Before interviewing Laura Gabbé, Licensed Acupuncturist, at the Providence Day Spa this month, my only prior experience with acupuncture was working with Sally Rappaport, LAc, who put a needle in my right wrist and relieved the chronic tendinitis in my left ankle. So although I had some inkling of the Magic of Acupuncture, I had no idea of the range to which this magic could be put.
A great many women, says Laura, spend years of their life trying to avoid getting pregnant. Then, at last, they decide they are Ready for Parenthood, and discover that they needn't have worried. Pregnancy proves much more elusive than they could ever have thought. They arrive in her office--panicky, stressed, and miserable. Many of them are contemplating IVF (in vitro fertilization), and are cowed at the expense and stress this entails.
Depending on the lady's age, Laura embarks upon a three- to six-month course of treatment with acupuncture and herbs. Although there is no guarantee that she will get pregnant with acupuncture alone, women who receive a course of it before IVF have an increased chance of success, as well as easier pregnancies and more efficient labors. Acupuncture improves blood flow to the endometrium, creating a richer, thicker lining, and stimulates the production of hormones in the proper amounts to improve egg quality. It also stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system, helping the body to relax, heal and balance itself. Oftentimes, the stress caused by attempting to get pregnant is one of the factors impeding conception; Laura helps her clients to take better care of themselves overall, without focussing exclusively on outcome.
Pregnant women may continue seeing Laura for problems such as nausea, headaches, backaches, allergies, depression, and a whole host of other symptoms that, being pregnant, they may not take drugs for. She says that doctors often tell these women that they 'just have to put up with it' for another five or six or seven months, which is not what an exhausted lady with sinusitis wants to hear.
If labor is delayed significantly beyond the due date, Laura can help to bring it on. She often refers clients back and forth with Wendy Morris, D.C., who has a high success rate in turning breech babies, using the Webster chiropractic technique. Laura reports that many of her clients who see her regularly have 'more efficient' labors; i.e. the baby is nearly born in the cab, while the obstetricians and midwives are still telling them to go home and wait another 12 hours or so.
In these modern days, a great number of girls who have trouble with cramps, mood swings, and other severe symptoms at menarche are put on The Pill. This may mask the symptoms, but doesn't cure them--and the possible negative side effects of The Pill are well-known. When they come to Laura instead, she is generally able to reduce their symptoms by 70% in three cycles or less.
Women undergoing menopause also come to Laura for hot flashes, depression, and insomnia. Oftentimes the treatments prescribed for menopausal symptoms, such as hormone replacement therapy and antidepressants, are worse than the problems themselves; it seems well worthwhile to try a side-effect-free alternative! And a recent study has indicated that acupuncture is just as effective as Effexor in treating menopausal symptoms triggered by breast cancer treatment.
Laura frequently provides advice and reassurance to her regular clients who call her with problems; she is more accessible than many physicians or OB/GYNs. She does not work in opposition to Western allopathic medicine, but in complement to it, and readily refers a client to a doctor or other healthcare provider when necessary. For more information, please contact the Providence Day Spa in Brooklyn.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I wish I had such a great list to go through for Broward County. Among my many medical tasks when I get home is to find a decent acupuncturist and chiropractor.
I have a lot of trust in acupuncture. I've only had a few sessions, being broke and having this be an uninsured treatment. Now, the one I used to see is more or less retired, so I'm high and dry for the duration.
But the first time I went, I deliberately did NOT learn anything about it first. I wanted an experience uncolored by expectations.
I also told the practitioner most, but not all, of my health issues.
The treatment left me feeling remarkably good. The areas she'd focused on responded amazingly well: arthritis, back problems, allergies, sinuses, TMJ...But there were also changes in places I did NOT tell her about.
The second day, I noticed something odd. One of the many inflamed places in my body is my chest cavity. Pleurisy, an inflammation between the chest lining and lung lining. When you breathe and those linings are inflamed, they can't slide against each other properly. This results in both a constant dull background ache, and characteristic knife-jab pains when the linings get stuck and sort of pinch. It's like when you're wearing shorts and try to slide your butt along a hot leather car seat, and the skin on your thighs stick to the leather and gets pulled and feels pinched.
Anyway. The second day, I notice that my lungs didn't ache any more.
?!?
I hadn't said a word to her about my lung inflammation. Only allergies and asthma.
I get so used to these things they're sort of a small background hum I pay no attention to, like the sound of city traffic at night when you're going to sleep. But when it disappeared, I sure noticed it.
Dr. Dad was called. He's an odd combination of sceptic, and respector of indigenous medicines and certain "alternative" ones.
I asked him why needles in my face, etc., would make this lung thing feel so much better.
He said he'd researched acupuncture recently, and found it well supported, medically speaking. He said studies showed that the techniques resulted in endorphin etc. release at specific locations, which these practitioners had discovered, more or less by accident, over the millennia.
I told him it sure worked on me.
I called the acupuncturist next and told her about it. She said she'd done some lung things with me, on the general assumption that a person with allergy and asthma issues might have longer-ranging lung problems.
I told her she'd guessed right, thanked her, made another appointment, and promptly handed her card out to all and sundry.
Hello there. I found you listed under "Christian lupus blogs" at Cynthia Given's blog of Christian lupus spport. Your blog is really interesting. Do you reaaly have lupus, or are you and she friends because of your interest in the paranormal? I have both things in common with Cynthia. I also see that you have an interest in transsexuals. So do I. I used to teach modeling, and established a class for men to learn to act femenine. It was a small city though, so it was a small class and didn't take long to complete. Nice to sort of meet you!
Bluebirdy
Post a Comment