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As any well-versed healthcare professional will tell you... our bodies are all different, and therefore, our health and wellness practices should never follow a cookie-cutter approach. This holds true for best infrared sauna practices, as well.
Infrared saunas are quickly becoming a wellness staple these days, with many in the health and wellness community touting the myriad benefits of infrared sauna use. But despite its modern-day popularity, saunas - like acupuncture and herbal medicine - are ancient. It's believed that they originated in Finland as far back as 7000 B.C., and have continued to be utilized for their healing properties ever since.
Many enjoy saunas for the vigorous sweating and increased heart rate that occurs - much like the effects of moderate exercise. The main benefit of infrared saunas are that, unlike traditional saunas, infrared saunas use infrared lamps to warm your body directly, and operate at lower temperatures - usually between 110˚F and 140˚F. This makes the sauna experience much more comfortable, while being just as effective.
Numerous studies have looked at using infrared saunas in the treatment of long-lasting health issues, and have found proof that saunas may benefit chronic issues, such as:
high blood pressure
heart failure
dementia and Alzheimer's disease
headaches
type 2 diabetes
arthritis
What the Heck is Dampness? Can Saunas Help? (Yes)
From an Eastern, traditional Chinese medicine standpoint, saunas are very useful for helping to clear imbalances of "dampness," a word you've likely heard us mention from time to time, if you are a patient of ours. Our bodies all contain varying "patterns" of imbalance, which are influenced by our lifestyles, the foods we eat, climate, our emotions, etc. These patterns are the root cause of the symptoms that ultimately manifest in our bodies and minds, as a result. The basis of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine is to help correct those patterns by bringing the body back into balance, or homeostasis.
Here in Houston, where we are plentiful in both humidity and delicious, queso-rich Tex-Mex, dampness is a common imbalance we see. Both diet and climate play a huge part in our patients' levels of dampness, which can manifest as symptoms like fluid retention, weight gain, skin rashes, joint pain, feeling heavy & sluggish, brain fog, headaches and more.
We often recommend herbal medicine, diet modifications, and a series of acupuncture treatments, to help give your body the boost it needs to correct the issues. However, with the addition of our infrared sauna, we're excited to be able to offer you another tool for healing!
The Thing that Most Spas & Clinics Don't Tell You
It's concerning to us that many spas and clinics offering infrared saunas will tell you that it's safe for everyone to use a sauna. Some even say daily use is safe. This is just not true, and not everyone should use a sauna. Also, how you replenish your body post-sauna is an imperative step that is often overlooked.
It all comes back to the wisdom of East Asian medicine, and knowing where our patterns of imbalance lie (click to learn more about the imbalance highlighted):
For people with dampness/phlegm conditions, it is typically safe to use a sauna 2-4 times per week, wiping off sweat regularly during your session, and possibly even incorporating dry brushing during the session to increase lymphatic and blood flow.
For people with kidney yin deficiency, it is best to avoid the sauna altogether, or simply stick to one short session per week, ensuring sufficient replenishment of minerals, as detailed below.
For people with blood deficiency, it depends. For certain symptoms arising from a blood deficiency, the increased circulation from sauna use can be helpful. However, other sets of symptoms - like dryness - can be exacerbated by heating the body. If you're unsure where you fall, we can give you a quick, free consult prior to your infrared sauna session.
Up the Healing Power of Your Sauna Experience
Besides ensuring you are adequately hydrated before stepping into an infrared sauna, there are a couple other things you can and/or should be doing during and after your sauna session.
1. Dry brushing can be a helpful tool for increasing the flow of your lymphatic and circulatory systems, which play a huge part in helping your body to both eliminate wastes and bring fresh, oxygen-rich blood to your tissues during an infrared sauna session. We like this dry brush set. One helpful tip to keep in mind: If you find that there are certain areas where you aren't sweating as much - perhaps your legs or stomach - these are the spots where dry brushing can be especially beneficial. Click here to learn how to do dry brushing.
