In this season, there would be a lot of people who have a cold. Patients with high fever usually don’t visit an acupuncture clinic, but patients with other cold related symptoms often visit acupuncture clinic. Among those symptoms, there are a lot of patients with cough and cough is sometimes difficult to treat.
 
Overview
 
The patient is a woman with the age of 60s.
A week ago, after she shoveled snow at the night of snow storm, her cold symptoms started. Cough started a day after shoveling and she lost voice the following day. Fever was around 100 degrees F. She coughed out yellow phlegm. She started taking antibiotics 2 days before visiting my clinic. She had more cough at night with phlegm, stuffy nose, clogged ears and pain in her ribs due to cough.
 
I think that she sweat from shoveling and the sweat got cold making her body cold, and that weakened her Lung energy and she got cold symptoms.
 
After 3 acupuncture treatments of strengthening her Lung energy and using cough points with 2 to 3 days interval, her cough disappeared.
 
Acupuncture Treatment Detail
 
[1st Treatment]
 
After whole body treatment using non-insertion needles, I added heat therapy called moxa on her right cough point below the arm pit and points related to cold on her upper back, and I also attached a short needle on the right cough point like a sticker. At the end, I instructed her to lie on her side when she cough while she is sleeping and drink a cup of coffee when she cough to relax her throat.
 
[2nd Treatment]
 
2 days after 1st treatment, she didn’t have cough at night and could sleep better, but still had cough when she moved her body or talked. Her nose was still stuffy. Her ears were less clogged.
 
The treatment was similar to the previous one except that I did moxa on Lung points on her upper back instead of cold points.
 
[3rd Treatment]
 
3 days after 2nd treatment, her cough decreased, but she still had cough when she moved her body and talked. Stuffy nose became runny nose. Her ears were completely opened. Her voice was back.
 
The treatment was similar to the previous two treatments. There was no pain on the right cough point and there was pain on the left cough point, so I did moxa and attached a short needle on the left cough point.
 
[Result]
 
1 week after 3rd treatment, she reported that right after the 2nd treatment, her cough was much less and the following day, all the symptoms disappeared including cough, runny nose and since her energy also came back, she cleaned her house.
here to edit.

Related article:
[CASE] Cough After Bronchitis
If Your Cough Continues For More Than 2 Weeks
[CASE] Persistent Cough

If you are suffering from cough now and live near Salem, MA, Cozy Acupuncture is here to help you. Call today to set up an appointment: 617-584-8703. or Book Online.

Cases of Acupuncture Treatment Page was updated.
All the cases are categorized into the parts of the body.
​Click here to check the page.

Overview

The patient is a woman with the age of 30s.
She was coming to my clinic regularly having other symptoms, but on the day before her visit, she hurt the left side of her neck when she turned to the left. She had pain a little above and inside of her left shoulder blade (Acupuncture point: SI-15) when she turned her neck to the left and looked up. 

The 1st treatment included the treatment to improve the energy flow in the whole body and the treatment to remove painful points with pressure around her neck and shoulder area. All the treatment was done with round-tip needles only touching or tapping the skin. Right after the treatment, she didn’t feel any pain when she moved her neck.

When she came in a week for the 2nd treatment, she reported that she felt better for 3 days, but she had the same kind of pain as the last time. I gave her the similar treatment to the last time, and there was no pain when she moved her neck after the treatment. I told her to come back sooner than a week if she felt any pain in her neck.

She came in a week for the 3rd treatment. She reported that she felt better for 4 days, but she went to massage the day before this visit and she couldn’t sleep last night due to pain in her neck. I gave her the similar treatment to the previous treatment.

After the 3rd treatment, the pain in her neck completely disappeared.

Consideration

I recommended her to have treatments at shorter intervals than 1 week because she said she felt better for 3-4 days after each treatment. That is why I usually recommend to have treatments twice a week at the beginning of the course of treatments.

Unfortunately, she could only come once a week. I think that 1 week interval between treatments was too long for this kind of acute pain and made her suffering from the neck pain longer than I had expected. 

