Traditional Chinese Medicine

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

An overview of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS)

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) is a frequently misunderstood and under-diagnosed illness. It is also referred to as myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME). The term is used instead of chronic fatigue syndrome in several countries worldwide. It is gaining traction with researchers and others in the United States. Advocates feel that “chronic fatigue syndrome” inaccurately describes the syndrome. Patients have also expressed frustration with the name “chronic fatigue syndrome” because it is easily misunderstood as just being overly tired, leading to employers and family members doubting the veracity of their inability to function in their daily lives. In reality, ME/CFS is associated with debilitating fatigue that doesn’t seem to get any better with rest. ME/CFS can keep sufferers from working, attending school or doing everyday activities. And sadly, ME/CFS can last for years, robbing patients of their ability to function for long periods of time.

To make things worse, roughly 90 percent of people with ME/CFS have never been diagnosed with this illness. One reason it’s so under-diagnosed is because ME/CFS is a syndrome, which means that it can have a wide variety of symptoms and can be experienced in different ways by each patient. In addition, because the manifestation of ME/CFS can be so varied and misunderstood, it can take health providers a long time to untangle the symptoms and diagnose this condition in a patient, if it’s diagnosed at all.

Common Symptoms

While ME/CFS is associated with many different symptoms, some of the most common include:

Crushing fatigue that doesn’t seem to improve
A loss of ability to do daily activities
Post-exertional malaise (PEM), which is when doing everyday activities aggravate fatigue and other symptoms
Sleep difficulties
Cognitive issues, such as brain fog or memory loss
Painful or achy joints
Muscle weakness
Recurring sore throats
Chronic headaches
Dizziness triggered by positional changes
Digestive issues
Temperature dysregulation, such as chills or night sweats
Tender lymph nodes, most commonly in the armpits or neck

Stress or infection may be causes

The cause of ME/CFS isn’t clear, but experts have some theories. For example, many patients with ME/CFS remember that their symptoms started with a bout of what felt like the flu. Some scientists believe this points to some kind of infection or virus as the cause, most notably the Epstein-Barr virus. Another theory is that ME/CFS results from a perfect storm of many factors, such as stress, weakened immunity or an infection that may initiate the onset of symptoms.

Many ME/CFS patients describe undergoing a great deal of physical or emotional stress before becoming ill. And some scientists agree that ME/CFS may be caused by emotional stress that’s severe enough to weaken your immune system. They believe that stress can upset your brain’s hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA axis). The HPA axis regulates your body’s hormones, including the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline. Disruption of the HPA axis can also upset and weaken other body functions, most notably, your immune function.

There’s no cure for ME/CFS, so conventional treatment is focused on relieving symptoms. This may include treating depression, addressing sleep issues, and prescribing medications for pain. The symptoms of ME/CFS are generally most pronounced during the first year or two, and for many people, they get better with time. Some, however, report that they continue to struggle to recover their health and former level of function entirely.

Help for ME/CFS with Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine

The principles of acupuncture and Chinese medicine are based on energy or Qi. Essentially, to be healthy, you must have enough energy to support the functioning of your body’s many systems, and that energy must flow freely. When your body’s energy doesn’t flow, symptoms of blockage emerge, such as infections, menstrual clots, headache, painful joints, muscle spasms and tension. With ME/CFS, a lack of energy is the underlying source of symptoms. Not having enough energy to do everyday tasks or symptom aggravation after overdoing it are prime examples of energy/Qi depletion.

In treating ME/CFS with acupuncture, it’s important to understand the underlying cause of the energy depletion and to provide treatments to restore your energy to pre-ME/CFS levels. Several research studies* support the use of acupuncture in treating ME/CFS. Scientists have found that acupuncture can reduce physical and emotional fatigue, improve quality of life, increase physical functioning, decrease pain, help sleep, and improve mental health in patients with ME/CFS.

*Source: https://www.verywellhealth.com/acupuncture-for-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-715648

Chinese Herbal Medicine and Food Therapy also offer help

In addition to acupuncture, most practitioners of Chinese medicine are trained in the use of herbal medicine not only to augment their acupuncture treatments but also as a stand-alone therapy. Herbs may be used to boost energy, strengthen immunity, treat insomnia and reduce stress and other mental health symptoms. Good nutrition is also crucial for patients with ME/CFS, as your energy is produced from the food you eat. Chinese food therapy focuses on eating the right foods to support your health and promoting good digestion—both as a way to improve your energy. Herbal and nutritional therapies are based on each person’s specific needs, symptoms and health history.

Clearly, ME/CFS comes with many challenges, including getting a correct diagnosis. The good news is that acupuncture and Chinese medicine can offer effective natural treatment options. Contact our clinic if you want to know more about how Dr Vickery uses acupuncture and Chinese medicine to help her patients with ME/CFS.

