Meridian Acupuncture

Statins and flu vaccines. No they're not related, but opinions about them represent points on a spectrum of sorts. At one end are pseudo-scientific claims about the dangers of vaccines, and at the other end are doctors who are supposed to be making informed decisions but are over-prescribing statins because they are miscalculating the factors of heart disease. Statins work by stopping the conjugation of cholesterol in the liver and are currently the most highly marketed cla...ss of drugs. They reduce total cholesterol but are costly to the liver and cause common and painful side-effects. Because hyper-lipidemia (high cholesterol) is only one piece in the complex puzzle of heart disease, going after it at this cost often does more harm than good. The lipid profiles used to measure cholesterols offer only a limited view of cardiological health. We should be using carotid ultrasounds, elasticity and stress tests to get a more complete view of heart health and remember that it is the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL that is the clinically significant figure. People are often prescribed statins when their ratio indicates low risk but their total is above 200. This is the most obvious case where statin risks outweigh benefits. Diet and exercise reduce total cholesterol, increase HDL, improve all other heart health parameters and almost every aspect of overall health. Dietary supplements such as hawthorne fruit and red yeast rice can improve cholesterol totals and ratios. With influenza, the risk of getting infected and the risks of complications from infections far outweigh risks associated with the vaccine. Not only do we sometimes fail to calculate the costs of these intense infections to our bodies, but thousands of people die every year from flus, and auto-immune diseases and even cancers can be triggered by them. By comparison, the risk of GBS (a very serious neurological disease) from vaccination is less than 1 in a million. Sometimes the strain of flu in a current epidemic is not contained in the vaccine in which case it offers no benefit. Also doctors have been reluctant to acknowledge the mild symptoms associated with vaccination (what it feels like to be producing vast quantities of antibodies). This has only lent credibility to vaccine denialism which includes everything from vaccines ravaging the immune system to conspiracies to cull the human population via vaccination.

Fevers in children. I remember, even as a child, the pendulum of opinion swinging back and forth on this question. Is it better to suppress fevers or is it beneficial to let them take their course? I actually used to get quite high fevers. I vividly remember hallucinating from febrile delirium during one such illness, as I sweated in bed under a blanket. A pediatrician friend of the family came to see us and, while berating my parents for causing me to suffer so, performed a ...Continue reading

Upper respiratory infections. For those living in temperate climates in the northern hemisphere, this is the time of year we (and our kids, friends and co-workers) tend to succumb to colds and flu’s. There are simple reasons for this and effective steps we can take to avoid getting sick, and to get well quickly should we catch something. Most upper respiratory infections are viral infections caused by different strains of rhinoviruses and influenzas. (Strep throat is the obv...Continue reading

Low back pain is the most common medical complaint in the US. Except for rare conditions of major pathologies such as cancers and congenital disorders, low back pain is divided into discogenic versus facet pain syndromes. In discogenic low back pain, a bulging, herniated or ruptured intervertebral disc presses out posteriorly to impinge a nerve root as it passes through its ordinarily spacious foramen. Symptoms are typified by pain that shoot down the leg below the knee and p...ain when bending forward. These types of back pain respond best to rest and severe cases are often best resolved with epidural injections and sometimes laminectomies (where some of the bony lamina of the vertabra is removed to give the nerve root more space). In addition to rest, mild cases are often improved with mild traction and trigger point treatments because they also elicit a soft tissue inflammatory response. Facet syndromes are fundamentally different from discogenic ones. They are poorly understood by many, very common, and a bit counter-intuitive in how they respond. Facets are small complete joints (synovial capsule containing fluid, cartilage and nerves) that join one vertebra to another. Having facet joints is what allows us to twist our spine. The nerves inside the facet joints can be irritated by arthritic changes, by common movements and exercises, and by the effect of sympathetic nerve stimulation associated with stress. Irritated facet nerves trigger muscle spasms and inflammation which further irritate the same nerves creating a common and sometimes debilitating vicious cycle. Pain is worse bending backwards than forwards. The most key fact about facet syndromes, and what makes them sometimes confusing, is that they respond better to activity than to rest. People often rest in response to a flare-up of facet pain only to make things much worse. Facet syndromes (except those that come from severe arthritis) can be very effectively treated despite the infrequency of proper diagnosis and care. These types of back pain involve the exact same kinds of knots as in non-pathological joint pain. The inflammatory response is even greater due to the proximity of the spinal cord. The immune system is hyper-reactive and defensive given a perceived threat to the spinal cord. Tension and knots in the following muscles define the body's muscle tension response to facet nerve irritation: Lumbar multifidi, quadratus lumborum, glutteus medius, tensor fascia latta, and illio-psoas. Removing these invariably results in sustained pain relief which can then be maintained by stretching and exercise or periodic treatments to maintain a knot-free environment. Except for significant back spasms, stretching in a deliberate manner, and rolling with foam roller or ball are effective parts of self-care for facet low back pain. Of course the most significant revelation is to get more rather than less active even when in moderate pain. See more

Joint pains. We’ve all had some at one point or another, and some of us suffer from them chronically. Even in the absence of major pathology, pain can be severe and long-standing. It is in fact in these cases, where people have often exhausted available treatments and found them to be ineffective, that trigger point/tissue therapy can be applied easily and effectively. Joint pain can come in a variety of forms. Mild to severe osteoarthritis, for example, can cause pain as a r...Continue reading

The 4 fundamentals of wellness: Exercise, stress management, deep sleep, and healthy eating.