2. Replenishing minerals & electrolytes is a must after a sweat session. Whether it's spending time in a sauna, sunbathing, or running marathons for fun, the people who sweat regularly, but fail to replenish these important nutrients end up with many dry symptoms and underlying dehydration due to these deficiencies. Electrolytes, like calcium, magnesium, and potassium are essential for helping our bodies to stay hydrated by assisting our kidneys in maintaining proper fluid balance. But skip the sports drinks, because they contain way too much sugar (which only adds to the dampness). Instead, opt for coconut water, which is high in potassium (our favorite brand, with the highest levels of potassium, is Harmless Harvest), and consider taking Trace Minerals. These are drops which you can add to your water or coconut water to up your minerals while sweating in the sauna.
3. Avoid showering until your are fully cooled down. Many people are quick to jump in the shower or sit in front of an A/C just after using the sauna, but it's important to let your body temperature cool down sufficiently before doing either of these things. Eastern wisdom states that when your pores are still very open (like just after a sweat session), your body is more vulnerable, and if you expose yourself to an extreme element (like the "dampness" of a shower, or the "cold" of a blast of the A/C), it is more likely to make it's way inside, creating a new imbalance, or exacerbating a current imbalance. (This explains the whole idea of 'catching a cold.')
If you are ready to experience an infrared sauna session, Nguyen Wellness + Recovery is now offering this tool, in addition to acupuncture, cupping, herbal medicine, and LED light therapy. Book here.
If you are unsure if an infrared sauna treatment is right for you, please contact us for a quick consultation.
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As of 2021, breast cancer became the most common cancer globally, according to the World Health Organization, accounting for 12% of all new annual cancer cases worldwide. Further, an estimated 287,850 new cases of invasive breast cancer are expected to be diagnosed in U.S. women in 2022, along with 51,400 cases of non-invasive breast cancer, according to breastcancer.org.
The good news?
Thanks to early detection programs, combined with different modes of treatment for eradicating invasive disease, breast cancer survival rates have been improving since the 1980s. And while some of the biggest hurdles women face, both during and post-treatment, are the side effects, ongoing research continues to reveal just how effective acupuncture is for mitigating certain symptoms, like hot flashes, fatigue, xerostomia (dry mouth), joint pain and more.
Acupuncture for Joint Pain May Support Chemotherapy Continuation
Aromatase inhibitors are hormone therapy drugs used to treat hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, with one of the most common side effects being joint and muscle pain. One oncologist and researcher out of Columbia University, noticing the rate of therapy discontinuation in her patients due to these side effects, was prompted to produce a study revealing the effects of acupuncture in reducing aromatase inhibitor-related joint pain in women with early-stage breast cancer. Published in JAMA in 2018, the study concluded that true acupuncture compared with sham acupuncture or with waitlist control resulted in a statistically significant reduction in joint pain at 6 weeks.
Our Houston acupuncture clinic specializes in holistic pain management, and musculoskeletal symptoms, such as joint pain, are common issues that we treat using acupuncture and other Traditional Chinese medicine modalities.
Promising Research for Hot Flashes
Because the aromatase inhibitors block estrogen synthesis, hot flashes — like those experienced during menopause — are another common, uncomfortable side effect experienced during treatment.
A study out of South Korea concluded that acupuncture administered three times a week for four consecutive weeks decreased the severity of hot flashes by 70-95% in all patients, with results lasting for at least a month after the termination of treatment.
Another study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology assessed the immediate and long-term effects of true acupuncture versus sham acupuncture on hot flashes in women with breast cancer. It found that true acupuncture was associated with .8 fewer hot flashes per day than sham acupuncture at six weeks, with a further reduction in the frequency of hot flashes in the sham group, once switched over to true acupuncture.
Hope for Radiation Fibrosis Syndrome
Radiation fibrosis syndome (RFS) is a late complication of radiation therapy that can often show up 3-6 months (or sometimes even years) after treatment. It occurs as both cancer cells and healthy cells in the body are obliterated by the radiation treatment, resulting in damage to blood vessels in the area. As a result, blood flow is restricted, tissues fail to receive adequate nourishment, and an excessive formation of fibrous connective tissue consequently forms, creating structural and functional changes. Many doctors call the result “scar tissue” and often deem RFS life-long and progressive.
Treatments for RFS are typically aimed at preventing progression and maintaining function, and doctors usually provide options like medications, creams, Botox or trigger-point injections, as well as physical therapy or deep friction massage.
