ESCAPADA E-MAGAZINE

HOW WE WORK AT OUR CLINICS:

Integrative Health is a medical system that encompasses us as a whole individual and takes into consideration our physical body, mind and spirit. This means that our health should not be just the absence of disease, but the feeling of wholeness, balance and resilience.

We may know what’s good for us but we often struggle with the practical application of a healthy lifestyle in our everyday busy lives.

In addition, with an overwhelming amount of information around us, the idea of Integrative Health can seem like an unachievable concept. At Escapada, we want to explore a diverse yet simple and individualised approach to Integrative Health. Within our clinics, we not only treat with acupuncture but focus on nutritional intake and lifestyle advise.

IS ACUPUNCTURE FOR ME?

Your daily stresses, lifestyle choices and injuries can upset our natural balance and lead to physical and emotional symptoms. With Chinese medicine and Acupuncture, you can begin our journey to better health. Acupuncture is a 3,000-year-old healing technique of Traditional Chinese Medicine. It improves the body’s functions and promotes the natural self-healing process by stimulating specific anatomic sites--commonly referred to as acupuncture points, or acupoints. The most common method used to stimulate acupoints is the insertion of fine, sterile needles into the skin. Pressure, heat, or electrical stimulation may further enhance the effects. Acupuncture can be used as a natural medicine from child to old age. 

WHAT CAN IT TREAT?

Hundreds of clinical studies on the benefits of acupuncture show that it successfully treats conditions ranging from musculoskeletal problems (back pain, neck pain, and others) to nausea, migraine headache, anxiety, depression, insomnia, and infertility.

Case-controlled clinical studies have shown that acupuncture has been an effective treatment for the following diseases, symptoms or conditions:

• Malposition of fetus, correction

• Morning sickness

• Nausea and vomiting

• Neck pain

• Pain in dentistry (including dental pain and temporomandibular dysfunction)

• Periarthritis of shoulder

• Postoperative pain

• Renal colic

• Rheumatoid arthritis

• Sciatica

• Sprain

• Stroke

• Tennis elbow

• Knee pain

• Leukopenia

• Low back pain

• Allergic rhinitis (including hay fever)

• Biliary colic

• Depression (including depressive neurosis and depression following stroke)

• Dysentery, acute bacillary

• Dysmenorrhoea, primary

• Epigastralgia, acute (in peptic ulcer, acute and chronic gastritis, and gastrospasm)

• Facial pain (including craniomandibular disorders)

• Headache

• Hypertension, essential

• Hypotension, primary

• Induction of labor

  
  

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE HISTORY & HOW IT WORKS

Traditional Chinese Medicine is one of the oldest continuous systems of medicine in history, with recorded instances dating as far back as two thousand years before the birth of Christ. While acupuncture is the most often practiced component of traditional Chinese medicine, one should know that it is only one important piece of a much larger puzzle. Traditional Chinese medicine encompasses several methods designed to help people achieve and maintain health.  Along with acupuncture, TCM incorporates adjunctive techniques such as acupressure and moxibustion; manipulative and massage techniques such as tuina, cupping and gua sha; herbal medicine; diet and lifestyle changes; meditation; and exercise (often in the form of qigong or tai chi).

THE MICROCOSM WITHIN THE MACROCOSM

Due to its complexity, Chinese medicine seems difficult to comprehend. TCM ( Traditional Chinese Medicine) is based, at least in part, on the Daoist belief that we live in a universe in which everything is interconnected, another way to put it: we are the microcosm within the macrocosm. What happens to one part of the body affects every other part of the body. The mind and body are not viewed separately, but as part of an energetic system. Similarly, organs and organ systems are viewed as interconnected structures that work together to keep the body functioning. 

Many of the concepts emphasised in TCM  have no true counterpart in Western medicine. One of these concepts is qi (pronounced "chi"), which is considered a vital force or energy responsible for controlling the workings of the human mind and body. Qi flows through the body via channels, or pathways, which are called meridians. There are a total of 20 meridians: 12 primary meridians, which correspond to specific organs, organ systems or functions, and eight secondary meridians. Imbalances in the flow of qi cause illness; correction of this flow restores the body to balance. Other concepts (such as the Yin/Yang and Five Element Theories) are equally important in order to have a true grasp of traditional Chinese medicine, and will be discussed at length elsewhere on this site.

Perhaps the most significant developments in TCM are the concept of Yin & Yang and the understanding of Qi. Yin and Yang represent two opposing forces in nature, which are simultaneously related to one another. Often they are understood as female or lunar and male or solar principles. All the phenomena of nature, every function of our body, and every disease can be divided into yin and yang. 

“Finding a good acupuncturist and let them get to know your body and the way it works - is worth its weight in gold for a natural approach to health”

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