Migraines & Headaches
What Causes Disease? Something New or Something Old?
A common question from health care providers to patients during initial intakes around the inception of their chief complaint is: “Did anything new happen or significantly change in your life just before this started?”
If we are looking at an orthopedic issue this might be in suggestion to some physical trauma or accident. If the issue is more psychological, we’re inquiring clearly more around emotional trauma or incident. Either way, no matter the medical paradigm it is always helpful to know what, if anything, was the final straw, and/or only straw, to induce a present pathology.
Where medicine gets tricky is in approximately half of the times when the patient responds: “Nothing… nothing changed.” Nothing new or bad happened.
In this case it is logical to look at genetic tendencies finally rearing latent heads, but I am more inclined to examine patient habits and lifestyles finally catching up to them. Everyone knows that a few cigarettes, or even a few years of cigarettes, do not cause chronic illness, so why should a short or even medium interim of any harmful pattern under the umbrella of self-care?
How many years does it take for a lack of exercise to cause disease? How many years does it take for nightly desserts, social alcohol use, or haphazard use of pharmaceuticals to?
“The last straw(s)” is an etiology which poses a greater challenge to patients’ self-awareness, curiosity, and/or open-mindedness. Being confronted with what we might have been doing wrong for years, if not decades—where our responsibility lies—poses a threat to our ego, our belief systems, as well as our simple energy in its implicit requisite of critical thought, experimentation, and will power to examine what we could/should change. Nevertheless, scientific logic would dictate this to be at least one irrefutable contributing factor to disease.
When “nothing changed” just prior to onset of symptoms, what percentage of causality can we intelligently assign to genetics alone? Thirty percent? Sixty? Maybe ninety on occasion? I am skeptical it is very often 100%, lest I would personally be relegated to medications for gout disease, eczema, and an anxiety disorder.
I recommend to all patients, myself included, to be open, to the idea that although we probably haven’t been wrong about everything, we are just as likely wrong about some of the things we do, especially whilst in the context of seeking help.
Please don’t get me wrong: As much of a pet peeve it is for me to work with patients who take no responsibility for their conditions and/or wield a particularly narrow-minded arrogance around the infallibility of their choices, it is equally unacceptable when health care providers put the entire onus on the patient. The healing process, in my opinion, is not only a marathon-like process of scientific experimentation, but a team process, that usually requires approximately half of contribution from both parties. I’ve heard many colleagues criticize patients’ desire for us to “fix them.” Obviously, I agree, people must take responsibility for their health. At the same time, most chronic conditions need the outside support and help from professionals as well.
Shower Clogs and Chinese Medicine
One of the recurrent flaws in our Jersey City apartment of the past few years has been the plumbing. Within months after moving here we had an inexplicable leak from the kitchen sink that forced management to have to tear up and replace the living room flooring. Of course, my neurosis coupled with faith in ongoing communication from the subjective realm diagnosed this as a sure sign from the universe (and my own spirit guides) that leaving New York City was the wrong decision. My wife on the other hand diagnosed it as a plumbing crisis.
More chronic at home has been our need to regularly flush out the shower drains, and each time we do so we’re sure to use not just hot water, but a pot of boiling water to chase the Liquid Plumr or whichever product my wife deems most ideal to unstick the grime and/or hairs that cause the clogs. It reminded me of one of the most important principles in Chinese medicine, the diet, and lifestyle we encourage of human beings.
Grime or accumulation in pipes is no different in theory than “dampness,” dysbiosis, or plaques in human vessels, arteries, and pathways. Call it what you will—any of the aforementioned, otherwise inflammation or fluid retention, ultimately all paradigms of medicine can consistently observe and cite such blockages as the underlying etiologies to most diseases.
This is why Eastern medicine discourages our consumption of anything and everything cold. Whether cold drinks, cold foods, such as salads, yogurts, or smoothies, or using ice on injuries, cold constricts and solidifies accumulations instead of dissolving them, thereby making such substances counterintuitive to our perpetual intention to reduce inflammation.
