In a world of high-tech treatment and prescriptions for every malady, sometimes the old ways are still the best.
I’m staring through the hole in a massage table at my hands, which have needles sticking out of them. I’m staring at my hands because I really can’t look at anything else—there are needles in other parts of my body as well. Technically, I could probably look at other stuff, but this is the first time I’ve been a human pincushion and, frankly, I’m a little scared. Though clearly, I’m brave enough to have the needles inserted into my body. Let’s just get that straight.
It’s just a little confusing. Acupuncture is clearly old school, so old it was around before they had schools. But in medicine, innovation is the way.
As Americans, we’ve been steadily fed the message, courtesy of Madison Avenue, that bigger is better and new is improved. Nowhere is this truer than in the field of medicine. Pharmaceutical companies routinely tweak drugs about to lose their patent, market the new prescription drug as the latest and greatest and quietly offer the old, best-selling drug over the counter. Hospitals are often caught up in “arms races” testing who can market their newest treatment center or equipment quicker and at a louder volume. Show me a hospital that brags about its vintage oncology center, and I’ll show you a waiting room filled with patients dressed as empty chairs. No, today’s standard pitch for any hospital or medical treatment must contain the phrase “state of the art.”
Television, newspapers and magazines do a fine job of telling us about new wonder drugs that can cure everything from trouble sleeping to erectile dysfunction (not that those two things are related). And yet, there still isn’t a pill or capsule that will put an end to Paris Hilton news coverage.
And what of bioscience? It seems almost daily, we hear of journal articles or research breakthroughs that, someday in the not-too-distant future, will possibly lead to cures or immunizations for such troubling diseases as diabetes, multiple sclerosis and even some forms of cancer.
What’s old is new again
While the inroads modern medicine makes each day are remarkable, I’d like to point out some very low-tech medical practices that have been working quite well since the beginning of recorded time—or at the very least, since before “American Idol” began passing for entertainment in this country.
To be more precise, acupuncture has been around for at least 2,000 years, though there’s some evidence it may go back as far as 8,000 years. Acupuncture is actually a European term created by William Ten Rhyne, a Dutch doctor who visited Nagasaki in the 17th century and found practitioners using needles to treat patients.
Chiropractic care officially dates back to 1895, when Daniel David Palmer restored the hearing of Harvey Lillard by aligning errant vertebrae. The 1895 date is when most historians give the nod to Palmer, thought to be the Father of Chiropractic, though his son B.J. advanced the science quite a bit after dear old dad went on to his reward. Not to steal anyone’s thunder, but the writings of Hippocrates—he of Hippocratic Oath fame—show folks were hip to the connection of spinal alignment and health long before either of the Palmers put out a shingle.
In the interest of full disclosure, I’ve had both chiropractic and acupuncture treatments. I have a back with three very cranky discs (the result of a workplace accident) and so I’m familiar with chiropractic care from a patient’s perspective. (I’m even more familiar with the horror show known as Workers’ Comp, but that’s a tale for another day). I’ve had exactly one acupuncture treatment, so in this regard, I’m practically a virgin.
There’s a sentence I never thought I’d write.
California (and the North Bay, in particular) is open to alternative beliefs and behaviors as well as lifestyles. It’s no accident the Summer of Love took place in the Bay Area. Locally, it isn’t unusual to run across mainstream businesspeople who routinely roll into the office late or leave early depending on the how the waves are breaking. And nowhere does the environment play as prominent a roll in daily life as it does here. Whether you’re getting recycling organized in the office, buying a Prius or dropping major cash on organic groceries at Whole Foods, green is great. Different doesn’t scare us, and in some ways we prefer to dance to the beat of a different drum. Given our wanderlust for the road less traveled, it should come as no surprise that acupuncture and chiropractic are more fully embraced in California than any place else in the United States.
What seems to be the problem?
Jennifer Jackson’s office is in a small building on D Street in San Rafael, across from a medical arts complex and a hole-in-the-wall restaurant known as Casa Mañana. The waiting room is casual and would never be confused with the corporate digs of Kaiser or Sutter. Asian prints adorn the waiting room, and there’s a small mirror on one wall, not to assist patients with grooming but rather to feng shui the office. While a copy of Good Housekeeping is found in the magazine rack, periodical choices run more toward Real Simple, Eating Well and Yogi Times. Jars of Chinese herbs line the wall behind the counter, and the most high-tech piece of equipment found in her treatment room is an iPod.
Jackson came to acupuncture by happenstance. As she tells it, she had worked for Planned Parenthood for a decade when she went to see an acupuncturist as a patient “and a light went on.” After studying at the Five Branches Institute in Santa Cruz for four years, Jackson now holds a master’s degree in traditional Chinese medicine. She’s licensed by the state of California and is a diplomate of acupuncture with the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. A native of Michigan, the 35-year-old now calls San Rafael home—and is about to begin surf lessons. I expect my health care professional to have degrees on the wall, but being a student of the waves is always a plus.
I’ve come to Jackson for assistance with my lower back and my wife’s snoring problem. OK, technically, the snoring problem is me. But since I sleep through it, I feel it’s more her issue. She compares my sawing of logs to a 747 landing. I argue she was the one who moved in next to the airport. Now I’m having someone treat me like a voodoo doll in the hope that I can stop snoring—or at the very least bring the noise level down to that of a small Cessna. (More full disclosure. I’m paying full price for my treatment, there is no promotional consideration. Also, no animals were hurt in the writing of this story).
