration is actively watching the situation. Australia, New Zealand, and Isreal are also monitoring. In the initial stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post, Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases was quoted saying that they didn’t think it was time for major concern. But I’ll tell you what, they”ve certainly got my attention now.
In this case, I’m actually looking to sources in addition to traditional media to keep up with developments. DemFromCT on Daily Kos is excellelent; Hilzoy on Political Animal has a good post with links to additional resources; and there’s also the Flu Wiki forum which DemFromCT contributes to.
Many more links with excerpts below the fold. Read more of Swine Flu
On Friday, there was news that health care reform is going to be subject to a process called budget reconciliation to get through congress. What this means is that if a health reform package is not agreed to by October 15th, only a simple majority will be required to pass one. Therefore, reform will not be subject obstruction by filibuster. This greatly increases the chances that major health care reform can happen this year.
Obama Tactic Shields Health Care Bill From a Filibuster
WASHINGTON — At the prodding of the White House, Democratic Congressional leaders have agreed to pursue a plan that would protect major health care legislation from Republican opposition by shielding it from last-minute Senate filibusters.
The aggressive approach reflects the big political claim that President Obama is staking on health care, and with it his willingness to face Republican wrath in order to guarantee that the Democrats, with their substantial majority in the Senate, could not be thwarted by minority tactics.
Paul Krugman of the New York Times briefly expresses his support for this process on his blog. Steve Benen takes note of it in the Washington Monthly blog Political Animal.
Also this week, the nation’s largest health insurer, WellPoint, began making automated calls to customers on the health care debate. While I hesitate to say this is definitively a good thing or a bad thing, you can certainly color me very skeptical. After all, the influence of business in the financial services industry certainly created a wonderful mess there.
Big health insurer’s calls to members draws criticism | Sacramento Bee.
WellPoint, the nation’s largest health insurer, has launched what could be the start of a campaign for the hearts and minds of the American public as the country prepares for debates over reshaping its much-maligned health care system.
The company, which operates in California as Anthem Blue Cross, made 3 million computer-generated phone calls last week to gauge the public’s appetite for overhauling health care – and to enlist, critics say, a grass-roots army to voice concerns about the sweeping proposals developing on Capitol Hill.
“This was our first step,” said WellPoint spokeswoman Cheryl Leamon. “Obviously, the debate over health care reform is heating up.”
Tags:
health care reform, health insurance, Paul Krugman, Political Animal, politics
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