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Are you a woman stuck in stress? Are you having trouble becoming pregnant or staying pregnant? In my nearly two decades of clinical practice, I have witnessed an integral distinction on how to maximize your ability to get pregnant and stay pregnant.

Over 3,000 years ago, the Chinese discovered the primary driver of what prevents fertility. That factor is chronic stress on the body. It’s based on a simple yet powerful understanding of the mind. The Chinese found that the of degree of chronic stress that you are stuck in is consistent with how much attention is stuck on negative emotions such as anger, resentment, depression, fear, worry or anxiety. That stress response to the body is no different than you running from tigers on an ongoing basis. No difference! It is the same stress response to the nervous system.

So, let us go to our common sense corner. If you’re a woman and you are running from tigers constantly, is it more important to have blood flow in the reproductive organs to support fertility, or into legs to RUN! Which one? Run of course!

Now, think about this down the line. If you chronically have reduced blood flow in the reproductive organs leading to reduced function, what can show up down the line in symptoms, signs, or disease? Infertility- no babies! Of course, libido issues, PMS, and other issues related to reproductive function may also factor in.  However, it is not just about having more IVF treatment only. It’s about an understanding that it is a control system issue, AKA stress on your nervous system. It is about making sure that we interrupt the stress response and get optimal blood flow into that area.

Additionally, that’s why acupuncture is such a powerful complement to fertility therapy.  Because what it does is interrupts the stress response and helps increase blood flow into the reproductive organs, which are the 2 key factors for fertility. I can’t tell you how many experiences we’ve had here where patients came to our center for stress-induced insomnia, stress-induced asthma, or stress-induced digestive problems, and within weeks to months maximum, the patient comes in and says, “I’m pregnant! And I say, “Is that a good thing?” And of course they say YES! Then they ask, “Does this have anything to do with the acupuncture?” And I say, “YES! Of course it does!”

Well, I soon realized that I wasn’t educating my patients at that time of acupuncture’s impact on the ENTIRE body. Now of course our center is ALL about empowering our patients with education.

So, we want to start thinking about how we shift the entire system from a survival mode to a restorative/reproductive mode. It’s through shifting the nervous system that we can have the most profound impact.

Now, we have that acupuncture AND a new technology called neurofeedback brain training has a profound and direct impact on interrupting stress on the brain, which is really what controls everything in your body. The quality of your life IS the quality of your brain function, so these treatments combined are incredibly effective. We also cannot forget that the cascade of female hormones starts at the level of the brain. When you have optimal brain function and uninterrupted brain-body communication, you maximize both fertility as well as supporting all functional processes of the body.

If you like to find out more about how we can assist you with your specific health concerns and how we can best integrate the use of biomedical acupuncture and/or neurofeedback along with your current health care in a safe and effective way, contact our office at (619) 287-4005 to schedule a free consultation with one of our functional medicine specialists where we can answer any questions you have to find out if and how we can help you with your healthcare needs.

Have you or someone you know been injured on the job? Are you looking for a drug-free option to reduce your pain and improve your ability to get back into the workforce and even more importantly, back into your life? Today we’re going to talk about a drug-free option that can support your current medical care to enhance and speed up your recovery from work injuries.

First, it’s important to know that doctors in California’s workers’ compensation system are required to provide evidence-based medical treatment. This means that they must choose treatments that have been shown to be scientific and evidence-based in the ability to cure or relieve work-related injuries. Those treatments are laid out in medical treatment guidelines utilized by all doctors that treat these injured workers. They provide details on which treatment should be given, the extent of treatment, and the treatment’s duration.

Excitingly, acupuncture has now been recognized and adopted by these guidelines as scientific and evidenced-based.

The guidelines state, “Acupuncture is used as an option when pain medication is reduced or not tolerated.” So, you as an injured worker have the right to this modality if you’re having problems with medication, trying to reduce medication intake, or if you simply prefer a drug-free option. The guidelines also go on to say that acupuncture “may be used as an adjunct to physical rehabilitation and/or surgical intervention to speed up recovery.”