Treating Pain with Acupuncture

There is an irony when it comes to using acupuncture last to treat pain…

Frequently patients who seek out acupuncture for their pain, do so as a last resort. They’ve tried everything else, from physical therapy to medications to surgery. It’s ironic because frequently acupuncture is effective in treating pain when nothing else has worked.

Pain is interesting. It has a personality. It can be acute or chronic. It can be dull or sharp, achy or stabbing, throbbing or electric. It may move around or stay in a fixed position. The pain may change with the weather, wake you up at night, or only show up after you’ve taken a walk.

Beyond having a personality, pain also has a variety of physiological causes.

Among them:

Infection – which is an invasion. In this case it’s an invasion of foreign substances, such as bacteria or viruses that cause disease. These foreign substances both multiply and produce toxins, which not only make you sick, but also cause you pain.
Inflammation – which is your body’s way of removing harmful pathogens and irritating substances to promote the healing process. Whenever there is any kind of illness or injury to your body, it is inflammation’s job to help it heal and reduce infection. The problem is when inflammation sticks around, it causes pain. Frequently inflammation doesn’t clear because the source of irritation is still in place. Some examples of inflammation include tendinitis, arthritis, and Irritable Bowel Syndrome. And we’re not even touching on chronic inflammation which we’ll look at in other posts.
Ischemia – is a fancy word that means the supply of blood to an area or organ has been cut off. For example, during a heart attack, the flow of blood is blocked in vessels around the heart, causing both ischemia and pain.
Neuralgia – your nerves transmit sensory signals from the rest of your body to your brain. When a nerve is damaged, the pain is incredibly intense and often described as electric. Examples of nerve pain include neuropathy, sciatic pain, or dental work without an anesthetic.
Pain from entrapment or pressure occurs when a nerve or muscle gets pinched. For example, an injury to your neck can cause a spinal nerve to be pinched between two vertebrae, causing pain along the entire trajectory of the nerve. This is nerve pain, but the cause is from entrapment of the nerve.

Stretch – if you’ve ever sprained your ankle, you know how painful it can be. That’s because stretch is in play here. In the case of your ankle, the ligaments in your foot were stretched way beyond their normal range of motion, creating a world of hurt.

Trauma – a very common cause of pain and is pretty uncomplicated. When you fall, are in an accident, or get hit by something, it hurts. Surgery is also considered to be trauma to the body.

Acupuncture and Traditional Oriental Medicine has a long history of treating pain

Pain is considered to be a kind of stagnation, in which substances in the body are not flowing well. The Chinese say where there’s stagnation there is pain. Which makes sense; everything in your body needs to flow, whether it’s blood in the vessels, your digestion, fluids, nerve impulses, or your menstrual cycle. When that flow becomes blocked, pain is the result. For example, when you sprain your ankle it turns purple and blows up like a balloon. A bruise is blood that has broken out of the vessels and is not moving, and a sinus infection is phlegm blocking your sinuses.

For a practitioner of Traditional Oriental Medicine, the highest priority in treating a patient in pain is to restore flow to the area. This is done by determining the cause of the pain, as well as the source of the blockage. Practitioners takes into account the characteristics of the pain as well as the general health of the patient.

The personality of the pain a patient is experiencing gives the practitioner of Traditional Oriental Medicine not only clues as to its diagnosis, but also direction in how to treat it. For example, if the pain feels better with pressure (like a tight knot in your upper back), it is likely originating from some kind of overall depletion in your body. If a patient doesn’t want the painful area touched, the stagnation is severe. Pain that is fixed and severe also indicates strong stagnation, as opposed to pain that’s intermittent, dull, and achy. If it feels better when heat is applied, then it is a cold pain. The location of the pain also indicates what energetic pathways need to be addressed in order to determine the most effective treatment.

Under the umbrella of Traditional Oriental Medicine, treatment for pain may include acupuncture, bodywork called Tui Na, heat therapy, cupping, and possibly the use of herbs. In most cases treatment will begin with some carefully and strategically placed acupuncture needles to increase flow of energy and blood to the area of pain. In my clinic, treatments will almost always begin with the application of essential oils, even before the needles are inserted.

Whenever one talks about flow and energy when it comes to healing, skeptics are quick to discount the very real healing effects of acupuncture. The reality is that researchers all over the world have been investigating the physiological effects of acupuncture for years. Through scientific study, researchers have found that acupuncture decreases inflammation. In fact, it has been documented that white blood cells that clear inflammation increased by about 40 percent in the areas where acupuncture needles were placed.

Acupuncture also increases circulation, which could be described as restoring flow. In addition, it has been found that acupuncture exerts some very real changes that directly affect pain. It blocks the transmission of pain signals to the brain, up regulates (increases) your body’s own pain-killing opioid system, and calms you down by increasing the production of feel-good endorphins in your brain.

It’s ironic that many people come to acupuncture as a last resort to treat their pain, because in many cases acupuncture may bring relief where other options have not. The way I see it is that they have saved the best for last.

