Acupuncture - Beyond Needles!

Author

Andrej Prado Nickel, L.A.c. was raised in Germany, a leader in the alternative medicine practices in Europe. He finished his Masters of Science in Acupuncture and TCM at Colorado School of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Denver, CO. While there, he also invested time expanding his education on different forms of acupuncture, such as the Distal Point Method taught by Dr. Richard Tan. This method aims for quick pain relief while being a gentle treatment approach. Andrej now specializes on treating musculor-skeletal and pain conditions while incorporating advice on lifestyle, general health and fitness to keep his patients healthy. He aims to be professional, personable and approachable in his delivery and go beyond expectations in meeting his patients expectations. 

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In the last 30 years, Acupuncture has found some solid ground in the U.S. healthcare market and it has left its mark. We have believers & non-believers, proof and disproof, rejection and adoption, all around this treatment method. However, the growing consensus on its efficacy is most solidly anchored in the number of clients whose lives are being changed for the better.
 
Acupuncture is part of an over 2000-year-old medicine that has slowly developed into what we now call Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The application of needles to various sites on the body is used to induce change in disease and maintain health. Acupuncture itself might be even older than that if we look at the story of Ötzi - the iceman. Thousands of years have been spent on trial and error, data collection and presservation to make TCM what it is today, an extensive collection of knowledge and experience in the treatment of almost any health conplication in a systematic and symptom based diagnosis. The true amazement lies in the realization of how comprehensive TCM has become for the treatment and prevention of disease. It is designed to be a true whole care or holistic medicine. 

1. Nutrition - is understood to be the most important part to maintaining health. Foods are categorized by the effects they have on one's body. The most easily relatable properties here are warming and cooling foods, such as cinnamon and peppermint. Foods are also considered tonics, such as sweet berries and roots, of which Goji berries and Ginseng have risen to popular heights. Other foods are used to treat constipation, such as rhubarb and hemp seed.
2. Lifestyle - hard work, overeating, uncontrolled sex drive and too much leisure have all been identified to have straining/ depleting effects on your health.
3. Emotions –  are you excessively worried, afraid, angry, sad or even over-the-top joyful? Many scholars believe emotions to be related to disease, think PTSD.
4. Medical treatment - including acupuncture, gua sha, cupping, massage (Tui Na) & Chinese Herbal Medicine.
5. Maintaining health - rather than providing care only when disease has a head start, a TCM practitioner makes every effort to keep his patients healthy. In historic China, a healer was judged not only by how he managed to cure an affliction, but by the general health of the community he was caring for.​

TCM utilizes an extensive collection of Super-foods, some of which you will recognize from your kitchen. Ginger, Spring Onion, Cinnamon and other usual suspects are commonly used in Chinese Herbal Medicine. Single herbs are most importantly categorized by their respective taste: sweet, salty, bitter, sour, as well as, bland. Together with other properties, herbs can, for example, be used to increase Lung Yin which would be helpful in a dry cough. Bitter herbs aid to resolve water retention, which is common among patients with Type 2 Diabetes. Most often you will find multiple herbs combined to a classical or custom formula, which includes as little as two and as many as twenty herbs, mixed to benefit one another and address multiple symptoms simultaneously.

​More important than being a well-functioning medicine by itself, Traditional Chinese Medicine makes for a good team player. Acupuncture has been praised for its ability to integrate and compliment other treatment modalities by either supporting the treatment strategy or by treating undesirable side effects. This becomes most beneficial when receiving taxing forms of treatment, such as, being treated for parasites or cancer.
 
At the center of this medicine is the idea of a universal force inherent to all life and all matter that exists - Qi. This idea has broad applications across the world we inhabit. It is there when you breathe, your heart beats, the wind changes direction and when your DNA is spliced to be transcribed into RNA. It is a force that keeps the very fabric of our world together.

Qi obeys the principle of duality described by the terms Yin & Yang.
Yin and Yang have a relationship and… it's complicated.
Yin is used to describe such things as cold, hard, dark, slow, etc.
Yang on the other hand is hot, soft, bright, fast, etc.
While they are often used to describe opposites, they have an interdependent relationship in which they indefinitely demand the existence of the other and thus their own.
 
An example can be your nearby traffic light:
The red light is Yin, it demands halt, waiting, giving others the chance to move about.
The green light is Yang, it requires flow and movement on your part.
The traffic light is Yin, then Yang, then Yin, then Yang…
If we don’t have a red light, we don’t need a green one and thus we would need something else… a roundabout: Yield, then go, yield, then go…
Yin is used to describe such things as cold, hard, dark, slow, etc.
Yang on the other hand is hot, soft, bright, fast, etc.

Next time you find yourself stuck at a traffic light allow this to be a brief moment of Yin before you accelerate to inhuman speed. This philosophical principle has been a loyal guide by my side in the past years. It helps me to remember that no event in my life is one sided. If I am frustrated, sad or happy, I know that these emotions are not all there is, but that it is a small moment weighing against the whole of my life. This makes my problems a little smaller and my pleasures all the more valuable.
 
Would I recommend TCM for everyone? Of course, I would! I do strongly believe, though, that most of the magic of healing comes from the trust you can place in your healthcare provider. Do you have the feeling that he/ she has your interest at heart? Can you communicate your concerns and questions to this person? That little bit of magic, or placebo, can make all the difference in the treatment outcome.
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