In our modern medical system, the combination of many therapies into an integrative approach can significantly improve patient outcomes. This combination typically has a greater affect than any one modality. Adding acupuncture is a safe and effective approach to the treatment of many health problems, especially when it comes to pain and inflammation.

Furthermore, the guidelines go on to state that, “Acupuncture can be used to reduce pain, reduce inflammation, increase blood flow, increase range of motion, decrease the side effect of medication-induced nausea, promote relaxation in the anxious patient, and reduce muscle spasm.” So what is this saying? It’s really saying that acupuncture treats and restores the body’s natural healing processes. In other words, through the stimulation of acupuncture, you are reactivating the body’s natural self-repair processes to support, enhance, and speed up healing! What a concept!

One last point the guidelines cover is that, “Acupuncture is indicated to treat chronic pain conditions, radiating pain along nerve pathways, scar tissue pain, and pain located in multiple sites.”

When patients are stuck in these chronic pain and inflammatory cycles, I have seen acupuncture play a major part in not only reducing pain and the need for medication, but also more importantly improving one’s overall emotional state and sense of well being. So, I would encourage you to consider acupuncture as part of your medical treatment to get you back into your work and more importantly back into your life.

If you’d like to find out more about how we can assist you with your work injury and how we can best integrate the use of biomedical acupuncture along with your current health care, in a safe and effective way, contact our office at (619) 287-4005 to schedule a free consultation where we can answer any questions you have, and to find out how we can help you with your healthcare needs.

Do you want to defeat the tiger of stress? First, let’s understand what exactly this tiger is, and how it’s interfering with your body’s ability to not only survive, but also to really thrive in the face of demands.

If you have a specific destination on a map, you need to first know where you are. The same goes for stress. If you don’t understand what type of stress is interfering with your body’s ability to function, you cannot overcome it. Why is that? Because for each specific type of stress, there is a specific strategy.

Now, the good thing is that there are only three kinds of stress. First, there’s physical stress. What is physical stress? Accident, injuries, traumas, and falls. Second, there’s biochemical stress: pesticides, heavy metals, toxins, hormonal imbalance, blood sugar issues. Third, there’s emotional stress: traffic jams, 401K plans, Internet connections, family tragedies, divorce, single parenting, your job, the list goes on.

When you’re placing high amounts of physical demands or stressors on yourself, physical recovery is the key. Using strategies such as massage, rest, more sleep, and medical modalities such as acupuncture will help reduce pain, inflammation, and muscle tension.

If you have high amounts of chemical stress, then the antidote is dietary, nutritional, and herbal. These strategies will not only offset the chemical stress, but also more importantly they will support your body’s return to health.

Emotional stress is by far the most devastating to the body. In addition to acupuncture, we utilize a new therapy at our center called neurofeedback, which has a profound effect on regulating the brain to reduce stress, anxiety and depression. We also teach our patients restorative exercises that range from tai chi, chi kung, and meditation practices.

Now here’s what’s really interesting! According to research, over 90% of our day is being run by automatic patterns called habits, also known as that unconscious part of us. The Chinese developed these restorative exercises to specifically interrupt and override these chronic vicious patterns of mental and emotional stress.

In my life, these exercises have made the most profound difference as a competitive athlete, fighting in full-contact martial arts. In the midst of training and just minutes before combat, these exercise allowed me to maintain a poise that has played a majored role in my success. You may be thinking, “Well I’m sure not going fight in the ring!” Yet whether in the ring or in life, the impact of stress can freeze you. In my 19 years of clinical practice, I have found that these simple yet powerful exercises have made the most dramatic difference in my patients.

It’s not about doing more to perform better in a sport, your job, or as a parent. It’s about consistently releasing the brakes of mental and emotional stress that allows one to perform at their best in life.