To get better faster, it is surely better to have another treatment before the symptom comes back.

Related article:
[CASE] Neck pain due to sleeping on the neck the wrong way and Sty on Eye

Cozy Acupuncture in Salem, MA specializes in Pain Management. If you are suffering from neck pain, we're here for you! Call Today to make an appointment: 617-584-8703 or Book now Online.

​When the weather gets cold, people with frequent urination increase. But there are a lot of cases that heart diseases and blood vessel diseases are hidden behind frequent urination. So it is important to know the characteristics of your frequent urination.
 
Overactive bladder (OAB)
 
Because the nerves of the bladder become sensitive, frequent, sudden urges to urinate are caused even if urine is not accumulated.
 
The amount of urine at night is more than during daytime
 
Overactive bladder is the disease that the amount of urine at night is less than during daytime.
The diseases that the amount of urine at night is more than during daytime are heart diseases, sleep apnea syndrome, lifestyle related diseases such as diabetes and others.
 
Hyperparathyroidism
 
Hyperparathyroidism is a disorder of the four parathyroid glands caused by the development of a benign tumor or others. These glands are about the size of a grain of rice and are located in your neck. The parathyroid glands produce parathyroid hormone, which helps maintain an appropriate balance of calcium in the bloodstream and in tissues that depend on calcium for proper functioning. the development of a tumor causes excess secretion of parathyroid hormone, causing abnormal activity of organs in whole body.
 
The kidney and muscles are easily affected by hyperparathyroidism.
 
If the kidney which regulates the amount of urine is affected, urine is produced too much.
If a pelvic floor muscle which supports the bladder is affected, frequent urination is caused by the decline of the function of the muscle.
Even if the test results of creatinine, calcium and blood pressure are within the range, they are a little bit high.
 
Swelling of legs and night urination
 
Water coming from swelling of legs leads to night urination.
 
People whose legs are obviously swollen have about 200-300 cc of water in one leg, more than 400 cc (2 glasses) of water for both legs.
 
The accumulated water in the legs comes back to the blood stream when lying down at night and the amount of water in the blood increases. The body tries to produce more urine to discharge the excess water, causing night urination.
 
Check the swelling of legs
 
When you press the inside of the shin with your finger, if the finger print stays there or a dimple doesn’t disappear, you have swelling of the leg and tend to have night urination (Fig. 1).
 
How to improve night urination by solving swelling of legs
 
The method is soaking in a bath tub.
 
The effect of water pressure and heat of warm water brings the water stored in the legs back to the blood. But it takes about 3-4 hours that the water returned to the blood becomes urine.
 
So it is recommended to take a bath 4 hours before going to bed.
 
If taking a bath 4 hours before going to bed is difficult, it is also recommended to massage legs, wear elastic stockings and lie down lifting legs up 4 hours before going to bed (Fig. 2).

Overview
 
The patient is a woman in age of 70s.
She had had knee pain in both of her knees for a few years, but the pain in her left knee got worse a week ago. That made her difficult to stand up and she also felt pain while she was sleeping. She went see a doctor and was said that the cartridge of the knee was wearing down and knee replacement surgery was necessary. The prescribed pain medication was effective at the beginning, but it became ineffective now. She came to my clinic referred by another patient. She wanted to use her own knees without joint replacement surgery for some more years.
 
When I checked her left knee at the first treatment, there were a lot of painful points with pressure around her left knee, especially inside and back of her left knee.
 
At the third treatment, she reported that she didn’t have pain while walking and sleeping.
 
At the fifth treatment, she said that she didn’t have pain when walking, standing and sitting, and there were no painful points with pressure around her left knee at all, so the course of treatments for her left knee ended.
 
Acupuncture treatment detail
 
The pattern is Liver or Kidney. Pressure-pain points were located mainly on Kidney, Liver and Leg Triple Warmer meridians around her left knee. These painful points were removed with the points on the back of the head and her left foot related to each meridian.
 
