July 11, 2005

BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT: Acupuncture Q & A

By Dr. Quli Zhou
Special to the Times

In the health world today, preventive medicine is of great importance to a good, healthy lifestyle. Stress is no one’s friend and creates poor health or aggravates illness and helps to inflame disease.

Dr. Quli Zhou uses Micro Current Therapy on a patient suffering from neck pain.

I am sure that like so many of us, you have experienced the seven signs of stress: headaches, fatigue, body pain, digestive disturbances, difficulty sleeping, irritability and weight trouble.

There are two types of medicine: Eastern and Western medicine. Eastern medicine is becoming very popular and known for its benefits in preventative health. Western medicine is known for its evaluations of symptoms and prescriptions of drugs or surgery to relieve and correct problems.

I have been answering questions about acupuncture for over 20 years and look forward to answering any questions that you may have. E-mail me your questions and I will try to answer them in one my columns to doctor@myeternalhealth.com.

What exactly is acupuncture and how does it work?
Acupuncture and Chinese Herbology have been used to treat and prevent diseases for over 5,000 years. Chinese medicine is based on the Chinese philosophy that teaches Yin (dark, weak, inward) and Yang (bright, strong, outward) should be in harmony. Qi, is life’s energy force, which should flow in meridians, which are like roads in our body transmitting energy and signals to our major organs.

These are our messengers between and for the following organs: kidney, heart and spleen. If Yin and Yang are out of balance, Qi is stagnant creating illness or allowing disease to develop.

These problems manifest as abnormalities on the tongue and in the pulse. The diagnosis begins with observation of the spirit, palpitations of the pulse, intonation of the voice and careful inspection of an individual’s tongue. An assesment of your Qi imbalance or blockage is made and the nature and cause of the problem determined. Chinese herbs will be administered to rebalance your body’s Yin and Yang and to strengthen the Qi and allow your Qi to flow once again. When your Yin and Yang become balanced you will return to excellent health.

I am not very fond of needles and would like to try acupuncture, it there a therapy that can help someone like me?
Yes, we have alternative therapies to help you. We have Vibration Light Therapy. It is proven that light helps to heal and we can show you how this works, when you come in for a free consultation. You will still benefit from the unblocking of your Qi, and of course I can monitor your progress through an examination of your tongue and by your pulse. We also use Micro Current Therapy for the same purpose.

Summer is here and I want to look better in my bathing suit. I have heard that people can lose weight with acupuncture therapy, is this true?
Yes, with summer just around the corner, most people feel better when they are more comfortable with their weight. There are a few things we can do to help achieve the weight loss you desire; we can discuss your case individually to give you a better result.

Acupuncture will help to decrease your need to eat, address the causes of your overeating and help you lose excess weight by increasing your metabolism. We have had many patients not only lose weight but gain overall health, such as lowering blood pressure and reducing their risk of heart disease after treatments.

With the right diagnosis, and treatment we can address not only the weight, but also any tendency toward depression or anxiety, which are often connected to weight gain.

Someone I know had a non-surgical face-lift done through an acupuncture office. What is a non-surgical face-lift?
It is designed for people who do not wish to have their skin cut during surgery, but still want to see the effects of age reduced. We offer non-surgical facelift treatments and have many happy patients. The treatment has become popular due to its great results without surgery or pain.

Others seek it as an alternative to Botox treatments, when they choose not to put any chemicals in their system. It is done at the office and is fairly simple and easy procedure. The results are well documented and show great improvement to all areas of the face in a relatively short amount of time and after just a few visits. Depending on the patient, different methods are used including light treatments, electrical pulses and acupuncture. We use hair-like, thin, fine needles to work on crows feet and wrinkles.

My Eternal Health Center will be holding several free workshops in July. Please call the office at 379-6638 to find out the topic, date, time and location of each workshop. For more information visit www.myeternalhealth.com.