S16E4: S16 E4 Acupuncture and menopause: separating fact from fiction

okay so if you came in and you just if most people that come in they're a little bit unsure they say i don't know what to expect so you're going to have a consult you're going to have a chat and the great thing about acupuncture and chinese medicine is that we give a larger amount of time to those initial consults you've got usually up to an hour so 30 minutes of that might be spent having a talk about what's going on and we don't just say okay hot flushes here we're going to do this we have those full-on deep involved conversations about every little aspect of your life that's not perfect.

So like the sleep, like the brain fog, like, oh yeah, I've been getting those gallbladder symptoms as well.

And then after the consultation, the practitioner will have worked out in their head what's out of balance.

So it's all about bringing the body back into balance.

So MHT is about putting hormones back in that weren't there, but acupuncture is about rebalancing the body, bringing it back into its homeostasis.

So then you're going to lie on the acupuncture table and it's really, really teeny tiny fine acupuncture needles, and they just get inserted into different points.

And like I said before, it's those acupuncture channels that are named after different organs.

So we're trying to tell the body through that treatment, what to do.

So in a sort of more biomedical way, acupuncture is, you know how your hormones are flowing through your blood, right? And your nervous system is involved.

When we put those needles in, that information goes back to the brain and the brain sends out all the information through your nervous system, through your cardiovascular system, it sends information to the rest of the body.

And that's how it's bringing it back into homeostasis.

Right.

All you're

doing is lying there and having a nice rest.

Exactly, yes.

And, I mean, I have had some acupuncture.

So for those that haven't, though, I mean, it really, they're tiny, tiny needles, aren't they? You can barely feel them.

You know, it's like a little tiny...

Not even, not even.

Yeah,

some of them you don't feel at all.

Exactly.

And that's only just as they're going in.

Once they're in and you're lying there for your 20 minute rest, you're not actually, you shouldn't be feeling anything.

No, that's right.