Archive for May, 2009

Qi: Going With the Flow

Thursday, May 28th, 2009

by: Rebecca Rice, M.S, L.Ac.

Often patients come to the Center for treatment and say to me, “my qi is out of whack….” Or “Can you fix my qi?…”  To me this relates to a whole slue of different diagnoses in Chinese Medicine, requiring different acupuncture point combinations and herbal recommendations.  The cause of “blocked qi” is related to different symptoms, stemming from stress to shoulder pain, infertility to migraines.  The commonality of all of these symptoms is the basic idea that qi is blocked: it is not flowing to areas where it ought to, or there is a buildup of qi.

Aside from acupuncture specifically, there are things to keep in mind that will help keep the flow of qi running smoothly.  By following the guidelines of Chinese nutrition, eating foods that are known to create blockages should be avoided.  These are foods that are too spicy, too greasy or fatty, and high in sugar.  Also eating too much or too little food is not advised.  We know that exercise is crucial for musculoskeletal strength and function as well as cardiovascular health; a body that moves regularly will keep qi moving as well.

The state of our qi and health is also related to the emotions.  We will experience all emotions at certain points in our life, some more frequently than others.  However if sadness, anger, concern, fear and even bliss become a more constant state, qi will become stagnant (blocked) as these ‘natural emotions’ turn into their unhealthy counterparts (depression, rage, anxiety, paranoia, and mania or bitterness).

A healthy state of qi is also influenced by thermodynamics, or the natural order of things.  If we are to deny the next step based on need or destiny, then qi can also become blocked. For example, if at 11pm I ignore the fact that my body needs to sleep, staying up until 1 or 2am, then I will deplete my reserves leading to lassitude the following day.  All in all, go with the flow! When the mind is clear the heart will flourish …

Posted in Acupuncture, Rebecca Rice L.AC, Traditional Chinese Medicine | Comments Off

What’s Really Going on When You’re Hurting: Trigger Points and Muscle Pain

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

By Sue Coughtry, LMT

Spring is here and we’re all out cleaning up our lawns and planting gardens and brushing up on our summer activities. Often we over-do it and get sore. My patients often ask what causes those knots that they feel in their muscles.  They often wonder what trigger points are.

Here is what’s often going on when you hurt:

Muscles work in pairs.  When one muscle tightens to move a part of the body, the opposite muscle relaxes and lengthens to allow that movement.  So one side pulls and the other side relaxes.  When there is a muscle strain of any kind, the side that tightens actually pulls too hard or too fast, and the side that lengthens gets over-stretched.  To protect the muscles that are over-stretching from reaching the point of tearing, nerve fibers within the muscles themselves immediately makes that over-stretching muscle contract back pretty hard.  While it protects against tearing, which  is a really good thing, that muscle can also now get stuck in this new, now overly contracted state.  This creates a knot in the muscle, and that knot is a trigger point.

When you try to move, the affected muscle tightens even more to protect itself, creating a cycle of pain and more contraction, which causes more pain and then more contraction. You may get other supporting muscles to join in to protect the injured one.  We call that splinting.  Then the area gets even more painful.  You can often feel those areas of contraction as knots in a muscle, and they are very tender to pressure.  These trigger points can also cause pain in other areas of the body – this is called referred pain.

How medical massage can help:

There are many massage and bodywork techniques to release the trigger points, ease the pain and get both sides of the affected muscle back into balance.  Trigger point work, positional release therapy, myofascial release, craniosacral therapy and myokinesiology can all release these trigger points and help your muscles return to a more balanced, pain free state.  Each person responds to these techniques differently so when one technique doesn’t seem to work, another may.  This is why I tailor any of my bodywork sessions to the individual clients’ needs. Often my sessions will include a combination of techniques.  If you find yourself really sore after an afternoon of spring clean up, come in to the Center and see what some of these techniques can do for you.

Learn more about positional release therapy, and craniosacral therapy.

Posted in Massage Therapy, Preventative Health, Sue Coughtry LMT | 1 Comment, Click Here to Add Yours »

Why do a Cleanse?