Cold foods are often yummy and convenient, which makes them that much more appealing in our fast-paced society, although convenient should always be a red flag when it comes to caring for the planet and ourselves. Microwaves are convenient, as are plastic bags and take-out containers, as well as gasoline cars, all of which are obviously and equally basic and destructive.
Western medicine often alleges there is “no known cause of arthritis,” which really just means they do not know what causes it. In Eastern medicines we know better. This doesn’t necessarily mean our treatment towards full resolution is simple, but its cause is. The human body is made mostly of fluids that have to constantly circulate, often through relatively microscopic spaces surrounding joints and ligaments. This circulation is created by our “qi,” or overall cellular energy, which obviously wanes with age. Exercise can help, as can a good diet, but all of us over the age of 30 are gradually losing energy, which means our fluid circulation is slowing, which leaves us vulnerable to cold clogs, constriction, and inflammation.
As we seem to instantaneously traverse from summer into a rather chilly fall this is an important concept to keep in mind. While anti-inflammatory diets and nutritious foods can be great, many times our bodies can benefit by just pouring hot water into it every day. Whether in the form of herbal teas, pu-erh tea, barley and ginger tea (message me for this recipe) green tea (only for those of us with heat patterns), soups, and/or bone broths, or shiitake mushroom broth for my vegan friends, a daily ritual of these edible, nourishing versions of Liquid Plumr can have immeasurable preventive benefits if consumed consistently over long periods of time.
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Mercury Retrograde! The Fall 2022 Version
Just a friendly heads up, fair warning, from your local subscriber to (almost) all paradigms off the beaten path and/or beyond the five human senses: Another Mercury retrograde is upon us, to officially begin this coming Friday, September 9th; but for those of us such as myself, born under a Mercurial sign, the effects of its “shadow” and prior “pre-shadow” phases have already reared their heads around many facets of life. This will continue for the rest of September.
When the planet Mercury is in retrograde the things most known to suffer are travel, communication, and technology—recall October, 2021, when all of Facebook and Instagram collapsed and blacked out for a day—though my personal experience is just an overriding theme of carelessness and misfortune that can lead to a whole litany of problems.
For example, while mercury is retrograde I am more likely to roll an ankle, drop and break a glass, lose my wallet, or tell someone to “F off!” The latter of which I’m confident has become less frequent with age and maturity (and the astrological awareness to, take a breath—it’s just mercury)…
This weekend my brother witnessed a road rage incident on the upper east side where two drivers got so angry at one another that they took turns ramming each other’s cars as if in a video game until finally jumping a curb resulting in a collision on 2nd Avenue. Fortunately, no one was hurt. And while confrontations obviously happen year-round, I couldn’t help but flag such an extraordinary instance as partially exacerbated by the stars’ misalignment, hypothesizing: “If only one of the two combatants was more astrologically aware, he might have taken a breath and turned the other cheek (or wheel as it were) and avoided the legal, financial, and medical issues caused. For the month to come, try your best to pause before reacting.
For my part thus far, we’ve had last minute babysitter cancellations, patients arriving later than ever (you’re all forgiven!), my bed frame broke for no reason other than wear and tear, our freight elevator was down all week, as is our cable at home (grateful it happened after Serena’s match). When mercury is retrograde we should do our best to just go with the flow of such conditions, and avoid making any major life decisions or signing contracts until our perception—that is our communication with the outside world is more lucid.
The nice thing about mercury retrogrades is they are generally times when people from our past—hopefully not detested ex’es—either randomly reach out to connect or run into us randomly in public. Such “coincidences” are common, which can be fun and offer somewhat of a silver lining to these otherwise frustrating, chaotic few months of each year.
Of course, astrology is only an interest of mine, not remotely my field of expertise. To dive deeper I recommend The Inner Sky by Steven Forrest, or at least this ASTROSTYLE ARTICLE on how to mentally prepare and approach this upcoming period. Alternatively, alternative medicine is another useful coping tool for the stress that comes with astrological storms. Even if just harmonizing treatments, down-regulating our nervous system, or releasing our back and shoulder muscles, outside support is always advisable, and available. Please just give yourself an extra five minutes to get to your appointment 😊
What Are Your Naturally Occurring Anti-Depressants?