Calm Your Anxiety Naturally

Anxiety is described in many different ways.

It can feel exhausting, baffling, frightening, and frustrating—all at the same time. For many people, symptoms sneak up suddenly and out of the blue. For others, it can be a predictable reaction to specific situations or events, such as insects, tight spaces, or social situations. That said, anyone who struggles with anxiety would agree that it’s unwelcome, uncomfortable, and they would do whatever it takes to make it go away.

While the symptoms of anxiety vary from person to person, anxiety can produce heart palpitations, numbness or tingling in the extremities, a racing heart, chest tightness, light-headedness, shortness of breath, a general feeling of fear, and the sensation of immediate danger. Many people both with and without anxiety have ended up in the emergency room convinced that they were having a heart attack, only to be diagnosed with acute anxiety or a panic attack.

There are many underlying causes of anxiety.

Topping the list is trauma of almost any kind. People who have experienced traumatic events, such as an accident, physical or emotional abuse, violence, or threats to their safety clearly understand the source of their anxiety. Chronic stress and worry over an unsettling event or an uncontrollable situation that’s not easily resolved can also lead to anxiety.

Anxiety also tends to run in families. I have found that many people who have sought out acupuncture for their symptoms have a parent or other family member who also struggles with anxiety.

Perhaps one of the worst aspects of anxiety is the unpredictable nature of the symptoms. Being exposed to a trigger may bring on a full-blown panic attack one day and no symptoms the next. Some patients describe the fear of their anxiety as worse than the actual symptoms. Simply not knowing when or why it will show up can cause some sufferers to think they’re going crazy.

It’s important to understand that while anxiety is viewed as an emotional condition, it is often caused by physical problems. Hormonal imbalances (e.g. thyroid, adrenal), digestive issues, heart problems, and drug side effects all can be an underlying cause of anxiety.

Anxiety and Chinese Medicine

In understanding anxiety through the lens of the Five Elements in Chinese medicine, practitioners look toward the function of three internal organs—the Heart (Fire), Spleen (Earth), and Kidneys (Water). In this medicine, the internal organs have a physical presence, but are also considered to be symbolic and emotional systems of functioning. Each of your organ systems has a specific emotion tied to it that plays a role in the health and balance of the organ, as well as your overall health.

Heart (Fire)

We intuitively know that the Heart is an organ of feeling and emotion. You can have a broken heart, thank someone from the bottom of your heart, or dislike someone who is heartless. In Chinese medicine, your Heart system is the keeper of Shen, which is closest to the Western idea of Spirit. With similar functions to your brain, your Chinese Heart is responsible for emotions, memory, thought, and consciousness. Whenever there is emotional upset or imbalance, your Heart is always involved to some extent.

The specific emotion related to a balanced Heart is joy. However, when your heart is out of balance, this fire element tends to speed up to the point where joyfulness can become mania or depletion can cause anxiety.

Spleen (Earth)

While your Chinese Heart is the organ system of feelings, your Spleen is considered the system of digestion. And while we think of digestion as the processing of foods, we also digest ideas in a similar way. The emotion related to your Spleen is worry—considered to be a kind of rumination, or “chewing” on the same idea over and over, until that worry blossoms into anxiety.

Kidney (Water)

A third organ system, your Chinese Kidney is also related to anxiety in a couple of ways. Most notably is that the emotion associated with your Kidneys is deep-seated fear, which is the embodiment of anxiety. Secondly, your Kidney system is considered to be the most nourishing overall. It’s responsible for your body constitution, how healthfully you grow and age, and is the foundation of your body’s essential substances, such as Yin, Yang, Essence, Qi, and Blood. As such, your Kidneys are the organ system that can be the most damaged by unrelenting stress, worry, and anxiety.

From a Western perspective, your adrenal glands are located above your Kidneys, and conditions such as adrenal fatigue, overworking, and stress all negatively affect your body’s stress hormones and adrenal glands.

Acupuncture can help

The good news is that many people suffering from anxiety have been helped by acupuncture and Chinese medicine. Depending on your symptoms and overall health, your practitioner would develop a treatment plan that is specific to your unique situation. Important strategies involve calming your Shen, most likely using acupuncture, which has been documented to affect brain chemistry in a calming way.

Your practitioner would also assess the health of your Spleen and overall digestion, as well as determine the condition of your Kidney. In my clinic, I use the essential oil treatment in conjunction with needles to affect deeper relaxation and allow deeper healing. Beyond acupuncture, you may be prescribed an herbal formula specific to your case, as well as dietary recommendations, and other lifestyle changes to help calm your anxiety.

Many people struggle with anxiety, suffering with symptoms that run the gamut from mild and intermittent to chronic full-blown panic attacks. If you are experiencing anxiety, check out acupuncture—it may be the solution that you have been looking for.

Vickery Health & Wellness

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