These restorative exercises combine specific movements along with breathing patterns to not only interrupt the stress response, but to more importantly reset and restore the body to optimal function.

Restorative exercises provide something that no medical modality can provide. They actually give you back your power of health. How? Because it’s something you can take with you! These exercises provide the ability to keep diffusing the stressors that hit you throughout the day when demands get high, AND reset and reboot your nervous system for maximum efficiency. In other words, you can perform these exercises any time you’re under stress to bring yourself out!

How often does it happen in your day? We get hit multiple times a day by the tiger of stress, and you can effectively use these exercises with as little as 60 seconds. Can you see yourself taking just 60 seconds every hour to reduce or even eliminate stress in your body?

What if you had a little reminder, maybe on your cell phone that beeped every hour to remind you to practice a stress interrupting technique? What if you didn’t even need to get away from your desk to perform it? When you start to experience the profound sense of calm that Chinese restorative exercises will offer you, it will be a practice that you’ll spend more time on, I promise!

If you’d like to find out more about how we can assist you with interrupting the stress response through the use of Chinese restorative exercises, as well as other natural medical modalities such as biomedical acupuncture and neurofeedback brain training along with your current health care, contact our office at (619) 287-4005 to schedule a free consultation with one of our functional medicine specialists. They can answer any questions you have to find out if and how we can help you with your healthcare needs.

I want to arm you with a powerful tool that will provide you with more control in your holiday eating and at the same time, help you enjoy those delicious foods much more! During any holiday season, mindfulness becomes a necessity if your goal is optimal health. Mindfulness means paying attention instead of zoning out and eating without thought, but really sitting there with moment-to-moment awareness.

Watch the video to learn how to most enjoy your food and to stay mindful with your eating this holiday season.

Hi, this is Dr. Mario Mancini, the founder of the Center for Integrative Care.

I want to take a moment to share my story of how I came across the technology that we use at our center called ARPwave Therapy. ARPwave is an accelerated recovery system for chronic pain with incredible results, and I’ve had firsthand experience with how effective it is!

Let me tell you a bit about my background. I fought at national and international levels of full-contact fighting. Now, I took A LOT of kicks to the legs, specifically my right leg. What was interesting was that, over the years, although I never really took any hits to the knee, my knee started to develop pain. But of course, if you’re a fighter, you know you keep training; you keep fighting even if you have pain. Naturally over time, the knee pain began to increase, and even when I retired from the fight circuit, the knee pain continued to get worse. So, I had an MRI and a surgeon took a look at it. He told me that I had a medial meniscus tear and said, “When it gets really bad, I can go in there and clean it up.”

I thought, well, that’s probably something I may need to do if it continues to get worse. But instead, I utilized acupuncture, which significantly helped reduce the swelling and pain and allowed me to function in my normal daily activities, including my regular exercise. It was only when I pushed my body beyond normal limits trying to train at the level that I used to fight that, over a period of time, my knee pain returned.

It was at this point that I knew I needed to find something in addition to acupuncture, and then I came across ARPwave Therapy.

The research showed a lot of promise, but it wasn’t until I experienced the effects that I knew that this was exactly what I needed. As I applied this therapy to myself, the first thing I realized was that the source of the problem was not where I was having the pain. It was not my knee!

Rather, the true origin of my pain was where I had taken all the hits to my leg, which made perfect sense. All those hits caused a lot of inflammation, and a lot of adhesions/scar tissue. So, what this therapy did was search for the source of my pain, which is the inflammation, adhesions, and scar tissue that I didn’t know I had!

ARPwave broke down the adhesions and drove high amounts of blood flow into those areas, turning those muscles on. When those muscles turned on, guess what happened? All force absorption returned to the leg and away from the knee, which meant that the knee pain was eliminated, and my leg was stronger. Let me say that again: My leg was stronger than in the peak of my fighting career.

