Addiction, Acupuncture, and the Army

Prescription drug abuse is a rampant problem in the civilian world, so it should come as no surprise that misuse of medication plagues a military that has been both physically and mentally drained over the past decade. Pain happens and narcotics can be used appropriately and effectively to treat and manage discomfort. Addictions frequently have a root in liberal prescribing practices, inability to deliver non-pharmaceutical pain management modalities, and underlying or untreated mental health disorders. However, we do live in an era where putting the blame solely on the prescriber or claiming ignorance of the abuse potential of the drug are becoming anachronistic excuses. Increasingly, VA and military facilities across the country are using CAM therapies like acupuncture, yoga, and meditation for treatment of PTSD, addiction, and pain. While this solider incorporated some modest acupuncture in his therapy, the fact he has shared his struggles and openly advocates for holistic approach to pain will help both the profession and the heros.

3-star opens up about battle with addiction

Army Lt. Gen. David Fridovich says that, for years, he has regularly consumed narcotics and painkillers to deal with chronic pain — and now he’s sharing his story

By Gregg Zoroya - USA Today
Posted : Wednesday Jan 26, 2011 21:38:59 EST

TAMPA, Fla. — Standing before a packed hall of 700 military doctors and medics here, the deputy commander of the nation’s elite special operations forces warned about an epidemic of chronic pain sweeping through the U.S. military after a decade of continuous war.

Be careful about handing out narcotic pain relievers, Lt. Gen. David Fridovich told the audience last month. “What we don’t want is that next generation of veterans coming out with some bad habits.”

What Fridovich didn’t say was that he was talking as much about himself as anyone.

Fridovich agreed in recent weeks to talk openly about his reliance on drugs as part of what he says is a personal commitment to push the Army into better addressing pain management and drug addiction.

“I was fighting the pain. And I was fighting the injury. And I was fighting the narcotics,” he says. “We have an obligation to the soldiers to look them in the eye and say, ‘I know what you’re going through. You don’t want to be like this for the rest of your life. You don’t have to be.’ ”

Pentagon statistics show the number of pain-relief prescriptions given to troops, including narcotics, growing 86 percent from 2001-09, when 3.7 million doses were handed out. That dipped last year to 3.5 million prescriptions, the data reveal, but is still more than any year prior to 2009.

He says Army medicine must be better prepared to treat pain with aggressive monitoring of medication, drug education, acupuncture, nutrition and proper exercise.

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The Balancing Act

I normally do not promote promotion of medical acupuncture since, contrary to the contention of this article, most physicians who practice medical acupuncture are not experts in both fields, but rather specialists in one and dabbles in the other. I will forgo my usual rant about weekend courses, dry needling practices, and cookbook style acupuncture and instead be mollified that the EU and USA appear to be on the same 1/4 page of acceptance when it comes to insurance coverage for evidenced-based CAM therapies.


Getting the Balance Right (excerpt)
By Lizzy Beckwith for CypresNews Jan. 16, 2011


Even diehard medical traditionalists accept that acupuncture is excellent for pain relief. Back pain, knee pain, tennis elbow as well as pain caused by many other health issues, including cancer, can be greatly relieved. It is also beneficial when traditional drugs have ceased to be effective or dosages need to be reduced due to side-effects. Acupuncture’s approach to pain relief is more holistic, using the body’s own abilities to find balance, heal, or release pain relieving chemicals. Mainstream medical specialists often recommend" acupuncture to patients to help with their recovery.


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Setting Goals for 2011 and Beyond

Setting SMART Life Goals

Setting goals is the key to staying on track and providing a clear direction to your life. Start with an overall self-concept that you want to achieve. It can be as simple and straightforward as “I am kind” or “I am content,” and as complex as “I am a holistic success” or “I am an accomplished innovator.”