In this case, the pain around her knee was removed by touching distal points with non-insertion needle (Teishin), though moxa (heat therapy) treatment around the painful knee is usually performed when the pain is caused by wear of cartridge.
 
I didn’t use either any sharp needles or moxa.
 
If you are suffering from knee pain even after you have tried various things, we’re here to help! Cozy Acupuncture in Salem, MA specializes in Pain Management.
 
Call today to set up your appointment: 617-584-8703
Book now Online

Different from cough coming from a common cold, lingering cough that has asthma or other conditions are behind the cough is often difficult to suppress. In that case, I usually recommend home therapy with moxa (heat therapy) and/or drinking lotus root tea to strengthen Lung energy in addition to acupuncture treatment, but such cough often doesn't go away easily.
 
The following is the case which showed very good result after one acupuncture treatment.
 
The patient in her 70s initially came to my clinic to treat other symptoms. When I was checking her pulse, she was coughing on the treatment table, so I asked her about that. She had bronchitis 4 months ago and the bronchitis got better 2 months ago, but still cough had been continuing since then.
 
After I performed whole body treatment and treatment for her main complaint, to treat her cough, I burned moxa, which is a kind of dried herb, on a tender point under her arm pit and attached a short needle on the same acupuncture point to bring it back home.
 
When she came back to my clinic 4 days after the previous treatment, she reported me that her cough reduced dramatically.

Call today to set up your appointment: 617-584-8703
Book now Online

Related article:
If Your Cough Continues For More Than 2 Weeks
[CASE] Persistent Cough

For a limited time, Cozy Acupuncture is offering $15 discount on Facial Rejuvenation Acupuncture. This offer expires 1/31/2018.

Click Book Online to get $15 discount.

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​New Cause of Knee Pain recently discovered

Knee pain is caused by the inflammation in the knee due to wear of the cartridge. 
 
Once the cartridge becomes thin, it won’t regain the thickness. There is no fundamental treatment. This was commonsense of medical field.  
 
But it has turned out that knee pain can be dramatically improved by the improvement of a new cause of knee pain. 

Please learn what the new cause of knee pain and how to improve it by getting Free PDF "Let's Improve Knee Pain".

​A lot of knee pain is caused by the inflammation substance secreted by wearing off of the cartridge.
 
In addition, the cold in winter shrinks the blood vessels around the knee, causing poor blood circulation, and the inflammation substance in the blood steam stays around the knee, causing more pain.
 
According to a research reported in Poland, 2016, 4822 people who had knee pain took a substance every day and 86 % of them reported the alleviation of the pain.
 
A food contains the substance. That is Avocado.
 
Avocado is rich in good fat, vitamins and minerals, and registered as the most nutritious fruit in the Guinness World Record.
 
By the recent research, it has turned out that a substance contained in avocado is effective to suppress knee pain. The substance in avocado is used as medicine for knee pain in Europe.
 
20 % of avocado is fat which is expected to improve knee pain.
 
The fat of avocado has the functions to protect the cartridge of the knee and to prevent the production of the enzyme which breaks the cartridge.
 
It is confirmed that eating avocado reduces knee pain and makes the movement of the knee better.
 
How much avocado should we eat?
 
It has not turned out that how much avocado we should eat to improve knee pain. However, avocado is eaten a lot in Mexico and according to a survey, middle-aged Mexican people who live in Japan and have younger cartridges of the knees than their ages eat about 3.5 pieces of avocado a week on average.
 
Avocado is rich in fat, but the unsaturated fatty acid of avocado lowers LDL cholesterol while animal fat increases LDL cholesterol.
 
How should we eat avocado?
 
It is more effective to eat avocado with soy oil. Fried avocado with soy oil is good.
When eating raw, it is good to eat avocado salad with mayonnaise because mayonnaise contains soy oil.

Acupuncture vs intravenous morphine
​in the management of acute pain in the ED.

Morphine is a very strong pain medication which potentially has serious side effects and addiction.

How effective is acupuncture for pain management compared to morphine?

