Acupuncture Bellingham - Demystifying Chinese Medicine

By Scott Paglia, L.Ac. - Acupuncture Bellingham

There are three questions every acupuncturist has to answer throughout their day. The firstquestion is usually a bluntly delivered, “does it work?” The natural follow up is, “how does itwork?” And then lastly, after the patients and staff have gone home, here comes that eternalquestion, “why do we do this?” As a profession it is essential that we handle these questions with accuracy and assurance. Itseems for every solid fact concerning acupuncture there are a hundred misperceptions. Weare at a pivotal time in the profession. As a nation we are growing sick people. Our health isbeing seriously impacted by a failing medical system. Many people are turning toward naturalmedicine. What is needed are clear and concise answers to common questions such as thoseraised above.The first question, does it work, is easily answered with a solid YES. For some reason most of the acupuncturists I have come across are quick to point out that, “yes it may work, but notfor everyone, at all times, and Tuesdays are not good for some reason.” I am often puzzled bythis response. What in the world works all the time regardless of circumstance? As anacupuncture Bellinghampractitioner if you are not helping people more than 80% of thetime you have a seriously deficient skill set. Time to get some help. So get over it. If you arehelping people most of the time be proud of that fact. Let the world know.If a patient wants “evidence,” you may easily refer them to close to 14,000 studies foundon the PubMed web page which is a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine and theNational Institute of Health. I will often ask what studies they would be interested in and thenfill up the fax machine with data.The second question is loaded. The infamous, how does it work? I used to agonize overthis with my patients. I would tell them there’s a very complicated energetic system withmeridians and qi and seasons and, yep. There it would be in front of me. The glazed-eyelook of someone who asked a simple question and is now buried in jargon. I actually gave upexplaining the medicine because it sounded so crazy to myself. If there are meridians and wecan detect precursors to matter entering the atmosphere how come we can’t find them?I had the great fortune to read Dr. Kendall’s book, Dao of Chinese Medicine, a few years back.It was a revelation. In just a few pages he freed me from the ambiguity which had silencedme for so long. Chinese medicine was brought to Europe through the translation work of Georges Soulie de Morant. After staying in Asia for 16 years Soulie de Morant popularizedacupuncture in France. He is credited with the French Energetic model. The big problem withSoulie de Morant was not his passion for the medicine, but his accuracy with the translation.Unfortunately for the profession his efforts landed us into the “energetic quagmire,” we arecurrently engaged in. According to Kendall, the word qi was mistranslated into energy. Theproper translation is vital air or oxygen. Soulie de Morant went on to translate jing, as in jingluo, into the French word, meridian. He actually threw out the reference to blood vesselsand inserted not only the word meridian but the idea with it as well. Thanks to the efforts of Soulie de Morant we went from oxygen and blood vessels to energy and energy highways. Nowonder we are misunderstood as a profession. We don’t even understand the correct languageourselves!To compensate for this ambiguous language which is found in nearly all web and printmaterials we offer all new patients a brief neurological explanation of acupuncture. Coming