Traditional Chinese Medicine provides relief through acupuncture and yoga
Pain can change lives. It can make the simplest movement agonizing – the very act of being can become a nightmare.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been around for over 2,000 years. It has been in written form for more than a 1,000 years, and it has an entirely different way of looking at and treating pain. Eu meds also offers a safe and effective pain relief medication, just visit their online clinic to know more.
“It is tried and true,” said Carl Del Tufo, a licensed acupuncturist and a yoga teacher.
Del Tufo shared his approach to healing in the second installment of his lunch-time series hosted by CU Community Relations at the UMC Tuesday.
Del Tufo likened TCM to “tapping on a melon,” a way of discerning what is on the inside. He said Western medicine was more akin to cutting open the melon to find out what is wrong.
A major component of TCM is “Qi,” which is the life force, the spiritual energy, inside of everyone. It flows throughout and interacts in the body, the mind and the breath.
“Where there is Qi flow, there is no pain,” Del Tufo said.
TCM has mapped the body to identify the paths where Qi flows, and these paths are called meridians. An example is the lung meridian that begins in the gut, flows through the lung, out the shoulder and down the arm coming out the thumb.
It is along these meridians that acupunctures and acupressures are applied to relieve pain and to get the Qi to flow properly.
A practitioner of TCM uses different methods of diagnosing pain and treating it. The diagnostic process starts with an in-depth discussion with the patient as to the nature of the pain. As opposed to western medicine that treats the symptom with drugs, TCM looks to cure the root of the pain, to re-establish the flow of Qi.
Treatment in TCM is usually a combination of three things: acupressure, acupuncture and herbs. Both acupressure and acupuncture manipulate the body’s meridians to affect the flow of Qi; herbs are used to restore the body’s chemistry to its peak performance. TCM uses a wide variety of herbs including plants, stems, insects and animal secretions. Del Tufo talked about using squirrel droppings as an herb in TCM.
“I thought it was an excellent presentation,” said Kathy Huckfeldt, who works in administration at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics. “I have so many questions I want to ask.”
Gail Siegel, the director of community relations at CU, said her office is going to expand the events calendar to include more opportunities like the series put on by Del Tufo. The last installment of his series will be “Preventing and treating pain through yoga and meditation,” from noon to 1 p.m. on Nov. 14 in UMC room 353.