Traditional Chinese medicine practitioners would consider radiation fibrosis a severe case of qi and blood deficiency. While East Asian alternative treatments have yet to be adequately studied for this condition, hope is on the horizon for patients suffering with it, as many licensed acupuncturists have seen positive results (like pain relief and increased range of motion) in clinic when treating RFS with a combination of acupuncture and cupping (myofascial decompression) therapy.
It’s important to find a licensed acupuncturist with formal traditional Chinese medicine training when seeking treatment, as a holistic approach — where the practitioner provides full body support, in addition to treating the symptom itself — typically yields best results. Many non-acupuncturists who practice dry needling or cupping and are trained from a Western approach, often only treat the presenting symptoms, without addressing the constitution as a whole. Read more about the difference between acupuncture and dry needling here.
The Traditional Chinese Medicine Lens
Traditional Chinese medicine is an ancient system of medicine dating back several centuries, and was slowly developed over time using nature as its guide. It’s a much different approach from how we view the body and disease from a Western biomedical viewpoint.
Rather than viewing the body as a machine made of up separate parts that require "repair" once they malfunction, Eastern medicine views the body more like a garden that one must continually tend to, ensuring the "environment" that is the body stays balanced. Much like how compost provides nutrients, and water and the sun give life to plants within a garden, our bodies require regular replenishment and adjustments to maintain optimal health.
The Eastern system understands that disease or sickness occurs in the body as symptoms that arise due to an underlying imbalance. By identifying specific patterns of imbalance, which are diagnosed based on presenting symptoms, tongue and pulse analysis, and through physical features observed in the patient by the practitioner, acupuncture, Chinese herbs, and other modalities are then used to “balance out" these patterns, returning the body to homeostasis. One such pattern — and what practitioners often see in patients who have undergone chemotherapy — is called yin deficiency.
Yin and yang are two foundational concepts in traditional Chinese medicine that help to explain the balance of all things in life. Many Westerners recognize the yin-yang symbol, but often don’t realize its deeper significance.
Yin and Yang are two complementary, yet opposing forces that make up the whole of every organism, and all aspects of life. Yin encompasses "feminine" qualities like rest, nourishment, stillness, receptivity, coolness, etc., as opposed to the more warm and action-oriented, "masculine" nature of yang. Yin cannot exist without yang and vice versa; everything contains both halves, and "the work," is finding balance between the two, in all areas of life.
Within the body, “yin” functions would include those which help to regulate fluid balance, as well as our thermoregulatory mechanisms that help to cool the body (and yes, the kidneys are largely involved when we’re working with yin and yang).
When one side of the yin-yang balance is greater than the other, this naturally minimizes and decreases the other side. Similarly, when one side becomes smaller, this naturally enhances and strengthens the other side.
Aggressive treatments, like chemotherapy and radiation (which are very yang in nature) are exhaustive to the body’s yin, creating a pattern of imbalance called “yin deficiency.”
Because the body is lacking in cooling and hydrating mechanisms when there’s a yin deficiency, the body experiences the opposite: warm and dry (yang) symptoms such dry mouth, dry throat, hot flashes, insomnia, night sweats, and dry skin, hair and nails.
Treatments for yin deficiency include customized acupuncture protocols to stimulate the body’s yin functions, diet modifications, and certain Chinese herbal formulas to help cool and lubricate the body from the inside out.
If you’re a breast cancer survivor looking for relief from side effects, like hot flashes, joint pain, or radiation fibrosis, we encourage you to give acupuncture a try! It’s important to seek out a licensed and experienced acupuncturist. Feel free to give our Houston acupuncture clinic a call for more information or book an appointment here.
If you suffer from peripheral neuropathy, you likely know the horrors of walking barefoot on a cold, hard surface, like a tile floor. The resulting pain or numbness can feel almost unbearable.
Peripheral neuropathy is a common concern that we see here in our Houston acupuncture clinic, and it occurs when damaged nerves in the peripheral nervous system cause burning, tingling, or even a lack of sensation - usually in the hands and feet. Both Western and Eastern medicine offer solutions for peripheral neuropathy, and it’s important for people to be aware of their varying options.
What Causes Peripheral Neuropathy & How is it Most Commonly Treated?
Peripheral neuropathy is most frequently caused by diabetes, however, this common neurological condition can also result from thyroid disorders, certain autoimmune diseases, vitamin B12 deficiencies, infections, traumatic injuries, or exposure to toxins, heavy metals or certain kinds of drugs, like those used in chemotherapy.