In order to become the person you want to be, it is important that goals be SMART goals. They should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. Set short-term goals for as little as 1-3 months, medium term goals for 6 months to a year, and long-term goals for 5 years or more. You can also include a lifetime accomplishment list. Start with short term first and experiment. Set your goals in the following categories:

Health

Family

Social

Career

Education

Financial

Spiritual

Make sure to dedicate plenty of time and though into this task. Goals should be neither fickle nor fixed. Goals are dynamic. As you change, your goals will change.

Put your list in a place where you can look at them often, ideally every day.  If you feel you are getting off track, set small and precise weekly or even daily goals to give yourself a sense of accomplishment. You can also involve your loved ones and have a set of both personal and family goals. Check out this 30-day challenge to get you started on the right foot.

Enjoy the process and may all your goals be achieved!

Acupuncture for Colic!

It is rare I get calls to treat infants, but a new study demonstrates the potential effectiveness of acupuncture use in this population. In a double-blind, randomized control study of infants of 36-week gestation or more with at least 3 hours of colic-related crying per day 3 times per week, found reduction in duration and severity with stimulation of acupuncture point LI4 for 2 seconds on one side and then the other for 6 sessions over 3 weeks. Longer retention and stimulation in previous studies had a more immediate effect, but this may pave the way for parental-administered acupressure at home as a viable therapy.

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Acupuncture and Ivy League Softball

Former Columbia softball player Keli Leong gets to revisit her former glory on the silver screen along Reece Witherspoon in the upcoming movie "How do You Know." What does this have to do with acupuncture?  Leong is currently pursuing her master's degree in acupuncture with a goal of helping treat athletes as she was treated when playing the game. Too bad there are no acupuncture scenes in the movie!

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A Funny Video Explaining Acupuncture

An unknown colleague created this video, "But You're Not Chinese," and it has been reposted by multiple acupuncturists on Facebook. It is a little over-the-top on the part of the acupuncture bear, but quite fun anyway!

A Football Fraud-Acupuncture News Partnership

For once, I can actually post something relevant to two of my blogs!

The New York Times (normally not a name I trust in news) reported on a colleague dubbed "the traveling NFL acupuncturist." My issues, other than jealousy, is that the article does not say where she received her training and it seems she is practicing a "if it hurts, stick it" style of acupuncture. Granted, this is essentially the premiss of dry needling and medical acupuncture, but it is bothersome how much she is raking in for performing a best-guess procedure.

I reiterate, I am jealous.

I have often wondered why reports of professional athletes receiving acupuncture were few and far between, but with hope, news like this will get some of the pro and college teams interested in incorporating it into their programs.

And now, some predictions:

This weeks winners: Eagles, Saints, Bears, Packers, Titans, Chiefs, Dolphins, Vikings, Giants, Chargers, Colts, Rams, Seahawks, Falcons, Ravens, and Patriots

It will not be 3 points that the Patriots win by against the Jets, however they will still think they are winning the super-bowl just because Rex Ryan says so and queek-by victories are still victories

In light of Drew B. winning the Sports Illustrated athlete of the year award, they will double the usual mentions of how much the city of N.O. has been through during their match-up with the Bengals (and TO will dominate this week again)

Call It Like It Is PLEASE!

The headline reads, "Ashland acupuncturist agrees to surrender license," but not because he is an acupuncturist. It is because he was practicing naturopathy without a license. Which he relinquished earlier this year due to complaints. My issue with this story is that the headline should have "Naturopath" in the title since that is the field of violation. Leading the story with "Acupuncturist" tarnishes the profession unnecessarily and inaccurately.

Read the story

Get Fit, Be Full!

To preempt the upcoming belly bulge, this Holiday Season Jing is donating 10% of fitness, gear, and supplement purchases from JingBody to combat hunger with Dare to Care!

A member of Feeding America, the mission of Dare to Care is to end hunger in our community through partnerships, innovative programs, and community engagement. It is estimated 175,000 people are at risk for hunger across the 13 Kentucky and Indiana counties served by Dare to Care. Last year, over 192,000 people received emergency food assistance, including 40,000 children.

