Acupuncture treatment in Philadelphia

“I thought I’d do some writing about acupuncture, and more specifically what acupuncture means to me.

I think my initial real understanding of acupuncture was through my discussions with a friend of mine who’s father learned it in Korea and actually used acupuncture in Africa as a missionary there for many years. I learned first hand all the benefits of acupuncture and how effective it was at treating so many things, most importantly to me, musculoskeletal conditions. At the time, I was suffering from some pretty rough plantar fasciitis which failed 2 cortisone injections and was getting worse, not better. I decided to go for it and made an appointment at a local community acupuncture clinic. I had the absolute great fortune of getting treated by Megan Rogers, who is a fantastic acupuncturist and overall great practitioner. I remember telling her about my heel pain and telling her to do whatever she needed to do to get this pain to go away. The next thing I can remember is just laying down in this chair and just feeling this…well it’s hard to describe if you’ve never felt it, but it kinda felt like a wave that moved from my head into my leg while at the same time feeling like the pain was slowly dissipating from my heel. Although I wasn’t totally cured after that first treatment, I knew that this was gonna get rid of my heel pain. And it did. It took about 6 sessions altogether, but after we completed those 6 sessions, I was finally able to start running again and my heel pain was gone.

That experience of using acupuncture to resolve a pain I had dealt with for years totally opened up my mind in my approach as a doctor. I had gone through all the regular treatment methods we recommend in orthopedics including physical therapy, injections, and anti-inflammatories, and all failed. On the other hand, after just 3 sessions, I had more relief then I had got from any previous therapy from conventional medicine.

After me, my wife started getting acupuncture for some of what she was dealing with. After she also got better, we started talking about her perhaps pursuing a second career as an acupuncturist. Before we had children, she was a very accomplished project manager with a Masters in Statistics from the University of Pennsylvania and several publications in journals including the American Heart Journal, American Journal of Cardiology, Journal of Interventional Cardiology, etc, etc, etc. She chose to stay at home to raise our 2 children, and now that they were in school, she decided it was time to go back to work. Acupuncture became a perfect fit for her. She applied, enrolled, busted her butt for 3 years, and was valedictorian of her class.

While she was in school, she regularly encouraged me to pursue my own training and eventually I received my own certification in Neurofunctional Acupuncture from McMaster University.

Why Acupuncture?
In case you don’t know, it has been around for centuries as it was previously the medicine of ancient China. It is a proven medicine and science and allows us to evaluate and treat the body by tapping into the bodies own healing mechanisms by restoring the body to a balanced state. I’m convinced that the root of Osteopathic Medicine must have come from China because so many of our principles are the same. Know that I’ve been practicing Acupuncture myself, I am absolutely amazed by it and do not believe there is a more effective solution to healing the body than Acupuncture.

Why?

When I first heard about acupuncture, I thought that it would be a great solution to my heel pain because I felt like I needed someone to stick a needle in my degenerative tendon to break up the scar tissue and allow the thing to heel. At the time I really had no idea how complex acupuncture really is. My wife’s 3 years of rigorous academics studying academics gave me an additional level of appreciation as well. I also gained an understanding of how the body is evaluated and treated from the perspective of an acupuncturist, with the core principle of balancing the systems of the body. I think restoring balance to the body is probably the best way to understand why acupuncture works. If all the systems of the body are functioning in complete balance and harmony, then likely, all will be well. Unfortunately, that’s not the way life really turns out and things get out of whack quite easily it seems. As an osteopathic doctor, I use my hands to try to correct asymmetries in the spine and tissue of the body which can help to allow to body to restore some balance. I believe acupuncture goes much deeper and engages the bodies healing mechanisms even better than I had been able to with my hands alone. And it’s not just the needles. Therapies such as cupping and gua-sha (pronounced Gwa-Shah) are very powerful tools to change tissue, decrease inflammation, and even decrease stress.

I do really feel quite thankful that my wife and I both now practice this very effective medicine. She approaches her treatments so elegantly and brilliantly and you can see her creative and artistic mind at play whether treating an anxious teenager, or a mother who has been struggling with headaches for several years.

For me, I like to using acupuncture to access the body’s nervous system to reactivate pathways that have been been asleep for awhile. At the end of the day you could say that the two of us “balance” one another. At least I think so.”