Why? Because the muscles in my leg were turned on and fully functioning, even more than they ever had been before.

As someone who has experienced the effectiveness of ARPwave firsthand, I would highly encourage you to consider this therapy if you’re having chronic pain. If you’ve tried everything with minimal or no results, ARPwave could be your saving grace. I know it was mine!

What’s more, because this is an accelerated therapy, we normally see a clear change on the first visit.

So, what I would like to do is extend a risk-free session to you. If you would like to find out how you can qualify for this risk-free session, call (619) 287-4005 for more information.

What is the cause of most chronic pain? The research is demonstrating more and more that a strong driver of chronic pain is due to a problem in the nervous system itself leading to what is called neuropathic pain.

When you have an injury, sprain, strain, fracture, muscle tension, inflammation, or spasm, you have a nerve signal that fires off.  When that happens, the signal tells the brain “OUCH!”  Now, we understand through science that there is a secondary nerve that is involved in this process as well, which is most often the culprit. This has been found to be one of the primary reasons why most people get stuck in a chronic pain cycle, which of course leads to increased stress.

This nerve is called the proprioceptive nerve, but I want you to think of it like your GPS system… because it tells the brain where the problem is. When this nerve is faulty, the brain is saying, “I hurt, but I don’t know where the problem is.”  Why is that important? Because the brain needs to know exactly where to target the issue and release what are called enkephalins, the body’s natural painkillers. In summary, there are two nerves integral to resolving pain in the body – the OUCH nerve, and the GPS nerve.

So why does this nerve become faulty? Science has found several possibilities:

Possibility #1 – An old injury was never provided the opportunity to heal, most often due to continuous demands placed on it after the injury occurred. A majority of work injuries that we treat fit under this area because of this one driver.

Possibility #2 – The experience of chronic fatigue. This tells us that the body does not have the energy resources to maintain normal function, or to repair and restore injured areas.

Possibility #3 – This is a commonly missed aggravator, called atmospheric pressure changes. In other words, individuals who experience this can tell you the weather better than the weatherman can because of how sensitive their bodies are. This sensitivity often re-aggravates and extends the duration of the inflammation and pain cycle.

Now, I found one underlying driver in most patients that I’ve seen over the past 19 years. That one factor is chronic stress. More specifically, it is called a sympathetically maintained stress response. This simply means it is fueled by a combination of physical, biochemical and emotional stress. Think of it like a tsunami and an earthquake that hit at the same time, and now you continue to experience the waves and aftershocks long after the immediate stressor is gone.

To make matters worse, as you continue to get hits of emotional stress from life demands and chemical stress from say, eating the wrong foods, it reactivates those waves and aftershocks. When this happens, the system becomes faulty simply due to excessive bombarding demands going beyond the body’s ability to recover. The body can’t catch up! So why does this cause such a problem? Because the body was not meant to manage long-term stress.

The end product is a system that gets overloaded and faulty. Being faulty, there is no clear signal telling the brain to release these powerful painkillers.

The key to turning on this system is to reboot and re-activate the faulty nerve. A medical modality that is being utilized more and more for THIS specific reason called is biomedical acupuncture. This is because through the use of acupuncture, we are reactivating the faulty GPS nerve. This then turns on the brain to begin releasing these powerful painkillers.

A majority of chronic pain cases that are referred to our center from medical doctors do not have a clear structural cause. There was an initial injury, but most often we see that the magnitude and chronicity of symptoms are NOT consistent with the condition. In other words, the patient shouldn’t still be having pain! When this is the case, the patient is often suffering from what we call neuropathic pain. This means that the problem is in the nerve or nervous system and there is really nothing pushing on the nerve itself.

Interestingly, the body can lock into a chronic pattern of pain where these nerves keep firing without any direct trauma. This type of looping pain is in fact responsible for most chronic pain that patients experience. This is why after many tests, you’re told that they do not know exactly why the pain is still there.