While I love helping people one-on-one, it is difficult to fit in extra voulenteer work with running a business, teaching, practicing self and family care, and working toward my doctorate. So far this year we have raised money for the National Alliance for Mental Illness, the Denny Crum Foundation, and the Red Cross. We hope to make a good showing for Dare to Care too!

To help out, go to www.JingBody.com and click on "shop." Feel free to contact me is you have questions on any of the program or products. Ge Fit! Give Back!

We Made Another "Top" List!

Online Medical Assistant named us one of the Top 50 Resources! The list has blogs from several different health care areas, both in and out of the US. Topics include everything from attending nursing school as a male or person with a disability, to HIPPA and hospice, to marketing and administration.

Check out Jing and some of the other mentions at: Online Medical Assistant

Thanks for another kudos!

Better Business Bureau

A few months ago we were asked to become members. Check out our official Better Business Bureau Seal of Approval Link:

My New Favorite

A few moths ago, my massage therapist turned me on to Genbook, an online scheduling system. I have been resistant to these systems for quite a while because I did not want my patients to feel like I was pawning them off on an electronic secretary. Not one to be accused of being a late adopter . . . . and having my scheduling system crash in August causing a lot of professionally embarrassing phone calls, I started playing with the system and found it very easy user friendly and a huge time saver. Patients can see what you have open (which you can change either by the day or with block of time in a day) they can schedule and cancel in time frames the practitioner sets up, appointments sync to a number of calenders, and it sends an e-mail reminder to the patient. Pretty nifty!

Check it out: http://www.Jing.Genbook.com

Thanks for Making Us a Top Blog!

Wow - Acupuncture News was just voted brilliant! Here is part of the e-mail I received with links to other genius blogs like this one

Congratulations! Acupuncture News, was determined to be one of the best blogs to exude overall brilliance. And so, it has received our 2010 Top 40 Acupuncture Blogs award presented by Medical Billing and Coding!

You can see your name amongst our winners here at:
www.medicalbillingandcoding.org/top_acupuncture/#Acupuncture_News

Winners were chosen through a scoring system that included internet nominations, which came from your reader base!

And yes, I realize this is largely to get people to click on the link to the medical billing and coding site. Crafty, isn't it?!

Rising Ire

There is nothing that gets my nurse cap and acupuncture robes more ruffled than unqualified practitioners claiming they are competent AND getting away with it. I will not rehash my position about "medical" and "dry needling" acupuncture programs, since I have already gone off the rails on this before. But I want to share a bit on a story I read today claiming a nurse practitioner who sees a few patients a week is only one of eight board certified acupuncturists in the US. Um, no. This is yet another in a crop of people who are dabbling in medicine without real training and part of a group that is advocating for acupuncture awareness. The problem is, these "medical" acupuncture associations do not acknowledge the NCCAOM, a body that certifies acupuncturists with master's level training, not continuing eduction level training. The other problem is, while they are gung ho on getting insurance and state-funded programs to get acupuncture coverage, they are advocating for themselves, not the profession. Here is my comment, just in case they decide not to publish it:

As an ANCC board certified family nurse practitioner and NCCAOM certified acupuncturist, herbalist, and diplomat in Oriental Medicine (practicing in the midwest where it is geographically impossible for Ivy League schools to exist unless the NCAA decides to restructure), I am curious where the "one of eight nurse practitioners in the United States with a board certification in acupuncture" statistic came from. How can one call themselves board certified in acupuncture yet simultaneously be "not an acupuncturist?" And which board is it? I did not see Boensch listed in the NCCAOM or Michigan Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine State registry. Tinkering in a medicine practice that requires a master's degree with residency is as unethical claiming you are qualified to be a primary health care provider because you passed a test and took a few weekend seminars. The Michigan Medical Acupuncture Association (which does not link to the NCCAOM) endorses a paltry 120 or 224 hour teaching certificate by the AMMA for health professionals. Would you feel comfortable if that was all the training requirement your MD needed to be certified in internal medicine or your NP in midwifery? Seeing a few patients a week does little to expand knowledge or practical application of education, and I wonder if the patients of these practitioners with limited training are getting better by accident, not by competence. While awareness of acupuncture is great, patients need to make sure they have well trained, competent practitioners, both treating them and representing profession.

