Welcome to Better Health!
Needles Electricity Moxabustion Herbs Bodywork Injections
Just as there is a predicatble network of blood and lymph in the body that can be studied in anatomy class, there is a reliable pattern which Conscious Energy, refered to as qi (pronounced chee), travels along at the surface of the body. We call the superhighways of this network - channels. Each major channel connects to deeper structures in the body including organs. Knowing what channels connect to which tissues and organs, determines which channel we will treat, when we need to address pathology of tissues & organs. Knowing the effects that will come about from stimulating particular points on the channels helps us select which points to stimulate.
Balance can be coaxed into being, by noting where there is less energy and more energy in the channels, then routing the excess to the deficiency. In some cases there is a pathological excess, in which case we may choose to guide that excess out of the body instead of trying to rehabilitate it back into circulation.
But toxic substances and novel molecules, the body doesn't know how to handle, such as those created in R&D labs, are prevalent in our food, water, drinks, toiletries, household products, and of course pharmaceutical interventions. While the human body does come equiped with effective detoxification pathways built in, everyday, year after year, we pile more and more toxicity in, overwhelming the body's ability to nutralize and eliminate. The overload of accumulated toxins is behind most health problems modern humans experience.
Detoxification
aka lifestyle modification
This is why natural health practitioners of all kinds emphasize internal cleanses and lifestyle modification. An overload of toxins prevents the body from carrying out its normal functions, such as cellular repair & hormone production. This overload limits any interventions by health care providers to just temporary relief of symptoms - not actual healing. Your wonderful body has the ability to heal from anything but it has to have its full scope of functionality intact. Changes you make in your daily routine and what you stock in your household, are the key to removing the toxic blockages because you cannot clear an accumulation while continuing to add to the pile up. We will work on this together.
Acupuncture
Needles
Acupuncture needles are ever-so-thin, solid, flexible and made of hygenic stainless surgical steel. The metal interacts with and conducts the qi of your body; the size is delicate so as to make contact with your subtle energy yet not damage tissues. A pinch or stinging sensation may be felt at the surface of the skin upon first contact, but is usually not felt after that initial skin sensation. The practitioner angles the needle, controls depth, and may maniplulate the needle a certain way - all to get a particular effect, or to impart a certain instruction or request to the body consciousness.
Electricity
All work performed by your body is done through the expenditure of electricity. Applying an electrical current to acupuncture needles started being developed in the 1930s in China & in the 1940s in France. Most electric acupuncture machines in practice today in the USA work best to block pain. They are made to produce current that is disruptive to pain because it drains off an abundance of localized activity at the site of pain or numbs the nerves that supply a painful location. In contrast OM Connection Clinic has electrical devices that supply electricity that is more like the electricty your body generates and uses to heal & regenerate itself. OM Connection practices electricity as medicine - gentle not disruptive. Imagine having more energy available inside your body to detoxify, heal, & regenerate tissue.
Cold Laser
Sometimes we might include laser light with a needle treatment, or use laser light with no needles on particular patients if there is a phobia of needles or the patient is very young. Lasers manufactured for the express purpose of stimulating qi are acceptable in the field of Acupuncture. The Clinic has acu-laser pens within the color range spectrums of Red, Green, & Blue. The pens are carefully calibrated to precise frequencies shown to ellicit better results than other frequencies within the same color spectrums. Each of these colors, Red, Green, & Blue, is shown to give a different result and/or penetrate to a different level. The energies of the lasers used in acupuncture are gentle yet require only a few seconds at each point.
Moxabustion
In Chinese herbalism there are hundreds upon hundreds of herbal substances known to have benefits when used correctly, but for moxibustion only one herb is used - mugwort. The fluffy fibers of the mugwort leaf are collected excluding stems and veins. We take the highest quality leaf fibers, roll them into tiny cones and skillfully burn the prescribed number on the points we have selected for treatment. While needles are excellent for directing and instructing the qi, moxa is fantastic for energizing and nutrifying the blood. From the O. M. perscpective, many root causes of ill health are problems residing in the blood. Our practice, which may differ from other Acupuncture clinics, uses moxabustion often.