This is where biomedical acupuncture may be an excellent option. Why? Because it is both diagnostic and therapeutic. This means that within a short course of treatment (normally within 6-12 treatments), we not only begin to see changes, but also more importantly we learn if your body will respond and do well with further treatment.

If you would like to find out more about how we can assist you with your specific health concerns through the use of biomedical acupuncture along with your current health care safely and effectively, contact our office at (619) 287-4005 to schedule a free consultation. We will answer any questions you have to find out if and how we can help you with your healthcare needs.

Today, let’s talk about the brain technology we utilize at our center for issues such as ADD, ADHD, depression, anxiety, memory issues, and traumatic brain injuries, just to name a few of the many brain-related conditions that can be treated.

This technology is called Brain Mapping and Neurofeedback, or “brain training.”

Let’s start with the initial visit. That’s when you come in and you are able to ask a lot of questions, see how the equipment works, and see how we get the brain to change!

The next step is to do a brain map. We start with an EEG, or “electroencephalogram,” which we then run through a computer and transform into what is known as a quantitative EEG. This shows us different color ratios that allow us to see which parts of the brain are working too hard and which parts are not working hard enough.

We then develop a protocol based on your brain map. The training we utilize is called neurofreedback, where we attach wires to your head and the information coming from your brain is shown on the screen in real-time.

One of our brain training protocols occurs while you are watching a movie. Once the protocol is set up, we are essentially asking the brain to do something very specific in a specific way in a specific location. When the brain starts to lose focus and doesn’t stay on task, the picture begins to fade out. When the brain is doing what we asked, in this case stay on task and focus on the movie, the picture stays on the computer screen bright and strong.

Doing this exercise and exercises like it over and over each session is what we call operant conditioning. This causes new brain cells to form in the brain and new neuropathways to develop. These new pathways are fresher and stronger than the old ones, which they eventually replace over time.

Years ago, the medical field thought that once your brain reached full size, it could not be changed. However, we have since learned that the brain has the ability to change even well into the old age!

Using neurofeedback systems, we can see what’s working well and what’s not working so well, and adjust the protocols accordingly. We can train very specific areas of the brain, or we can train it more holistically. What’s amazing is that we can see the changes in the brain happening on-screen in real time! This allows us to see how it functions under a variety of conditions, which lets us train the brain more thoroughly for long-lasting results.

We live in a time in history that provides us the possibility of making changes to the brain we once thought were impossible.

If you want to learn more on how we can help you or a loved one in need, call (619) 287-4005 to schedule a free consultation with one of our functional medicine specialists. We will answer any questions you have, to see if and how we can help you with your health condition.

What does an elite athlete have in common with someone looking to heal their body or create optimal health and performance in all areas of their life? They want to live life to the fullest. They want to be a high performer. They want to squeeze the most out of life. We all want the ability to tap into our human potential – we just need the right tools and support to help us get there.

If you want to be a high performer (in life or in sport) and you have an injury, a health condition, or a mental block like stress, anxiety, or depression that’s slowing you down or stopping you from tapping into that potential, I want to share an important distinction: The difference between the person who breaks through a health crisis that was once thought impossible, and everyone else.

As you may or may not know, I’m not only the Medical Director of the Center for Integrative Care, but I’m also a full-contact fighter. The demands placed on me in the ring are not much different than the demands of life. Yes, punches and kicks come at me in seconds but how I respond to those stressors determine how successful I am. How you respond to life’s kicks and punches, also known as stressors or demands, will determine your success and your failure.

My goals in the ring are no different than the mom, the CEO, the athlete, or just about anyone that wants more from life: To be the best, not the best over anyone else, but the best version of you. From my experience in the ring along with my medical training, what I found was that when your body feels broken down, your focus tends to shift to a state consistent with how your body feels: BAD.

