Tuesday, January 25, 2011

The Growth of Acupuncture





[My mom's acupuncture clinic. Rosie, therapy dog with Dr. Ha]

I can recall when people used to think that Acupuncture was a "fake" medical practice and was frowned upon because it was different. probably it's because the theory and philosophy of Acupuncture is hard to understand and to accept. If someone who has never experienced or heard of Oriental Medicine will have a hard time understanding Qi and meridian channels used in Acupuncture studies.


What's really great is that now a days, Acupuncture is more frequently searched for as a means of medical practice. Acupuncture is not the only medical practice that's rapidly growing, Naturopathic Medicine, Chiropractors and other alternative medicines are growing throughout the nation. Dr. Oz from the Dr. Oz Show and Oprah Winfrey Show graduated with a Ph. D in Naturopathic Medicine at Bastyr University last year.  The fact that Naturopathic Medicine and Alternative Medicine is being accepted in society is a big step up from the types of social label these practices had in the past.

The number of Acupuncture schools are growing also along with the number of medical health insurances that are covering for Acupuncture and Chiropractors. What really surprised me is that Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine degrees are being offered at universities that are not specifically focused on alternative medicine. For example, So Cal University of Health Sciences, Southern Cross University, and University of Bridgeport.

I personally like University of Bridgeport because you can get your Acupuncture Degree and play sport and be part of a bigger community. Usually universities that are merely focused on alternative health sciences do not have any extracurricular activities or NCAA sports. UB has the degree that you want and you can have a real college experience.

You see, Acupuncture has grown a lot and is slowly making it's way to state schools. Hoping that one day it'll be even more well recognized by the society.

Friday, January 14, 2011

My Experience with Acupuncture

So.. This whole misconception of Acupuncture being this painful method of crazy medical practice is stupid. Basically Acupuncture is an oriental medical practice that's been around for thousands of years and it's not painful at all. 

As a patient, I feel that it's relaxing and surprisingly pleasant. The moment the needles are in my body I feel my body just letting go of all the stress and falling straight to sleep. 

Crazy Fact 1: Acupuncturists can tell if you are pregnant and determine the sex of the baby by checking your pulse. 

I know it's totally unbelievable but I swear, I've seen it. My mom is an Acupuncturists and with the help of her needles and medicine a lot of women have gotten pregnant, better yet she told them the sex of the baby also. Not all on the same day but couple months later she did.

Crazy Fact 2: I'm a bit tired so I'm just going to stick with number 1. 

This is MY experience with Acupuncture so I've decided to make this blog extremely casual. It's  was a long weekend; first week of school and my brain just decided to crash right now. 

I've heard horror stories about fake Acupuncturists that have their own clinic but do not have a License. My high school counselor told me that her husband had terrible back problems and when she went to an Acupuncturist in downtown of Hawaii, the Acupuncturist placed needled in his back while he was sitting down! How crazy is that? What kind of Acupuncturist would do that? Um obviously a fake one? So please be careful when it comes to picking which Acupuncturist to go to. Check yelp or other search engines for review sites because not all Acupuncture clinics are legit. One particular clinic, so far as I've heard, used bottles of tylenol in their herbal medicine. The patients have reported terrible and severe side effects like vomiting and headache. 

Once again, be extremely careful. Usually the best clinic to go to is one that's been spread by word of mouth. 

Happy choosing!