ABOUT

Chinese Medical Science

Most of us learned about health and the body through a “biomedical” lens — that is, conventional Western medical ways of looking at anatomy, physiology and pathology. When we think of the immune system, for example, or the actions of caffeine on the nervous system, we are using the framework of biomedicine.
Classical Chinese medicine arose in a different place and time – more than 2000 years ago. While it shares many ideas about anatomy and pathology with the science underlying biomedicine, much of its foundation is quite different. Chinese medicine is more likely to look at relationships, functional flows, and interactions between the body and nature.
My practice combines the best of both worlds. My training in Chinese medicine included plenty of information about biomedical anatomy, physiology, immunology, and other fields. I work alongside biomedical practitioners and enjoy good relationships with doctors of various modalities. My goal is to help you find the right mix of modalities for your unique healthcare situation.
Ideally, restoration of health proceeds along a path from least invasive to more invasive, depending on what is necessary — from exercise, diet and lifestyle, to manual medicine, acupuncture and moxibustion therapy, internal herbal medicine, and when all else fails, to pharmaceutical drugs and surgery. I help you avoid these maximally invasive measures, and enhance their effectiveness and minimize their side effects when they are necessary.
Through needling and adjunctive techniques, acupuncture unblocks and revitalizes stagnant areas in the body, like restoring a dammed body of a water to a healthy, free-flowing river system.