January is the month of ridiculous diets following the Christmas over-indulgence. Bookshop shelves become full of “How I lost 12 stones with the ‘eat nothing but cake’” diet and “Eat Yourself Thin, Volume 3” . You start asking your friends how they lost their weight and the stories differ so much. This is because, and I’m going to say something quite profound… We are all different! Of course we all know this but when it comes to dieting we seem to forget! What will work for your next door neighbour won’t necessarily work for you and serial dieters find that they jump from one diet to the next hoping they’ll find the answer to miracle weight loss. 

When it comes to dieting you need to look at the body as a whole and gain insight into the reasons why a person might be struggling to lose weight. From a Chinese medical perspective it really could come from anywhere. We all know a sluggish metabolism is a culprit but weight gain could be borne out of Liver disharmony, pathogens or emotional issues. Certainly, if I treat a patient who is wanting to shift a few pounds I approach it as I would treat a backache or a headache. First I ask myself, “What’s the root cause of the problem?” Is it as simple as a sluggish metabolism, or are there other health issues at play? Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine can be used to improve the function of the organs responsible for digestion and transit through the body and so an acupuncturist can bring about a healthier and better functioning digestive system. This, in turn will aid the body to either lose or gain weight depending on what the body needs. 

If we go to a Chinese restaurant, we are given a menu, we pick what we like and enjoy! In China, you often wouldn’t be given a menu at all. The waiter would ask you how you feel, and based on your response the chef would cook you a plate of food to treat your particular mood or ailment. It’s a shame that we don’t have the same understanding in the West of how food can be used as medicine. 

In my clinic, my patients often tell me they feel lethargic, tired and lacking in energy. When I ask them about their diet the answers are often the same; skipping meals, eating on the run, quick and easy convenience food. Like an engine running on petrol, we run on food. And so if we don’t give ourselves foods rich in nutrients how can we ever manufacture the energy we need? Of course we would be sluggish, tired and lacking in energy. 

Then there are some patients who eat a great diet, conventionally speaking, but still struggle to lose weight and feel tired and sluggish. This is often because although we view them as healthy, nutritionally good foods can be energetically wrong for that particular person. 

An acupuncturist is trained in dietary therapy and so we have an understanding of food energetics. Some foods can be very heating to your system, such as ginger and chilli. Some are very cooling such as mint or watermelon. Some are nourishing to your Qi or energy such as rice or butternut squash. Some are nourishing to your blood such as red meat or apricots. If you eat a lot of one particular type of food you could be cooling down an already ‘cold’ system which would only act to make your system more sluggish, etc. So it is important that you as the patient have an understanding of your own energetics so that you can be aware of foods that will help and hinder you. 

In my clinic I often talk to patients about their diet and provide individualised lists of foods that would help to treat their particular condition. It can be so difficult to know what you should and shouldn’t be eating so I feel this can give a patient the focus needed to maintain a healthy diet that is completely tailored to the individual. 

At the beginning of July I received the very good news that not one but two of my IVF patients had positive pregnancy tests. Which meant that I recently got the news through about the long anticipated first scan! Both ladies have reported that babies are doing well and have good strong heartbeats.

It’s so rewarding for me to be able to help patients through this emotional and life-changing journey, and it’s even lovelier to receive photos of newborns sent in from patients I have helped in the past.

With IVF becoming more common the success rates for the IUI procedure is between 5 and 20%. I have treated lots of ladies undergoing IUI procedures and have found that the IUI procedure combined with acupuncture increases the success rate quite dramatically! My success rate is currently 85%.

However the individual patient also has a huge part to play in determining the outcome of a positive test result. I have been very lucky to treat ladies who are willing to do whatever it takes and listen to advice and more importantly follow it to the t. Where I have not been successful is where patients don’t heed the advice and rush back to work too soon or neglect their diet. It is important to remember that you have been through a pretty invasive procedure, not to mention the drugs and anaesthesia that you would have taken. An assisted fertility procedure is not like a normal contraception at all and patients should treat it as they would any operation and have some serious rest and recovery time before they get back to their normal lives.

Of course some ladies don’t need to go through the IVF procedure at all.  It is quite likely that some infertile couples may just need a little energetic fine-tuning to conceive and it does upset me when some ladies run straight to the IVF route without trying some of the alternatives out there. It’s much less invasive and drug-free! So please talk to an acupuncturist first if you are thinking about trying IVF as it may not be necessary.

So with that lecture over, I look forward to helping lots more ladies in the future!

Acupuncture Awareness Week is a nationwide event with its focus this year on back pain. In conjunction with The British Acupuncture Council, it is us acupuncturists jobs to get out into the local community and put to rest some of the common misconceptions surrounding acupuncture. 

National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines which all GPs and medical professionals need to follow advises that GPs should refer patients to acupuncture if they’re experiencing chronic non-specific low back pain and so therefore acupuncture should be the first port of call. Sadly for most patients I see, acupuncture was the last resort and patients often tell me they wished they’d known about the benefits of acupuncture sooner… so that is what Acupuncture Awareness Week is all about!

I will be available all this week to answer any questions you may have about acupuncture treatment via my Facebook page www.facebook.com/pages/VerityAllenAcupunture or via email verityallenacupuncture@gmx.com or by phone 07789553954.

I suppose the easiest question to clear up right here is that the insertion of acupuncture needles is not a painful process. The needles are as thin as a strand of hair and some needles may only penetrate up to 2 or 3 millimetres. My patients describe acupuncture as a pleasurable, relaxing experience and is so dissimilar from the experience you might receive when you need to give a blood test or get a vaccine. 

If you would like to try treatment yourself please call on 07789553954 or email verityallenacupuncture@gmx.com to reserve your space.  

My congratulations go out to 3 of my patients this month who gave birth to bouncing babies and a further congratulations to 2 patients who found out they were pregnant this month. I’m not sure which I’m more excited about! 2014 certainly is off to a flying start!

It’s got me thinking about how many acupuncture babies might have been born last year. I’ve done the rough workings out for my clinic alone and that stands at 14 healthy babies. And plenty more mums who are due to have their babies this year. Certainly my acupuncturist friends also have good stories to tell about the women they’ve helped so there must be hundreds of babies, mummies and daddies out there who all owe it to acupuncture. It just makes me feel grateful that I can be involved in this wonderful experience.

Acupuncture really is hugely beneficial in helping fertility problems for both men and women and the results speak for themselves!