And for anyone out there in an ire about me, as the gentleman was who accused me of being dishonest, misleading, and watering down the profession by using my earned and recognized DOM title (talk to the NM Board of Acupuncture or the AAAOM - I would welcome a national LAc credential over the hodgepodge of initials so many of us are sporting or making the DAOM the new minimum practice requirement and grandfathering in the MSOM folks), feel free to air out your concerns here!

Research on Acupuncture for Migraines and Headaches

The Cochrane Review completed and update to their survey of acupuncture research and have found it a successful therapy in the search for relief from migraines and tension headaches.

One of the most exciting elements of this report is the explanation of why the placebo control groups often reported benefit close to the level of other participants receiving "real" acupuncture or "traditional" pharmacotherapy. Most of the studies using "sham" treatments as control populations were still receiving acupuncture therapy and therefore cannot be considered true placebos.

One of the issues with acupuncture research is the difficulty in standardizing therapy for the purposes of study in a modality that does not practice the western style cookbook-medicine. The detractors sum it all up by saying anyone who receives benefits from acupuncture must have had psychosomatic pain (aka: "it is all in your head"). While I expect these folks will embrace research demonstrating the effectiveness of acupuncture about as quickly as geocentrists accepted Galileo, having an evidence-based medicine giant may make them re-examine the research.

Acupuncture for Migraines and Chronic Headache

Help Us Stamp Out Stigma!

We are participating in the NAMI walk for recovery on September 12th at Waterfront Park. Please click the link below to visit the team page for more information, to join us on the walk, or sponsor the team!

Stigma Stampers NAMI Walk Page

Last year was a great time and we hope to make this year even better!

Help! My Sad Face is Frozen!

As Judge Judy wrote, beauty is fades, dumb is forever. Not that anyone would suppose injecting an botulism toxin into the face would be the most intelligent beauty regimen, but it is a quick path to pretty without side effects, right? Some studies are showing that the lack of facial expressions have a negative impact on social interaction as it relates to non-verbal communication, but the inability to produce the full range of facial expression may effect the individual's ability to process their own emotions.

The desire to look as young as you feel in a youth-centric culture is adaptive, especially as we are living longer and harder lives. Hydration, eating a diet high in fresh, un-processed foods, getting adaquate but not excessive sun exposure, staying away from toxins (not injecting them directly into a wrinkle) and cultivating your internal happy go a long way in promoting your inner and outer beauty. Oh, and acupuncture helps too!

Botox injections put a crease in emotional evaluations (excerpt)

By Bruce Bower

Two weeks after their first Botox injections, 40 women took an average of about one-quarter of a second longer to read sentences describing angry and sad situations than they did immediately before the procedure, Havas and his colleagues found.

Critically, Botox patients show no decline in the speed with which they read sentences about happy situations, Havas’ team reports in an upcoming Psychological Science.

“These findings suggest that facial expressions are involved in assessing specific emotions or emotional situations,” Havas says.

Havas hypothesizes that Botox-induced paralysis of the frown muscle — which runs across the forehead just above the eyes, allowing it to pull the eyebrows inward and down — may gradually weaken brain circuits that coordinate negative emotions.

A 2009 fMRI study, led by German neurologist Andreas Hennenlotter, supports that idea. Women attempting to mimic images of angry and sad facial expressions displayed weaker activity in emotion-related brain areas two weeks after receiving Botox injections to the frown muscle, Hennenlotter’s group found.

Banishing frown lines with Botox can indeed have social repercussions, remarks psychologist Nicolas Vermeulen of Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. Previous studies indicate that mimicry of facial expressions critically aids in understanding others’ emotions, intentions and behaviors, he points out.

“Botox patients who are interacting with others behind a locked face might be at risk to react in the wrong way to, say, an angry driver or an angry customer in a pub,” Vermeulen says.

