Chinese Five Element theory utilizes the interrelationship of the physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects of our lives in order to support health and treat disease. Each element engenders another. Each element can also stress another. Discovering how these elements interplay in our lives can invite more balance, ease, and well being.
Treatment in Chinese Medicine affects all parts of you at once. Our physical bodies, emotions, and spirits are inextricably entwined. What affects one aspect of our life affects all aspects of our life. Our goal in treatment is to support your body’s effort to achieve its best health in congruence with your goals.
Elemental Health LLC provides Classical Chinese Medicine that is informed and guided by Daoist Chinese Medical training and rituals within Western faith and culture. We utilize ancient practices combined with contemporary understanding. We believe Classical Chinese Medicine is uniquely poised to support comprehensive and integrated healing. We trust that clients will find their bodies more hospitable to their spirits and experience deepened awareness and gratitude for their bodies as a result of treatment.
We use Acupuncture needles in treatment.
Some Western medical professionals may use Acupuncture needles and call it “dry needling”, but we have a different training, intention, and use for them since we apply Chinese Medical theory to our practice instead of Western medical theory.
The needles we use are different from hollow needles used in western medicine. We do not put anything into the body or take anything out of the body with our solid filiform sterile needles. Our needles are not sharp like sewing needles that puncture the skin. They have a rounded tip and are inserted into the skin by displacing skin cells.
Additional Techniques: Cups, Spoons, and Smoke
We use cupping to create suction that allows for movement. Examples of the use of cupping include extremely tight muscles and lung congestion. Cupping can also provide helpful diagnostic information. It can result in remarkable relief. It is common for some marks to remain for a day or two following cupping.
We might suggest the use of a Chinese soup spoon called a Gua Sha (gwah shah) spoon that we will scrape along the skin. Gua sha can help diagnostically, and bring pathogens to the surface of your body for relief. Examples of when gua sha might be useful include neck stiffness or the earliest stages of getting a cold. Gua Sha is also used in protocol for some specific treatments. It is only used with full knowlege and consent.
Moxibustion is commonly used in Chinese Medical treatments. Unlike cupping and gua sha which are used to create movement and release, moxibustion is used to nourish. Dried mugwort is attached to an acupuncture needle or directly onto an acupuncture point and lit, or rolled ito the shape of a cigar and moved over an area of your body. The dried herb is lit with a stick of incense and carefully watched. You will often feel a deep warming sensation when moxibustion is applied. We may recommend you take a rolled stick of moxa home with you for continuing care. This is standard protocol for some specific treatments.
Chinese Herbal Medicine
Chinese medicinal herbs are often recommended during the course of treatment to augment and support your best health. Prescriptions are tailored to you. Your health goals, any medications prescribed or over the counter, and the specific conditions we are treating are taken into account. Generally, herbal therapies are recommended for a period of treatment and not used indefinitely.
For internal herbal medicine you ingest, we can recommend the use raw herbs you can cook into a tea, patent formulas that are already made into pill form, powdered dry herbs, and tinctures. For external herbal medicine that you would apply to your skin, we provide linaments, herbally infused oils and the essential oils of plants.
Many Chinese Medical herbs are in our diet. Examples of this include chicken eggs, cinnamon, cloves, millet, rice, green onions, cardamom. Often adjustments in our diet and sleep habits can have a profound impact in improving health goals. I prefer to recommend dietary adjustments to selling additional prescriptions when I believe those changes can have great effect. Classes in food preparation appropriate to recommended diets are available during the course of treatment upon request.
Rates
- Chinese Medical appointments $75.00.