About 20% of Australians suffer from chronic pain.
Injuries are reported to be the most common cause although some sufferers are unable to pinpoint the original source of the pain. You may be in this 20% and are possibly looking for other alternative solutions to deal with your pain. Here is where I come in. Have you considered acupuncture and herbal medicine?
In my practice I combine Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine to assist patients in achieving equilibrium, so that their body is more balanced, and functions to its full capacity.
Acupuncture
Acupuncture is originally based on the concept of Qi, which roughly translates to “energy”, and can also be used as a metaphor for metabolic function. However, when looking at Chinese Medicine using the latest in science and technology it seems we may have mistranslated the word Qi. In fact, all the jargon in Chinese Medicine makes just as much sense if we translate the word as ‘vital air’, or in other words ‘oxygen’. Why is this important? If you improve your breathing and get the heart pumping more effectively then you feel better. This is what acupuncture does.
Modern research has shown that when one receives acupuncture it causes either a down-regulation (if your over active) or up-regulatation (if you are under active). In other words, if you need a pick up, it will boost you up, or if you need to relax, it will calm you down. We use different acupuncture points to direct that response to specific areas of the body. Your nervous system is a wonderful thing. It is responsible for passive things like sleep, digestion and healing, but also involved active things like thinking, movement and stress. When you have chronic pain, somewhere along the way, these processes get muddled up, or one overtakes the other. The balance is “out”. Acupuncture is believed to help restore your balance and un-muddle these processes.
Herbal Medicine
Herbal medicine works a little differently, in that it works internally. Herbs are taken orally, usually in pill or capsule form. These herbs are simply roots, fruits, barks, stems, leaves and storks of different kinds of plants. The herbs are selected individually for each patient for their various functions.
For example, a commonly used stem to treat lower back pain is Loranthus stem. This herb is also used to treat arthritic and rheumatic disorders. It has been shown to have a tonic action and contains significant amounts of organic minerals like calcium and magnesium to strengthen the tendons and bones. It has also been found to have anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antispasmodic actions.
Corydalis is another commonly used plant, used to treat pain. It is also used to treat mild depression, and can act as a mild sedative or tranquilizer to relax the body.
