Medical Acupuncture

Hi... I am doing a quick post on Acupuncture. I am right now taking a continuing medical education (CME) class through UCLA School of Medicine on medical acupuncture. This class is affiliated with the Helms Medical Institute, which is associated with both UCLA and Stanford. I have chosen to take the most complete course, which is 300 units over the next year. So, I have just finished a book "Getting to Know You" by Dr. Helms MD.

Acupuncture, as it has been practiced, has been part of the standard medical care offered by the Chinese for thousands of years. It has been universally accepted in Europe, and was considered common practice by French physicians since WWI. In the US, it has been labeled as alternative medicine for a long time. Helms Medical Institute is the oldest institution that has dedicated themselves in training physicians (MD's and DO's) to perform medical acupuncture.

It was amazing, as I read through this book, how much acupuncture complements and adds to osteopathic manipulative therapy (OMT) and modern medicine. It offers ways to evaluate patients in a different perspective, a more complete perspective. Instead of treating patient's sickness, acupuncture's way of evaluation takes into account of overdrive or deficiencies of various organs of influence. Like OMT, Acupuncture does not replace, but adds an extra tool of diagnosis and treament to the patients. Ultimately, it is win-win for the patients as far as improved health and money saved.

This book dives into details regarding understanding people as generally three different biopsychotype profiles, or biological-psychological makeup: Vision/Action, Nurture/Duty, or Will/Spirit. Each of the characteristics are also associated with one elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water... in this particular order, each element gives rise to the next (Cycle of Generation) and each element also dominates the element that's 2 degrees away (Cycle of Control: for example: Wood dominates over Earth, Earth dominates over Water, Water dominates over Fire, Fire dominates over Metal, Metal dominates over Wood). With this paradigm, each of the elements are associated with a season, a flavor, a color, and an organ system:

1. Wood=Spring/Sour/Green/Liver&Gallbladder,
2. Fire=Summer/Bitter/Red/Heart,
3. Earth=Harvest/Sweet/Yellow/Spleen&Stomach,
4. Metal=Autumn/Spicy/White/Lung,
5. Water=Winter/Salty/Black/Kidney&Bladder.

You do have to note that each of these 'organs' mentioned are not necessarily referring to an actual organ. In Chinese Medicine, each of these 'organs' has controls over severel physiologies in the body in terms of 'balance' and 'imbalance.' If you insist of using 'Western' terminologies to evaluate what you are learning, you will be extremely confused. Let me tell ya, this is a complete different system of addressing medicine/health/dysfunction. Each elements also have associated biopsychotypes:

1. Wood=Vision/Action
2. Fire=Action, Spirit
3. Earth=Nurture
4. Metal=Duty
5. Water=Will

So, by understanding these Cycles of Generation and Cycles of Control with respect to the three general biopsychotypes, we can make sense of why certain people maintain health and why in certain individuals health break down. It is essential to understand how health breaks down in order to find ways to restore it. This is the essence of acupuncture.

If you would like to find out which biopsychotype you are, click on: http://www.acupunctureprofessor.com/index.php This site has basic synopsis of the book and also has a FREE evaluation tool, under "Learn More About YOU."

Enjoy, I learned to day that I scored roughly equally in Nurture/Duty and Will/Spirit biopsychotypes. What does that mean anyway? I will tell you later.