Generally, I shy away from the question, “What do you specialize in?” Historically, Chinese Medical doctors treated everything. They were the general practitioner of their communities and anything that walked in the door, they were able to treat. I subscribe to this mentality and wish that my career be filled with all different kinds of cases. Who would want to treat back pain for their entire professional careers?

    One area I will promote myself in is Pediatrics. Chinese Medicine has so much to offer to everyone, but especially so with children. Acupuncture and/or Herbs can be safely administered to children of all ages, from newborn infants (though this person needs to have the right training and skill) to nearly adult teens. People tend to be amazed particularly when I explain acupuncture can be a very good treatment modality for babies. There is a misconception that acupuncture for babies is the same as acupuncture for adults - it is not. The actual needling takes literally less than a second, the needle is inserted into the body hardly at all, and the needles used are even smaller and finer. When done correctly and with skill, the feeling is like a hair being lightly pulled from the body. What is amazing is how quickly results come about.

    So what do we treat kids for? Most of the time, the issue is with the delicate digestive system. Ever so present in modern day are food allergies, poor appetite, nursing issues, bowel problems and so forth. Even problems that don’t necessarily seem directly related to the digestion usually is, like pediatric asthma, for example. Western Medicine has no problem giving inhalers to infants, with no second thought to the damaging side effects. For us in Chinese Medicine, all these problems stem from the digestive system not working properly. Treatment then is aimed at restoring the proper circulation and flow of that system, then the symptomatic problems stop.

    I’ve been blessed with opportunities to treat young children and babies during my career. In one case, I started seeing a 4-year old boy that had very bad food allergies - milk, egg, peanut, etc. He had had some bad experiences with reactions in his past, and the family was extremely careful about his diet. He would catch colds often and would suffer because they would linger. I treated him weekly for almost a year. During that time, he had a couple episodes where he ate chocolate (understandable), but his allergic reactions were much milder. The family also noticed that he caught fewer colds, and that when he did catch one, it didn’t last very long. After a while, he was due for his yearly exam and checkup with his Western Doc. When they did his allergy tests, they were quite surprised that his milk and egg allergies were much improved, and his peanut allergy had in fact disappeared!

Our society has some very wrong ideas about what constitutes healthy eating habits and diets, which are continuously passed down to the next generations.