McKay Acupuncture: Traditional Chinese Medicine

Chinese medicine is the oldest secular, professional continually practiced medicine in the world today and is a holistic medicine par Excellence. This is because professional practitioners of Chinese Medicine don’t just treat diseases- they treat the entire person.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (aka TCM) is based on bringing the individual back to a state of healthy dynamic balance. Acupuncture believes that there are patterns of energy called Qi, which flow through the body. Disease is caused by blockage or stagnation of this energy. When hair-thin sterile needles are inserted into the body at specific points the energy flow is unblocked and restored. Herbs are also used for this purpose and TCM uses herbs in a much more complex way than what you see at the health food store.

TCM has been proven to be effective through thousands of years and millions of patients. In China today both western and TCM modalities are used side by side with great effectiveness. Open heart surgery is often accomplished with acupuncture as the only anesthesia. The patient feels no pain and is awake during the entire operation.

Why is TCM so effective? The diagnostic capabilities of TCM are practical and at it’s most basic form, very simple. For example, the common cold is treated quite effectively by TCM. The practioner analyzes symptoms, which are unique to the individual. Each person has an individual constitution and therefore reacts differently to disease. Some persons are more hot natured and some cold natured. Hot natured types will have more symptoms such as fever, constipation, irritability, and insomnia. Cold types more white phlegm, nausea, achy body and diarrhea. Each person is UNIQUE !!! Therefore each treatment in unique. Chinese Herbal Medicine is very complex and therefore extensive knowledge of herbs and how they individually as well as with a formula.

Acupuncture and TCM have been extensively researched outside the US. The success record is actually around 80% for most illness with TCM. Recent Acupuncture studies demonstrated that even placebo acupuncture was more effective in treatment than western modalities.

Today many experts regard acupuncture as practically mainstream. The NIH panel declared, “There’s sufficient evidence of acupuncture’s value to expand it's use into conventional medicine.”

In my own practice I have seen patients respond with great success, helping problems such as sinusitis, plantar fascitis,neuropathy, IBS, sprains, back & neck pain, arthritis, PMS and anxiety. The training I received in California is the most stringent in the USA, with 3300 hours.

Western medicine was 25% of the curriculum and gives me the advantage of knowing when to refer to a physician for further testing. Western and Eastern can complement each other when used properly.