Jackson takes my medical history. She takes my pulse in nine different spots on or near my wrists, and then she asks to see my tongue. I stick it out. She examines it and takes my blood pressure. She explains that, since I am having trouble with my back, she’s going to zero in on that today; the snoring issue is something that will require a little more time. She also thinks my liver may be a little inflamed, based on my tongue, and she wants to work on it. I tell her any problem with my liver is a result of my last NorthBay biz assignment on organic wine, which involved substantial tasting while doing in-depth research.
A river runs through it
The practice of acupuncture centers on the concept that the body has meridians that act as pathways for the flow of energy in the same way water flows in a river. These meridians are linked to specific internal organs and organ systems. When a person is healthy, the energy (or chi) flows smoothly. Stagnation occurs when a person is ill, and it can be corrected by the introduction of needles in areas that correspond to the affected meridians. There are more than 1,000 acupoints along the meridians.
While acupuncture is still considered an alternative medical treatment, it’s gaining more mainstream acceptance. Some teaching facilities like UCSF Medical Center now make acupuncture available to patients. Kaiser offers acupuncture services as well. Even insurance companies, which in the past have embraced nontraditional treatments the way Dick Cheney embraces gun control, are now offering packages that include coverage for acupuncture. Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Aetna and United all accept acupuncture as a medical procedure.
Jackson reports some doctors are even referring patients to acupuncturists, though it’s not a steady flow, suggesting the physician’s chi may be stagnated. Most acupuncturists are seeing more business via information on the Internet and referrals from other patients.
Acupuncture is used for a wide variety of treatments from colds to infections to addictions to infertility. It’s also popular for use in nutritional issues, pain management, sports medicine, thyroid and adrenal conditions—even depression and anxiety. I have some personal reservations regarding the latter use, as being stuck with needles could potentially make anybody anxious.
“Some people are nervous about the needles, even though they’re really small,” says Jackson. “If somebody’s worried, I explain to them the needles I use are very thin and you could fit maybe 30 of them in one normal IV needle. Plus I’m not going very deep, not like a doctor who goes into the bloodstream. If they’re still nervous, I use the kids’ needles, which are even smaller.”
I lay down on the table and Jackson begins to place the needles in different locations. I get a total of six in the legs, two in the back, four in each hand and one in my right ear. After the needles are set, she leaves the room, promising to come back in a bit. Then it’s just me and the flute music. My legs are heavy and my lower back is a little tight. I have no sense of time as I try to take mental notes of how I feel for the story. People tell me they sometimes fall asleep on the table. I wonder about those people.
When the needles are removed and I stand up, my back does feel better.
Back to the back
Like Jackson, Larry Guyer discovered his calling while seeking treatment. Guyer was the victim of an industrial accident that covered 90 percent of his body with burns. He was in the ninth year of recovery when he went to see a chiropractor. “I started talking to him after the treatment and asked how I could learn more about it,” Guyer says. Shortly after, he enrolled at the Los Angeles College of Chiropractic. The school is now called Southern California University of the Sciences.
A Sebastopol resident, the 62-year-old Guyer owns the Northgate Back Clinic in San Rafael and has been practicing for 18 years. Guyer recently purchased the practice from Dean Thompson, with whom he’d been working for the last seven years.
For most people, chiropractic care isn’t as mysterious as acupuncture. Most chiropractic treatments revolve around the proper alignment of the spine. Guyer reports he most commonly sees two types of patients: those who are referred (by doctors or patients) and those who’ve tried most everything else to relieve pain and now are turning to chiropractic.
Traditionally, chiropractors haven’t enjoyed wide acceptance from medical doctors. In fact, it’s fair to say that doctors regarded chiropractors the way San Francisco Giants fans look at the L.A. Dodgers. And truth be told, there are a few chiropractors who wouldn’t mind brushing the doctors back off the plate as well. On the medical side, doctors have long felt that overall health can’t be affected by making spinal adjustments. Moreover, there’s always been a political split around the notion that chiropractors are lesser healers since they don’t have an M.D. behind their name.
Chiropractors have effectively kept up the Hatfield-McCoy split, to some degree, by being slow to refer patients who required prescriptive medical care to docs.
Healing the rift
Guyer has seen it all and comes from the Rodney King school of healing, as in “Can’t we all just get along?”
“Doctors and traditional medicine each have a place,” he says. “Chiropractic has its place, and acupuncture has its place as well. The old split has never worked well for anyone, most of all the patients.”
That said, Guyer thinks part of the problem is that doctors, chiropractors and patients may have different ways of measuring success. “A surgeon goes in to make a specific repair, and as long as the repair is made, the surgery is a success. A chiropractor wants the patient’s symptoms to disappear, because the treatment takes care of the problem. The patient wants the pain to stop.”
While chiropractors are more established in the public’s minds than acupuncturists, there’s still a lot of education necessary. “We only treat between 10 percent and 15 percent of the public, so the rest of the people don’t necessarily know what we do. Insurance companies and HMOs are doing their best to screw us—but then, they’re doing the same thing to the doctors, so they’re being consistent. But again, the patients lose.”
But the insurance companies and HMOs win, so it isn’t a total loss.
The basic practice of correcting spinal alignment and improving joint health is pretty straightforward and doesn’t require much in the way of equipment. But Guyer does have a piece of hardware in his office called a Cox table. Essentially, it’s an industrial-style massage table with the back end replaced by a section that drops out and rotates, moves side to side and up and down. It’s used to stretch a patient’s lower back in a way similar to traction, giving discs more room and hence relieving pressure on pinched nerves. Few chiropractors have the Cox table, and knowing how to use it is a specialty.
While it’s clear that the majority of the public is still more comfortable exploring the high-tech wonder of modern medicine, it’s just as clear that practitioners such as Guyer and Jackson will never want for patients who know that, sometimes, the old ways are simply the best ways.