Now, this is nothing new. When feeling crummy, most people will focus on how bad they feel and vice versa. If your focus is negative, then you can literally cause your body to get sick. This bio-psychological engine of life is critical not only to understand, but more importantly, to know how to control to your benefit.

This distinction that I have seen consistently is the common thread amongst what I call peak-performance patients, and it comes down to one factor. This one factor distinguishes success from failure. It is the difference between those who give up and those who never stop fighting. This one factor is THE difference in people’s lives. This factor is one’s standard of health.

This standard is an uncompromising commitment to demand more from oneself than anyone expects.

Not only does the body have an amazing ability to heal, but it also has an extraordinary capacity to perform above and beyond what most people think is possible. Once we help patients tap into their potential, it is amazing what they are finally capable of doing.

That is why we use science-based natural medical modalities because we want to support the body, not suppress it. We want to trigger the body and not override its innate potential. My goal is to help you capture the potential that you have, so that you can recreate it in your life and own it.

So decide to raise your standard of health. Have this uncompromising commitment to yourself. My job is just to help you bridge the gap from where you are to where you need to be.

If you’d like to learn more about how I can help you support your health goals, call (619) 287-4005 and schedule a free consultation with one of our functional medicine specialists. They’ll answer any questions you have to see if and how we can help you with the health condition you are having.

Hi, my name is Dr. Mario Mancini. I’m Medical Director of the Center for Integrative Care and, incidentally, a full-contact fighter.

I’ve learned in my years in the ring that if you want something, you’ve got to fight for it. The question is: How bad do you want it? From the start of my fighting career, I didn’t train just to fight- I trained to win. I asked myself the most important question you must ask yourself… What’s my “Why?”

My answer: To be the best, and not the best over anyone else, but the best version of myself. So I encourage you to ask yourself, “What is my WHY?”

If you don’t have one, life’s kicks and punches will control your attention and all you’ll do is protect yourself. You don’t need to be a full contact fighter to know that if all you do is block what comes at you, you’ll never win in the ring or in life. You’ll just be continuously distracted, unable to take action.

When you focus your mind beyond the demands and stresses of life, you will start to see beyond the attacks coming at you and instead you’ll begin to see the holes, the spaces, and the opportunities your opponent gives you every time he attacks. These same principles apply outside the ring just as much as they apply inside it.

Will you get hit? Will you get knocked down in life? You better believe it. But we all know that it isn’t about how many times you get knocked down, but it’s about how many times you get back up.

If you want to take your health to the next level, it is this attitude that I have seen in my patients over the past 18 years that achieved extraordinary levels of health. If you want to find out more about how I could be your cornerman to get you to the next level of your health, call (619) 287-4005 and schedule a free consultation with one of my functional medicine specialists to see if and how we can get you to the next level.

I want to share some information about a technology we use at our center that has a unique ability to accelerate recovery at a significantly faster rate than any other medical modality that I have seen over the past 20 years. Because its an aggressive therapy, we use it primarily for athletes who need to get back into their training or competition in a fraction of the time, or for anyone looking for an alternative to surgery or medication. This technology is called ARPwave Therapy, and it is based on a simple yet often overlooked fact of all injuries: Wherever there is an injury, there is reduced blood flow.

This therapy utilizes an external device that searches for the source of the injury, driving high amounts of blood flow into that injured area. Once the source of the injury is found, we have identified the origin of the problem where there is reduced blood supply. Here is one of the most unique components of this therapy: In locating the origin of the problem, we have found that it is not where the pain shows up. In other words, it isn’t where the patient is experiencing the symptoms.

Most people may not know that muscles are like shock absorbers- they are meant to absorb force. So when you have a cumulative or sudden injury leading to muscle guarding, spasms, inflammation, and adhesions/scar tissue, the muscle is no longer able to absorb force that it was meant to. The force is then transferred and redirected to a joint. This can be an ankle, knee, hip, back, neck, shoulder, elbow or wrist joint. Any joint!

