Patients always ask us if they can do the activities that might be contributing to their symptoms.
For example, a woman with recurrent elbow problems who plays tennis asks if she should keep playing tennis. In the typical western medical community, the general answer is “you’ll probably just have to live with it…unless you stop playing tennis.”
Our answer is not as simple. In Oriental Medicine, with the theory that your body is made to last 120 years, the answer is: it depends. One of the reasons the medicine was developed was to deal with the aches and pains of everyday life. So our answer is to what degree will you be able to do these things.
We chart your body’s function very closely to show overall comprehensive and objective health. Over the years, we have discovered that you can do activities without exacerbating your main pain concern in the exact proportion of functional improvement achieved with Acupuncture. For example, if a patient has a 32% improvement in overall function, they could play 32% more tennis without the elbow worsening.
The key: use medicine that increases function so that you can live the life that you want and do things that you want to do!
To learn more or ask other questions, feel free to email me at [email protected].
Nothing in this document is intended as a substitute for your doctor’s diagnosis and/or treatment. This statement has not been evaluated by the FDA.