The following is a research reported on American Journal of Emergency Medicine.

The effect of acupuncture and morphine against acute pain was researched in July 2016.

300 patients with acute pain were picked up and divided into 2 groups.

Group 1: Acupuncture treatment to acute pain
Group 2: Intravenous morphine to acute pain

92% of the patients treated by acupuncture (Group 1) had pain reduction and it took 16 minutes to reduce the pain, while 78% of the patients treated by the administration of morphine (Group 2) had pain reduction and it took 28 minutes to reduce the pain.

Summery:
Pain reduction rate: Acupuncture 92% vs Morphine 78%
Pain reduction time: Acupuncture 16 minutes vs Morphine 28 minutes

I'm an acupuncturist but so surprised at the result that acupuncture was as effective as or more effective than morphine as pain relief method.

For detail, please check the following
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27475042

Do you suffer from back, neck, hip, or knee pain?

​Did you know that 80% of Americans will suffer from back pain at some point in their lives, and that 100,000 Americans deal with chronic pain of some kind, including knee, shoulder, and hip pain? If this sounds like you, then you’re not alone. But you don’t have to suffer. There are solutions, and it’s about finding what works best for you.

Get Free Natural Pain Management Resources I want to share with you by signing up below! 

​There is a difference between people who tend to catch a cold easily and people who don’t.
 
What makes the difference is the power of cilia which are the hair inside our body.
 
Cilia line the respiratory tract from the back of nose to bronchial tubes. The length is about 1/100 mm. Since cilia keep waving 15 times per second, even if you are infected by a virus, cilia deliver the virus to the back of throat and to the stomach very quickly, and the virus is killed by stomach acid.
 
But if the power of cilia is weakened, the virus doesn’t reach the stomach, stays in the air way, invades the body and causes inflammation, resulting in sneezing, runny nose, sore throat, cough, headache and/or fever.
 
What weakens the power of cilia?
 
Coldness
The colder the temperature is, the slower the activity of cilia is. That means the function of cilia to deliver and discharge viruses becomes weaker.
 
Lack of water
In winter, water is lost from exhaled air and the skin because the air is dry.
In summer, when you sweat, you feel thirsty and drink water, but in winter, water is lost gradually without your notice and you don’t feel thirsty so much, so you don’t drink water.
 
Why does lack of water lower the activity of cilia?
 
Fig. 1 shows normal mucus and cilia and Fig. 2 shows decreased mucus and cilia.
 
When viruses come into your nose, cilia deliver the virus with mucus to your mouth or stomach, forming phlegm. But the lack of water decreases mucus and the viruses stay on the cilia without being delivered, and the viruses invade the cell and increase the number, resulting in catching a cold.
 
A virus which invaded the body in the morning becomes ten thousands in the evening (16 hours later) and becomes one million in the next morning (24 hours later), causing various cold symptoms.
 
So it is important to keep cilia active to prevent a virus from invading the body.
 
How can we hydrate the body efficiently not to catch a cold?
 
Even in winter, about 1.5 litter of water for a day is required. It is recommended to drink a glass of water 7-8 times throughout a day and you can protect your cilia from dehydration. It is not good to drink a lot of water at once because large amount of water is discharged as urine and doesn’t help hydration.
 
What beverage is good to drink for hydration?
 
Water or tea is good. Coffee and alcohol have a diuretic effect, so they are not good for hydration.
 
How to protect our body from viruses during sleep
 
While sleeping, we lose water from exhaled air and the skin, so during sleep, the activity of the cilia slows down and the possibility that we allow viruses to invade our body is higher.
 
The method which protects our body from viruses during sleep is inhaling the smell of mint.
 
Menthol contained in mint activates the function of cilia.
 
Mint towel: soak a towel in a bucket of water dropping 7-8 drops of mint oil and squeeze it lightly and hang the towel in your bed room. Menthol activates cilia and it moisturizes the room.
 
Mint mask: spray water in a spray bottle containing a drop of mint oil. Menthol activates cilia and prevents the mouth from drying.