Tap the healing energy
An ancient Chinese practice steps in when Western medicine fails
Felicia Selmensberger had no clue what was in store when she made her first appointment with an acupuncturist in Snyder. All she knew was that she wanted to get pregnant and carry her baby to term. After three miscarriages and a string of fertility doctors in Buffalo and Rochester, the 35-year-old was willing to give ancient Chinese medicine a try.
She is not alone. As a form of complementary or alternative health care, acupuncture –the traditional Chinese medicine that involves the insertion of fine needles at key points into the body – is making inroads on the regional health scene, with more than 25 facilities offering acupuncture services.
In September, Ongiara College in Fort Erie, Ont., welcomed its first class of acupuncture students. At Daemen College, students are offered a specialization in complementary and alternative health care, including a class in acupressure.
“My problem is not conceiving, but holding a pregnancy,” explained Selmensberger, of Lancaster. “I’m willing to do anything it takes. If this is natural and healthy for your body, maybe I need to switch to that gear.”
Acupuncture can balance body energy, body chemicals and hormones, stated Aihan Kuhn in her book “Simple Chinese Medicine.” No drugs are prescribed. The needles are not medicinally coated.
“I strongly believe there are pathways in the body that are different from what medical doctors dissect in the anatomy lab,” said Dr. David Kurss, an obstetrician/gynecologist and director of Women’s Wellness Center of Western New York. “These are called energy pathways or meridians, and they affect vitality of the entire body. Not infrequently, when doctors can’t determine the cause of a particular ailment, an acupuncturist, by opening up blockages, can initiate steps to resolving the problem.”
Acupuncture has been used in this country to help manage pain, stress, migraine headaches and infertility – but in other countries, specifically in England, acupuncture has been integrated with Western medicine as well as other forms of complementary therapy.
In 2006, an estimated 3.1 million U. S. adults and 150,000 children used acupuncture, according to the 2007 National Health Interview, the latest statistics available. The report included a comprehensive survey of complementary and alternative medicine use by Americans. But acupuncture can be difficult for the average patient to comprehend.
“The acupuncturist feels for energy,” said Justine Tutuska, director of health care studies at Daemen. “They’ll look at the tongue, palpate the stomach feeling for heat or cold. They’re looking to create balance. That’s why it is so strange for people. We are used to being told or labeled with a certain disease, and then given a medication to counter it.
“Chinese medicine is not good or bad,” Tutuska noted. “It’s just a different diagnosis.
“If my appendix bursts, I’m not going to an acupuncturist. If it’s acute, if it’s an emergency, Western medical care is the best option. But if I have arthritis, or a hormone imbalance –maybe I’m juggling issues with low-grade high blood pressure – acupuncture is great.”
Ongiara College
Across the border on Jarvis Street in Fort Erie, a new college is dedicated to the study of acupuncture. Ongiara College’s program includes three years of study, but successful completion of the program does not guarantee licensing, which is regulated in 42 states and some provinces of Canada.
In September, Ongiara opened to its first class of eight freshman. At age 52, Winnipeg dentist Christine Dearman is one of them.
“As a dentist, people would come to me with a sore jaw, and I would have to focus on the jaw, knowing it was just the surface,” she said. “In the ’90s, I received acupuncture treatment for chronic whiplash after receiving physiotherapy for a long time. Acupuncture is what turned it around.”
“Acupuncturists could be seen as family physicians,” said Ongiara’s academic dean, Niki H. Bilton, who has treated 200,000 patients in 30 years of practice in Canada, Maryland and England. “We treat a whole range of conditions. The World Health Organization lists 43 diseases and disorders that lend themselves to acupuncture treatment.”
Osteoarthritis, multiple sclerosis, tennis elbow, sciatica and chronic fatigue syndrome are just a few of the disorders included on the list. Still, a majority of the patients treated at Tending Shen acupuncture clinic in Ridgeway, Ont., seek relief from pain.
“People who come for acupuncture are people who have been given up on by the medical profession, people who have been told there is nothing that can be done for them so they are given pain tablets,” said Ongiara Principal Julie Lawson, owner of the clinic. “There’s a reason why they are in pain.”
Acupuncture practitioners who work with the classical theories of medicine do not treat diseases. They treat the people who are experiencing the symptoms of disease using the laws of nature, allowing the body to heal itself.
“Acupuncture has an understanding of anatomy and physiology,” explained Bilton. “In the same way a Western doctor will talk about the circulatory system, there is a corresponding system in acupuncture. It’s called the 12 officials (or organs), the different body systems. They serve five elements. Energy is one of the five.
“England leads the integration of acupuncture into health care,” Bilton added. “America is approximately 15 years behind, and Canada is probably 25 years behind.”
Wanting a baby
Walk into Snyder Holistic Health Center for your first appointment and expect a two-hour consultation during which a complete patient history (roughly 11 pages) will be collected. Your pulse will be taken at three points. Your tongue will be scrutinized.
“I treat front. I treat back. I do massage. I counsel,” said Benjamin Nazitto, who specializes in infertility cases at the health center. “Ninety percent of damage to internal organ systems is caused by emotions. I seek to find the cause of the disharmony. I check all the body systems. How do you sleep? How do you eat? How is your energy, your bowel movements?”
Recently, a 36-year-old woman, pregnant and beaming, sat with her husband by her side. She wanted to tell the world her news — that she became pregnant after six acupuncture visits to Nazitto. Because she wanted to wait until completing the first trimester, she requested her name be withheld.
“All acupuncturists are not created equal,” said the woman. She had visited two other acupuncturists, one 17 times and the other 15 times, endured three years of infertility treatments, 10 artificial inseminations and one in vitro fertilization. In their pursuit of pregnancy, she and her husband spent more than $10,000.
“They’ve spent so much time and effort and energy,” said Nazitto, who received his doctorate from the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine. “In Western New York, we’re the last in the chain when people have tried everything else. When women come here, they’re surprised. The quickest pregnancy was four weeks. The longest took two years before becoming pregnant. Typically it takes four weeks to five months.”
After the two-hour consultation, infertility patients receive twice-weekly acupuncture sessions for one month. After that, it’s once a week. During each session, Nazitto treats first the front and then the back with as many as 60 hair-thin needles. These are not hypodermic needles. They contain no fluid.
After her first session, Selmensberger, who is still seeing her medical doctor, described a feeling of intense relaxation, almost “light-headed.”
“It’s definitely different,” she said. “I’m willing to give it a try. In the meantime, if I’m going to get healthier and if it helps my body, that is good. Insurance does not cover it, but fertility drugs are expensive, too.”
Acupuncture is not a medicine, but a modality of medicine, according to Nazitto.
“In California, we are primary physicians, but here they get a little weird,” he said. “I practice medicine holistically, and what it does is produce a result that’s from 95 to 98 percent successful.”
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