Now, joints were never meant to take on a high amount of force or impact because the muscles around that joint have a majority of that responsibility. When the joint takes on more then it can handle, it becomes inflamed, swollen and painful, and over time, the bones, cartilage and other structures begin to break down. This is where we often hear our patients tell us that their doctor said the problem is that they have bone on bone. But remember: that is only where the problem ended up! The source of the problem is somewhere in the muscle structure, and that is where this therapy places its primary focus.

By locating the origin of the problem and driving high amounts of blood flow into that area, we are repairing and turning on that muscle so that it can once again absorb force. When that happens, it transfers and redirects the force that was ending up in the joint, and returns it back into the muscle where it was meant to go.

Ultimately, the pain reduces and joint function and strength improves! Not because we turned off the pain signal, but because we redistributed the absorption of that force and impact back into the muscle structure where it belongs. ARPwave therapy treats and repairs the source and origin of the pain, not where the pain ended up.

So a question you may want to ask yourself, especially if you have been experiencing chronic pain and you have tried everything else, is this: “Do I want to continue to treat the symptoms, or do I want to find the source and begin to treat the cause of my problem?”

I would like to extend an opportunity for you to find out if we can help you with your condition. We are extending a risk free ARPwave session to determine if you respond to this therapy. Call (619) 287-4005 now to see if you qualify or if you would like more information.

If you are experiencing feelings of depression where it’s really beginning to affect your life, I encourage you to consider the following solution as a drug-free alternative that’s being used more and more in the professional medical field: biomedical acupuncture.

First, let’s begin with a basic premise of human physiology. The brain has an abundant storehouse of biochemicals for emotional balance. Think of it like a pharmaceutical company. Whenever the brain or the body needs something specific, the brain will release the chemical. As it relates to mood disorders or depression, there are many levels to depression. We’re going to discuss one aspect of the biochemistry of depression, which relates to a neurotransmitter called serotonin.

Now, serotonin has many roles. In addition to increasing mood, it also helps reduce pain, and this is where acupuncture plays a major role. Through the stimulation of acupuncture, we release what are called enkephalins, which are very powerful painkillers, as well as serotonin, the body’s natural antidepressant, both of which get cascaded from the brain.

We often have a joke in our center. If you videotaped people coming into our center from a long hard day where they’re looking and feeling kind of grumpy or grouchy because of a tough day at work or an argument with significant other, and then viewed them after treatment, they come out looking and feeling happy, relaxed, and they’ve got a new bounce in their step. It would look like we were giving them drugs! Well, we’re not giving anyone drugs, but we are stimulating the storehouse of drugs in the brain by way of biomedical acupuncture.

Now, if the patient has an abundant storehouse of serotonin, within a short period of time, acupuncture will have a profound effect on increasing their mood. If we do not see a significant enough change within a period of treatments, then we integrate the acupuncture with dietary, herbal, and nutritional therapy to help build up the storehouse of serotonin.

For example, because blood sugar is the primary delivery system for serotonin into the brain, a patient with low blood sugar needs their blood sugar increased to stabilize them. On the flip side, if their blood sugar is too high, it can lead to excessive serotonin, which will bombard neurons in the brain. Now at first glance, you may think that’s great! More serotonin! Not so fast. It turns out that high amounts of neurotransmitters bombarding the brain actually activate a protective mechanism. This reduces sensitivity and therefore serotonin is unable to be used by the brain. End product: feelings of depression.

Interestingly, the location that stores the highest amounts of serotonin is the gut. Thus, one of the primary areas we work on is digestion to increase serotonin, helping to improve mood.

By combining acupuncture with dietary, herbal, and nutritional therapy as well as clinical nutrition such as blood tests, hormone panels, and other diagnostic tests, we create a synergistic effect that is greater than any one part. This is the integrative approach that we utilize at the Center for Integrative Care for Depression and Mood Disorders.