Though many have it worse than others, my opinion is that states of depression are an inescapably subjective experience of our human condition, for which it is important to mitigate with naturally occurring “anti-depressants.” While Eastern and Western meds are often able to help us through difficult times, our long-term prognosis is bound to deteriorate if and when we concede full autonomy, and lose track of which little things make us (relatively) happy.
I don’t know any intelligent person who’s never experienced any degree of depression. This doesn’t mean I’m calling you dumb if you think you haven’t. In fact, there’s a good chance most of us could learn a great deal from you. But I think there is a degree of self-awareness and critical thought that lends itself to an organic vulnerability to a particular darkness that is an objective part of life, whether we focus on it or not.
I cannot make any specific recommendations, as much like Chinese Medicine, self-care is holistic—there is no one-size-fits-all. However, I thought I’d share some of the things that help me personally, in hopes of either inspiring or simply connecting with yours.
- Music: I think I came to gradually realize how well music mitigates my own sadness or frustration in correlation with becoming gradually more domesticated and doing more cooking and cleaning than I ever had before. I am not one of those people that is able to think of doing dishes as “a meditation.” It’s not relaxing for me in any way. And in spite of my food snobbery and nutritional counseling, if given the option I’d gladly prefer a personal chef. I do not love cooking. But both of these tasks fluctuate between tolerable and even enjoyable when done while listening to old school hip hop.
- Laughter: Duh, I know… but specifically the kind of laughter I get while talking to the funniest person I ever met, my brother. I recall struggling to get through last winter, taking my newborn for brisk walks around Jersey City when she refused to sleep, and a lot of the emotional duress of it being alleviated by talking the entire time to my bro.
- Running: All exercise of course, but from a Chinese Medical perspective, nothing “courses the liver qi” (modulates cortisol levels), better than just breaking out into a run. Interestingly, because of the potential challenge this places on the knees and heart if done to extreme, marathon-like excess, it is not necessarily something we condone long-term, but if we are young enough, strong enough, and stressed enough, it can be the perfect “herbal formula” for racing through difficult times.
- Caffeine: When I was first learning about holistic medicine I thought caffeine was something that I had to give up in order to heal, but through time and education I thankfully learned otherwise. For most people more than two cups per day is excessively drying and stimulating, but two cups or less can function as a helpful diuretic, purging dysbiosis not only from the gut, but the mind as well—hence the neurological boost we get. Although I try to be mindful of my quantity of caffeine, and stop by 11am, delicious hipster coffee has undoubtedly helped me through hard times.
- New York City: Throughout my life, whether flying in from out of town, looking down upon our unique skyline or just emerging from the PATH train station onto 23rd and 6th on a mundane Wednesday, every time I arrive in NYC a wave of contentment washes over me that I’ve only otherwise experienced on my second time flying into Paris. Regardless of my Taoist beliefs and environmental consciousness, I suppose in my heart and soul I am a city boy, which is important to be aware of. Know what kind of atmosphere makes you happy—be it nature in the middle of nowhere or bathed in the noisy chaos of manmade filth and humanity—and go there frequently.
I respectfully understand that none of these are cure-alls, for when we are in crisis, which is common and normal, we generally need help from other sources, whether personal, medical, or both. These are merely friendly reminders for that which are at all of our fingertips at all times, Paris notwithstanding.
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Three Benefits of Using Acupuncture to Treat Your Migraines
Migraine headaches are debilitating for those who suffer from the pain. According to the Migraine Research Foundation, approximately 39 million people in the U.S. suffer from migraine disease. Some migraine studies predict that up to 12% of adults in the U.S. have migraines, with 4 million suffering from chronic migraines. Worldwide, it is estimated that 1 billion men, women, and even children suffer from migraine disease. continue reading