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

by Korey DiRoma, Naturopathic Doctor

Our body is exposed to many toxins every day, which tend to accumulate in our bodies.  A toxin is a substance that produces any adverse biological effects and can be absorbed into our body through our skin, lungs, and gastrointestinal tract.

What are the sources of these toxins? There are many and include the obvious, such as tobacco smoke, gas fumes, paint, and cleaning chemicals. The not so obvious may include new carpets, pressboard furniture, and dry-cleaned clothes. Exposure also occurs through our food, such as fish (especially the large carnivorous fish, like sword fish), dairy products, and fruits and vegetables.

How are all these various toxins cleared from our body? Our liver is able to detoxify most substances by conjugation reactions or oxidation reactions. These toxins are then excreted and eliminated through our urine or stool.

What is the purpose of a cleanse? The goal is to reduce the toxic burden in our body. The most obvious and most important way to do this is to reduce and/or remove the exposure! Now we can’t remove all the exposure unless we go to the North Pole or Antarctica (though there is even evidence of pollution there as well!), but what about that significant other who’s smoking in the house? Or all those cleaning chemicals you use to clean your house with?

How to reduce toxic burden: There are many ways we can reduce our exposure, but there are two major processes that I like to facilitate to physically reduce toxic burden. The first thing I do is to enhance liver functioning to optimize the detoxification process. I accomplish this by resting the liver through diet, and supplementing with key vitamins, nutrients, and herbs   that will support liver detoxification. Secondly, I want to support the elimination process, by excretion through urine, stool, and sweat. This is accomplished by drinking lots of water, using fiber with high binding capacity, and using infrared saunas.

The Benefits of a cleanse: The benefits of a cleanse include increased energy and mood, but also has physical effects as well. It helps to strengthen your immune system, decrease antigen-antibody complexes, and increases healing time.  Because it can decrease antigen-antibody complexes, a cleanse can be beneficial for those with autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, but can also be of benefit for those who suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome or fibromyalgia.

It is best to do cleanse during the spring when it is warm outside, but can be done any time of the year.

To set up your appointment for your individualized cleanse program, call the Stram Center for Integrative Medicine at 518-689-2244.

Posted in Cleanse and Detoxification, Korey DiRoma Naturopath, Preventative Health | Comments Off

Natural Prevention of Swine Flu

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

By Christopher Reilly, L.Ac

There has been a lot of talk lately on the news and in the community about swine-origin flu.  Thus far, the transmission of swine-flu, and risk factors associated with it are thought to be very similar to the seasonal flu that we see every year.  I thought it might be helpful to review some of the simple, natural ways that we can protect ourselves from flu viruses.

  • Get enough sleep. There are numerous studies showing how important sleep is for many aspects of health, in one such study ,  it was found that patients who had adequate sleep produced far more antibodies in response to a viral (hepatitis A) vaccination, and produced significantly higher levels of immune-stimulating hormones.
  • Keep chronic stress to a minimum.  Unlike acute fight-or-flight forms of stress, a meta-analysis of research shows that chronic stressors can lower the functioning of the immune system.
  • Meditation is great to help prevent chronic stress from accumulating and one study using mindfulness meditation found that those who meditated not only had incr4eased activity in an area of the brain associated with positive mood, but also had significantly higher antibody production in response to an influenza vaccination.
  • Keep physically active, especially if you are elderly.  As we advance in age, parts of our immune system that work to fight off a specific infectious agent like a virus  decline. A study of older men found that this trend was partially reversed by regular physical exercise.
  • Drink plenty of fluids and eat nutritious food. This one is pretty much a no-brainer!
  • Quit smoking. Smoking, among other things, damages the ability of the respiratory tract and lungs to take care of themselves. Smokers are not only more susceptible  to infection, but also have on average more severe symptoms, and take longer to recover from respiratory infection.  As far as quitting goes, there truly is no time like the present.

I hope these simple pointers can help us to live a more healthy life in general, and help us to stay calm in the current atmosphere  of reactivity and fear.  There are many other strategies such as clinical nutrition, herbs and supplementation that can help support a healthy immune system.  These require much more individual attention and recommend contacting one of our providers should you want to pursue them further.

Posted in Christopher Reilly L.AC, Preventative Health, Swine-Flu, Traditional Chinese Medicine | Comments Off

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