Chinese Herbal Medicine
Formulas Tablets & Decoctions
Chinese Herbalism can actually be used as a stand alone medicine system to meet most patient health needs if studied and applied diligently. Do not underestimate the power of a correct diagnosis paired with an appropriate formula. Herbal formula means a recipe of herbs prescribed again and again over hundreds of years, with many practitioners over the ages engaging in rigorous discourse over the perfect blend and outlining what the synergisms are that make certain combinations of herbs outstanding treatments for certain illnesses. The combination of herbs + acupuncture is extremely effective at helping patients achieve health goals.
Medical Bodywork
TuiNa, ChiNeiTsang, TokSen, GuaSha, & Neuromuscular Re-education
Tui Na (pronounced tway naw) is an ancient Chinese form of bodywork. It is pushing and pulling strategically to relax the nervous system, move excess energy in the head, shoulders, and neck into the rest of the body, and to release blocks to recieving treatment. Often, if time permits in your acupuncture session, Tui Na can be done in a general maner, for a few minutes, to prepare the body to accept and respond to the requests made from the acupuncture needles to elicit different behavior and a different response from what the body has been doing.
Tui Na may be requested as a stand alone treatment. Another alternative method to work Tui Na in to an appointment, is for the majority of the treatment to be spent receiving Tui Na, ending with moxa and needling on just one or two acupuncture points.
Chi Nei Tsang (pronounced chee nay song) is manual techniques applied to abdominal organs to improve digestion, eliminiation of wastes & accum toxins. Chi Nei Tsang abdominal organ massage uses various hand techniques to encourage proper gut motility, ease intestinal cramps, and dislodge blockages in the digestive tract. It includes jiggling, scooping, pulling, pushing to give resistance training to the support structures holding the visceral organs up. It is carefully directed force into the abdominal cavity to decompact lymph, vasculature, & organs to remove wastes & increase blood, nutients, oxygen flow into the visera.
Manual Therapy of Toksen wooden mallets is used to purcuss the fascia wrappings and muscle bundles of the limbs on their posterior side. The rythmic taps and thumps recalibrate the CNS, assisting patients to release physical & emotional tensions
GuaSha & Cupping
Cupping and guasha can be used to release something just at the surface level of the skin like being on the cusp of catching a cold or it can be used to treat musculoskeletal pain.
Gua sha is a technique of steady controlled preasure applied uni-directionally along an area of congestion with a flat blunt object to release the trapped congestion up to the most superficial layer of skin where it will slowly fade away. This is not bruising - which is tissue damage. This is a detoxification process. What has come to the surface needed to come to the surface.
Cupping employs suction and therefore can uniquely lift tissues up. This removes impaction and knots. It allows lymph, stagnating blood, and most importantly toxins to rush into the area to slowly be released over the next few days. Important to keep gua sha and cupped areas covered for a day or two, avoiding exposure to wind, drafts, AC blasts, and cold as the body is open and releasing.
Neuromuscular Re-education
OM Connection employs several techniques that reprogram the body and mind of the patient to accept the new alignments and energy patterns coaxed into being by the acupuncture and bodywork just received. You see, people become so accustomed to holding their misalignment and energy blocks, they can very rapidly reassemble them back into place, undoing treatments. Active engagement immediately following acupuncture - guided Qigong, scalp acupuncture, north/south magnets, the application of frequency, or having the patient move with needles - are all techniques showing efficacy in the clinic to help patients reidentify with health & hold it.
Injection Therapy of
Homeopathic Solutions &
Low-dose Biologics
Acupuncture Injection Therapy is an exciting modern extension of Oriental Medicine. AIT allows for intramuscular, intradermal, & subcutaneous injection of purified homeopathic substances manufactured under strict quality control, made especially for injection. Hyperdermic needles are used for this. The Clinic uses the thinnest guage hyperdermic needles that will properly penetrate the tissues involved and to reach the desired depth and angle without bending. The list of health concerns that can be treated with AIT include tissue damage from trauma, chronic or acute joint dysfunction, hormone dysregulation, autoimmune, fibromyalga, metabolic syndrome, etc. Injections are found to be especially effective when an acupuncturist uses expert knowledge of the channels and acupuncture points to decide where to deliver these special healing substances. Homeopathy is the real "safe & effective" substance to inject into tissues. We never inject into the blood stream.
