在X节讲笑事
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He asked about my balance and any sort of pain—physical, emotional or spiritual—I was experiencing. It felt more like a therapy session than a consultation. My fear and anxiety quickly melted away as I spilled to Dr. Khosh about my chronic neck and shoulder pain and my severe allergies.
The actual acupuncture room was anything but the oftentimes intimidating exam rooms I was used to visiting in a doctor's office. There were no boxes of latex gloves, blood pressure monitors or tongue depressors—not even a stethoscope around Dr. Khosh's neck—just a bed, a peaceful painting of an ocean on the wall and a tray of glistening needles.
He told me to lie on my stomach. I barely felt the prick when he pressed six thin needles into the back of my neck and ankles—I felt more relaxed than anything else. Dr. Khosh turned off the light and told me to breathe deeply and let my body heal.
"I don't want you to get cold."
He stopped to put a blanket on my feet before walking out the door.
Because alternative medicine relies on holistic healing, practitioners examine every aspect of a person's physiology and mental health—even if it's just to alleviate a headache. Extensive consultations are necessary before an initial visit.
Amanda Assaf, Wichita junior, became interested in alternative medicine after she started regularly doing yoga and began receiving acupuncture for shoulder pain.
"I think that the fact that I was becoming more conscious of my body made me not want to put anything into it that would disturb its natural balance," she says.
She says her pain subsided immediately after her first treatment and she began understanding the importance of natural healing.
PLACEBO
Because alternative medicine practices have only been included in the Western medical realm since the 20th century, they have generated skepticism from both the general public and the medical community. Though acupuncture needles have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration as medical tools, most herbs and herbal supplements have not been approved because of high testing costs of the FDA and many alternative medicine practitioners' inability to receive patents on their products.
Some think alternative medicine is based on nothing but a placebo effect. I'll admit finding medical evidence to back up the claims of alternative medical success was nearly impossible. $ Q_{i} $ and meridians are not defined as anatomical processes; they are explained as more of a guidance tool for practitioners. It's clear that people have found huge success from alternative medicine, but figuring out how
exactly that success is attained is a little fuzzier.
It wasn't until the next afternoon after my appointment that I noticed my shoulders felt better. I sat through a lecture for the first time in years without feeling a twinge of pain shoot down my scapula. I immediately wondered if it was all in my head because I just couldn't find a way to explain the absence of discomfort. A pain that had become a sort of hated companion in my life was just ... gone.
Shanna Nguyen is aware of the stigma and assumption of a placebo effect attached to alternative medicine.
"People label it as some sort of witchcraft or voodoo practice," she says."And I do think about a possible placebo effect, like we're just helping the person believe they can help themselves."
But its followers swear alternative medicine has life-changing abilities and monthlong waiting lists at acupuncture centers, chiropractors and reflexologists give evidence that there may be something to all of this "voodoo witchcraft."
The 2007 National Health Interview Survey, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and released last December, indicated that four out of 10, or 182 million, U.S. adults and children had used some form of alternative medicine treatments in the past year, compared with the 2002 survey where three out of 10, or 101 million people, sought alternative medicine care.
"I don't know how to explain it other than saying that I simply feel healthier" she says."And when I do get sick I feel like the reflexology, through the stimulation of organs, helps me to recover quickly and without medications."
Sims cannot pinpoint how her reflexology treatments have provided her with relief, but she knows something positive is happening to her body.
Many practitioners strive to combine alternative medicine with traditional, Western medicine. Kim Nguyen, a licensed acupuncturist and herbalist, works for East West Medicine in Falls Church, Virginia, where an M.D. works downstairs and licensed acupuncturists work upstairs.
"My goal and vision is that they can exist is the same realm, offering health care services to the public," she says.
She says having a medical doctor under the same roof has given her exposure to traditional medicine, which enhances her own alternative medicine practices. Medical care should always be the choice of the patient. She says it's not up to any particular field to decide what path of healing is best for a person.
Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, opened its Integrative Pain Management clinic six years ago and offers patients alternative medicine options such as acupuncture, reflexology, therapeutic massage and hypnosis as an adjunct to their traditional medical treatments. Joy Weydert,
Photo Illustration by Jerry Wang
Alternative medicine uses healing techniques, such as acupuncture and reflexology, to address a person's entire being, not just his or her physical health.
M. D. and chief of the clinic, says patients' underlying problems aren't often addressed with medical care alone. She says alternative medicine brings balance to a person's life by attending to physical, mental, emotional and spiritual components of his or her being.
The beauty of alternative medicine is that it is what it says it is: an alternative choice. Health is not black and white and the path to wellness
may require different options and different attitudes.
After talking to Kristie Martin about her reflexology business and hearing story after story of people finding relief from her services, she said to me before we wung up. "You have a promising future, Madeline. I can just feel it."
Pain or no pain, I'll take that kind of reassurance over an immunization any day.
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February 19,2009