I'd like to welcome you to a new section of my blog where I share cases of patients that have experienced first-hand the wonders of acupuncture.

I suppose I should start by saying that this particular patient was referred to me by a GP after presenting with an "unexplained" pain running down the leg that was causing the patient to become momentarily paralysed & crippled with pain at the most random of times; when out walking or simply when rolling to get more comfy in bed. And when I say "unexplained", I mean it in the sense that there was no medical terminology for explaining the condition under Western medicine.

On visiting the GP, the patient was told that modern medicine wasn't well equipped for treating these kinds of "unexplained" pains and that they should visit an acupuncturist or osteopath. They put the patient on the waiting list for acupuncture but advised that it would take months to get an appointment and that private treatment would be the best option.

The patient sought me out and after one treatment reported that they felt 90% better and they could hardly feel any pain at all. After months of pain the patient is back walking the dog and rolling around in bed to their heart's content!

It's good to share such a straightforward case with you and I can think of countless others where the patients' symptoms have vastly improved after one session.

Of course, not all cases are always this straightforward but I have yet to treat a patient who says they felt no benefit at all.  Even if the main complaint hasn’t been tackled completely, patients usually report improvements in their metabolism, feeling warmer or just feeling better in themselves.

So for any sceptics out there, you needn't think that to feel any benefit you need to sign yourself up for 12 treatments, remortgage the house and raffle off the family dog. Sometimes just a few quid should do it.

In fact autumn is exactly the time when you should be thinking about hayfever. Having acupuncture treatment during the autumn season is in fact the best possible way to guard against summer allergies.

From a Chinese medical perspective, hayfever occurs from a weakness of lung energy. This is why some people can develop hayfever as an adult.  Late onset hayfever can usually be pinned on a particularly bad cold virus contracted during the previous winter which would only serve to damage lung energy or 'qi'.  A person with strong lung qi is able to defend themselves against allergens but once it has been weakened, it's very hard to build the energy back up as hayfever will only further weaken the lungs. 

What an acupuncturist needs to do is build the lung energy back up in the autumn time to defend against winter viruses. When the qi is strong and robust it will do its job properly during the summer and won't allow hayfever allergens to attack.

Having acupuncture treatment in the autumn time can put pay to any future summer allergies. So now is exactly the right time to be throwing away the antihistamines & trying something natural for a more decongested summer!