Read More From Science News

The Future of Acupuncture News

The likelihood of my posting an article from the Las Vegas Review Journal is rather minute, but just in case, Acupuncture News will continue the tradition of writing comments about news and supplying a portion of the article with a link to the original report.

Why this announcement? Wired online reports that Steve Gibson, CEO of Righthaven, has begun acquiring copywrite rights to several publication for the main intention of to suing bloggers for re-posting articles. Not the friendliest solution to save the ever-diminishing cash flow of the newspaper industry, but since it is cheaper to settle than to battle, the strategy may work out.

In the meantime, more research and programs are opening up around the country using auricular acupuncture to treat out veterans suffering with PTSD. Check these out:

Research Call: Treating PTSD-related insomnia with auricular acupuncture

Bay Area Veterans' Acupuncture Clinic

Happy Mommies, Happy Babies

Given the length of time it takes most anti-depressants to work and the growing body of research that indicates their use yields little effect in mild to moderate depression, it is great to see more investigation into non-pharmaceutical management of prenatal and antenatal depression. Acupuncture has helped a number of my clients taper off their medication while trying to conceive and assist them in managing symptoms of depression during the three stages of pregnancy. Many have been able to get through the postpartum period without having to resume their medication either! With hope, there will be more comparative studies that demonstrate the efficacy of TCM and other CAM therapies in the next few years.

Acupuncture Benefit Seen in Pregnancy

By Shirley Wang

Acupuncture designed to treat depression appears to improve symptoms in pregnant women, suggesting it as an alternative to antidepressant medication during pregnancy, a study found.

The study, published Monday in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, is the largest to date examining the effectiveness of acupuncture to treat depression in pregnant women. It was funded by a grant from the government's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. "Acupuncture that we have tested works for pregnant, depressed women," said Rachel Manber, a study author and professor at Stanford University. However, "no single study is enough to make policy recommendations," she said.

Depression in pregnancy is a risk factor for postpartum depression. Postpartum depression is associated in some studies with poorer cognitive and emotional development in children. Some have linked depression in pregnancy and low birth weight.

As many as 14% of pregnant women are thought to develop a significant depression at some point during their pregnancy, according to the study authors, comparable to numbers who suffer from postpartum depression. Antidepressants are generally considered safe for use in pregnancy, but research has been limited and concerns continue to grow, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. One study showed that the risk of persistent pulmonary hypertension, a potentially serious lung condition, is significantly greater in newborns whose mother took antidepressants later in pregnancy. The Food and Drug Administration recommends that patients and physicians "carefully consider and discuss together" the benefits and risks taking antidepressants during pregnancy."Antidepressants are not an attractive option for many women," said Dr. Manber. "Many women are concerned about using antidepressant medication during pregnancy."

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Happy 4th of July!

For those planning to celebrate this Independence Day with traditional grill outs, booze, and intense audi-visual stimuli, we will be here to help! Check out the new research showing how acupuncture helps increase exercise tolerance in heart disease.

Acupuncture ups exercise tolerance in heart patients

ANI, Jul 2, 2010, 10.00am IST

A new study indicates that acupuncture can improve exercise tolerance in patients suffering from chronic heart failure.

Dr. Johannes Backs, physician and study director at the Department of Internal Medicine III (Cardiology, Angiology, and Pneumology - Medical Director: Professor Dr. Hugo Katus) of Heidelberg University Hospital conducted the clinical pilot study.

Patients with this disease suffer from shortness of breath and fatigue brought on by physical exercise.

The needles do not increase the heart’s pump function, but they seem to have an influence on skeletal muscle strength and thus can increase the walk distance that heart patients can cover.

In a study where patients were given ten sessions of acupuncture on points that boost general strength according to Traditional Chinese Medicine, the results showed that these patients could walk longer distances, recovered more quickly and tended to feel subjectively less exhausted.

The scientists now plan to study whether relatively low-cost acupuncture can improve the prognosis for cardiac patients over the long term.

The findings have been published in the medical journal Heart .

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