Acupuncture
- A Safe Alternative
Drugs are not the only way
to treat your health problems.
TEENBIZNIK recently did an interview
with a licensed acupuncturist,
Marilyn Hyde, who you can visit at
www.barristersquare.com.
Check out how acupuncture may help
with teen health problems.
Q. What is acupuncture?
Answer. Acupuncture is a system of medicine
developed in Asia thousands of years ago to correct illness and to keep
healthy people well. Despite how long it has been used and tested throughout
the world, including Europe, it still raises eyebrows in some areas
because its premise is so different from medicine in this country.
Acupuncture works by affecting the body's vital energy,
called qi by the Chinese (pronounced chee). This qi runs throughout
the body in channels, like rivers, creating a vast network that determines
everything about our physical body, our mind and our emotional life.
Sometimes problems arise in these channels and the qi becomes weak or
blocked or insubstantial or aggressive. We may then find ourselves feeling
listless, or angry, or depressed, or vulnerable to many colds and other
illnesses. The tools of acupuncture work with correcting problems with
the qi and thereby helping restore harmony to this network of energy.
Q. Can acupuncture help with health issues related
to teenagers?
Answer. Yes. Acupuncture is excellent
for issues germane to teenagers because it is a powerful yet minimal
intervention and does not require medications. The growth that young
people experience through high school and teen years is rapid and dramatic--often
traumatic, in an energetic sense--and the pressures upon them are great,
and so the body's energy can become easily tangled and knotted and out
of balance. This can lead to feelings of anxiety, alienation or depression,
to weight issues and skin problems, to menstrual periods that are difficult
or painful, or to an inability to focus on studies or life, or to feel
joy. And because teenagers have a good deal of vitality, they generally
respond very readily to the subtle work of acupuncture.
Q. Can you explain how acupuncture helps. For
example, does it sooth your nerves?
Answer. Acupuncture smooths the flow
of qi in the body so that one actually feels a cessation of tension
or pressure or irritability. This smoothing of qi helps resolve symptoms.
One of the major side effects of treatment -- and a reason why so many
people come to love receiving acupuncture-- is the sensation of deep
relaxation. Some people leave my office expressing amazement because
they have never felt calm on that level. This is not always immediate,
and the degree varies from person to person. Some clients experience
dramatic results but more often acupuncture works as a gradual restoration.
Q. Are the effects long-term?
Answer. They can be. It all depends on
the person, the situation, the length of time the problem has existed
and the amount of treatment. For some, one or two treatments is all
that is needed. I treated a senior who was a very competitive tennis
player with the beginnings of tennis elbow. Two treatments later the
problem was gone. Other people have health issues that are more complicated
or deeper in the body, and that takes more time. I always suggest a
course of treatment.
Q. What would be a treatment course that would
be appropriate for teenagers?
Answer. I tell prospective clients that
they should commit to a course of treatment of four or five weekly sessions.
Because while some people respond dramatically and completely to one
acupuncture session, my experience shows me it generally requires a
number of treatments to alter patterns of disharmony within the body.
And I usually find clients' symptoms have changed substantially or completely
within four or five sessions. After that, clients often go on a maintenance
kind of schedule where they return monthly, or seasonally, or only when
they feel a need.
Q. Any other comments?
Answer. You didn't ask the number one
most frequently asked question: does it hurt? And the answer is, not
really. Acupuncture needles are very fine. They are about the width
of a few hairs on your head. Often people don't feel a thing, but I'd
be lying if I said there was never any discomfort. But if there is,
it is minimal, and very momentary. Ask a friend who's had it!
Marilyn Hyde is a licensed Acupuncturist who practices in Old Town Alexandria.
She is nationally certified and licensed by the Virginia State Board
of Medicine. Visit her website at www.barristersquare.com