The most common solutions offered by Western clinicians are anticonvulsants or mood-enchanting pharmaceutical drugs, like gabapentin, pregabalin, amitriptyline or duloxetine, which have been shown to be effective in reducing neuropathic pain. Steroids, aimed at reducing inflammation, or immunosuppressants, which reduce the activity of the nervous system, may also be offered. Some doctors even prescribe powerful painkillers, like Tramadol, which has been shown to significantly reduce pain, but, like all opiods, carries the risk of being highly addictive. These drugs, which are aimed at symptomatic management, can provide more immediate relief, but do come with a caveat: the potential for some not-so-fun side effects, including dizziness, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, swelling, weight gain and more.
Many more physicians are beginning to understand the power of nutrition, and may be able to recommend diet modifications and supplementation to reduce inflammation and support nerve health, or refer you to a nutritionist who can help with this.
The majority of research conducted today is centered around Western medicine solutions for neuropathy rather than Eastern approaches, like acupuncture, which can lead many to feeling skeptical about alternative solutions. And while more acupuncture studies are becoming available today, it’s important to understand that acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine can sometimes be difficult to measure by Western medicine “standards,” as the core of Eastern medicine’s therapeutic effectiveness comes from the principle that every person, with their very unique constitutional make-up and environmental circumstances, has a unique set of symptoms which require a customized treatment best suited to them. The success of Eastern medicine, and the very reason for its centuries-long continuity is that doesn’t take a one-size-fits-all or “standardized” approach.
For example, if one patient is experiencing burning neuropathic pain accompanied by other symptoms, like dryness or feeling easily overheated, while another suffers from numbness, as well as extreme fatigue and swelling, a Western physician may prescribe the same medication for both, but an Eastern medicine practitioner would likely take two different approaches to treat each patient individually, as their underlying constitutional patterns are very different.
The Eastern Approach for Treating Peripheral Neuropathy
According to traditional Chinese medicine, peripheral neuropathy occurs when there's a blockage of “qi” (energy) and blood in the body. Our qi helps to circulate blood, and blood carries oxygen and nutrients to our bodies’ tissues. If the qi and blood cannot circulate freely throughout the entire body, certain peripheral cells and tissues won’t receive the nourishment they require. In the case of peripheral neuropathy, acupuncture helps to stimulate the body’s nerve pathways, which can mitigate pain and aid nerve regeneration, thus increasing sensation in cases of numbness. But also, by improving blood flow throughout the entire body, nerve tissues in the extremities are also more adequately nourished, which can ultimately serve to repair nerve function over time.
And Chinese medicine not only aims to treat a person’s presenting symptoms, but also their body’s underlying physiological imbalances which led to the symptoms — AKA, the “root cause.” As a holistic system of medicine - meaning, practitioners take into account all of the systems within the body, rather than breaking it down to treat individual parts - many patients experience better health overall, when seeking alternative treatment for their peripheral neuropathy. Therefore, the Eastern approach may also be helpful in mitigating issues including:
numbness or paresthesia in the limbs
muscle weakness
muscle cramps or twitching
digestive issues
changes in blood pressure
sleep disruptions
emotional disturbances
incontinence
Acupuncture may produce mild side effects, which include bruising, soreness or slight bleeding at the needle site. You can read more about side effects in our FAQs here. And while side effects are generally much less extreme in Eastern medicine, the biggest downside for many is that acupuncture doesn’t always produce instantaneous results, as many in the West are accustomed to. This is because true healing takes time. A course of weekly or bi-weekly treatments for ten or more sessions is often advised, with periodic maintenance treatments recommended thereafter, however, every patient’s treatment plan will be slightly different, depending on the severity and length of their neuropathy.
Traditional Eastern medicine systems are actually the original functional medicine models, and therefore, acupuncturists are equipped to not only treat an issue and its root cause, but also offer customized diet, supplementation and lifestyle modifications, which can help to both correct and prevent issues. We at Nguyen Wellness + Recovery believe awareness and education are our greatest tools for prevention, and we take a teamwork approach here in our Houston acupuncture clinic, because, while we are here to help you and guide you, you are ultimately the one in charge of your health.
If you’d like to try acupuncture for your peripheral neuropathy, contact our Houston clinic or book online!
