Chinese Medicine is a 3,500-year-old system of medicine that can be used to address a variety of ailments from minor imbalances to chronic conditions. It is based on the belief that the human body is in a dynamic state of balance both internally and with the outside world. If this equilibrium is disturbed then we can become sick.
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Treatment with Chinese Medicine involves not just acupuncture and herbs, but also moxibustion, cupping, gua sha, and dietary and lifestyle advice – according to what’s appropriate to your specialized Chinese diagnosis.
Acupuncture heals by balancing energy within the body. Don’t let the idea of needles put you off — most patients barely feel a thing as the hair-thin needles go in. And despite the fact that they bear a certain resemblance to pin cushions while getting treated, our patients report that the experience is quite relaxing.
Your practitioner may well prescribe you some herbs. Chinese herbs differ from western herbs in that they are almost always prescribed as a formula containing 5 – 15 herbs. Combining different types of herbs in different quantities helps us to craft a formula to address your specific symptom pattern.
The Chinese materia medica includes over 6,000 individual substances. A typical practitioner will use between 300 and 400 of these substances on a routine basis. Most of these are plants but minerals and animal parts are also used. At the Yinova Center our commitment to the environment ensures that we do not use any medicinal substance derived from an endangered species nor one that involves inflicting pain on a living being.
Traditionally Chinese herbs were only available in dried form and had to be boiled for many hours to release their active ingredients. However, modern advances have lead to natural methods of extracting the active ingredients so that herbs can be prescribed in more palatable forms such as pills, tinctures and freeze dried granules. These are prepared according to strict Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) and subject to high levels of quality control.
Do not be alarmed if your practitioner wants to look at your tongue, or asks you a bunch of questions about pee and poo. It’s all a part of the system of Chinese medical diagnosis developed over thousands of years to identify significant patterns of signs and symptoms that reveal much about your health — and how to improve it. Our practitioners are trained to find out information in a variety of different ways.
Looking — You will notice that your practitioner looks at you very carefully. He or she will examine your tongue and take note of your complexion and body type. They will pay attention to everything from the way you walk to the sparkle in your eyes looking for a pattern in order to make a diagnosis.
Hearing and Smelling – Adding to the information already gathered by visual inspection your practitioner will listen to the sound of your voice and your breathing. He or she may ask you about the odor of your excretions.
Asking — Traditionally in Chinese Medicine there are ten main areas of questioning. This interview is very detailed and often patients are surprised by some of the questions. Do you catch colds easily? Do you have cold hands and feet? Do you bruise easily? Are there any foods you crave? Are you groggy in the mornings? Can you describe your stools? The answers to questions like these give your practitioner valuable information.
Palpation – Your practitioner may feel your abdomen looking for temperature variations. He or she may press acupuncture points looking for tenderness and will definitely take your pulse. Pulse diagnosis in Chinese Medicine is extremely complex and takes decades to master but can give your practitioner detailed information on the state of your body’s internal organs.
We use the traditional wisdom of Chinese medicine to treat modern New Yorkers for a broad range of chronic problems from allergies to anxiety, infertility to insomnia, pain to pimples, digestion to depression — and much more.
Based on Jill’s book Making Babies, we have developed specialized techniques for using Chinese medicine to enhance fertility and all our practitioners have extensive training in using Chinese medicine to treat OB/GYN issues.
To find out more about what we treat click here
We use the traditional wisdom of Chinese medicine to diagnose our patients and then treat them using acupuncture, moxibustion, electro-acupuncture, cupping, massage, lifestyle advice, nutritional adjustments, herbal remedies, vitamins and supplements.
To read more about what we do click here.
Strike up a conversation about acupuncture or alternative medicine and all roads inevitably lead to Jill Blakeway or Noah Rubinstein—or both.