How I Work
At your initial appointment we will work out how and why your health has declined and which therapies are best suited to your needs.
I will ask many questions about your health and habits, including your diet, stress levels, exercise, emotional wellbeing, family or constitutional health and previous episodes of sickness and infections.
This information will help me come to a detailed traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) diagnosis, so that we can work out a treatment plan.
Treatments may include acupuncture, electro-acupuncture, cupping, electromagnetic or infrared light therapy, herbal lotions or compresses, internal herbal medicine, dietary advice/plans and a conversation about which lifestyle factors might be contributing to your problem and what you may need to change in order to obtain and maintain good health.
Gynaecology
I have specialised in the treatment of gynaecological disorders and infertility for many years. I feel strongly that gynaecological symptoms need to be addressed and corrected at an early stage, and TCM diagnostics and treatments can do this very well.
Patients typically come to my clinic because of an irregularity within their menstrual cycle, for example no or irregular periods, painful periods, and/or heavy periods. Severe premenstrual symptoms (PMS) or menopausal symptoms are also common complaints.
Ideally you will also have seen a Western medicine gynaecologist to ensure that between us we offer the best care possible. This is important since conditions such as polycystic ovaries, endometriosis, adenomyosis or fibroids may underlie your symptoms. If you haven’t yet done so I may suggest blood tests or scans.
If you are interested to have treatment along your Western medicine fertility treatment or as a birth preparation do contact me so we can find the best treatment schedule for you.
The following two articles offer insights into how I work with infertility and gynaecology.
‘The Treatment of Infertility in Chinese and Western medicine: a discussion’.
‘The egg factor: Using Chinese herbal medicine to improve fertility in a 45 year old woman.’
Dermatology
Skin disorders can cause real suffering, both physically and emotionally. From a Chinese medicine perspective they are considered to reflect an internal imbalance, meaning the body as a whole is not happy.
Treatment for chronic skin conditions may take several months, depending how long standing it is, but progress is normally seen within the first 1-2 months.
Dietary changes are often necessary, and Chinese herbal medicine is advised in most cases.
In most cases this is the result of a hormonal imbalance complicated by dietary factors and infections, either locally in the skin or internally. Women often show irregularities in the menstrual cycle that need to be corrected in order to treat the acne. Acne can affect different areas of the face, most commonly forehead and jaw-line. The different locations and also the different appearance of the spots in most cases require careful analysis and different approaches to treatment. Jaw-line acne for example is mostly seen together with a gynaecological imbalance, and is treated differently than forehead spots.
Psoriasis has been treated with Chinese medicine for many centuries. Our stressful modern life with modern lifestyle habits has also seen an increase in this skin condition. Stressful life events can trigger the onset of psoriasis, or it causes an imbalance that at some point triggers the skin changes. Sometimes psoriasis can be triggered by a strep B infection of the throat, altering the immune system and changing the way the local cells in the skin layer behave.
Eczema is often congenital, making a person very sensitive to allergens, but is made worse – like all conditions – by stress, dietary imbalances, infections and by internal ill health. There are many types of eczema, atopic (the allergic type), or with round shape lesions (nummular eczema) or seborrheic eczema (affecting areas with a high number of sebum glands) or phompholyx eczema, a type of eczema affecting mostly the fingers, with intense itching cycles and blisters. In the consultation we must look closely at how the skin condition manifest in your skin, and formulate a prescription based on your individual skin symptoms. Treatment approach of this multifactorial condition is complex and must incorporate dietary and lifestyle changes.
You can find a book review written by me on ‘How to treat psoriasis in Chinese medicine’ by Sabine Schmitz below.
If you would like to know if I can help you with your skin conditions, do not hesitate to contact me.
Neurological & Musculoskeletal Symptoms and Pain clinic
It is well known that acupuncture can treat headaches, migraines and neck tension very effectively. In fact, all symptoms that arise from a neurological-or stress based imbalance are well suited to acupuncture therapy, and it is not unusual to get immediate relief, so much so that patients sometimes wonder if we ‘inject’ muscle relaxant into the neck muscles! I then explain that the mechanical action of inserting fine needles into tense muscles gives enough impulse for the muscle fibres to relax. Even after 20 years I am still astonished by this fantastic response.
Acupuncture can rebalance the autonomic nervous system, and especially helps turn off the sympathetic (fight or flight) stress response and promote the parasympathetic rest, relax and repair response. In fact I think it is this fundamental stress reducing action of acupuncture that allows the body to regain its own homeostasis/ balance and ease symptoms such as tinnitus, neck and jaw pain and tension, migraines, muscular twitches, irritable bowel syndrome, insomnia, and so on.
Contact Me
If you would like to know if acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine can help you or someone you know please do not hesitate to contact me.