If you want to learn more about how we can assist you with your specific health concern and how we can best integrate the use of natural medicine along with your current health care in a safe and effective way, call (619) 287-4005 to schedule a free consultation with one of our functional medicine specialists. They will answer any questions you have to find out if and how we can help you with your healthcare needs.

If you experience any kind of pain or inflammation, you may be interested to know that there is a drug-free alternative being used more and more by the medical community. This alternative is called acupuncture.

Over 85% of referrals to our center for pain and inflammatory conditions come from medical doctors. Why? Because doctors are now recognizing the wealth of research supporting acupuncture, and more and more patients want an alternative to medication. This drug-free alternative is specifically known as biomedically-based acupuncture, which helps reduce pain and inflammatory conditions.

The body has an amazing ability to heal. You don’t need to tell your body to heal – the only time it does not heal is when there is some type of interference with the self-healing process. When the body does not heal or goes beyond normal healing time, the system starts to become faulty. When that occurs, the body goes into self-protection mode, causing it to get stuck in a pattern of chronic pain and inflammation.

Now remember, the body would never do anything to harm itself. In fact, this pattern has been created to self-protect. You’re probably thinking, “No, my body is trying to kill me, it hates me!” Your suffering and its effects on your life are understandable. However, it’s also important to realize that the system is faulty, and it’s creating its own demise by causing the system to generate more and more pain.

The main problem here is that the body gets stuck in a pattern, adapting to the condition, and learns to live with it. When this happens, the body no longer prioritizes the condition and therefore becomes chronic.

This is where biomedical acupuncture has a profound effect. Why? Because it turns on the body’s highest priority system, called the blood clotting system. This system is more important than any other system when it comes to survival. Let’s explain its role through an example:

If you had a paper cut and you didn’t have the ability to clot, what do you think would happen? That’s right, you’d keep bleeding! 3,000 years ago, ancient medical experts in China figured out how to bypass this system without causing a bleeding effect, but still turning on this high priority system. The key to acupuncture’s success is the hair-thin width of the needles. When we insert a needle, the body goes on alert and responds immediately, “What in the world just penetrated the borders?”

It’s important to recognize that when we insert the point, we are creating a microtrauma. That’s right! A little, tiny, minute trauma that is not visible to the eyes, but that appears only under a microscope. When this occurs, the body will not only see this as a high priority to the location to self-protect, but it also begins to self-repair at a high rate, kind of like an emergency rehab crew, because the body believes it’s a new injury.

Now here is the key. The body does not know the difference between the tiny microtrauma that we’ve created with the needle, and the old injury. So guess what it does! That’s right. The body then drives high amounts of blood flow into the entire area. So when we use acupuncture, we are tricking and triggering the brain and nervous system to self-repair.

Essentially, when you move more blood into any area of the body, you increase the probability to heal exponentially. Why? Because blood contains all of the vital substances for self-repair like oxygen, nutrients, hormones, and immunological properties.

Interestingly, as we increase self-repair, the need for medication is reduced. This is because the body is working more effectively in the area of trauma. So what happens? The medications become more effective! When the medications become more effective, guess what also happens? You do not need as much!

Biomedical acupuncture does not simply numb the area – it doesn’t just turn off the alarm systems. It turns on self-repair in the region, and when that happens, your pain decreases because the area is literally healing. Your function increases, which is key. It’s not just about getting the pain down. Medications are powerful for that. It’s really about improving the quality of your life. Ultimately, your need for medication then reduces as a result of acupuncture.

This is what we often see when we utilize biomedical acupuncture for pain and inflammation.

If you’d like to learn more about how we can assist you with your specific health concerns and how we can best integrate the use of biomedical acupuncture along with your current health care in a safe and effective way, call (619) 287-4005 to schedule a free consultation with one of our functional medicine specialists. They will answer any questions you have to find out if and how we can help you with your healthcare needs.