Acupuncture

Acupuncture is Amazing!  It boosts energy and regulates all the body systems. 

Used as a successful therapy for many illnesses and conditions for over 5000 years.  It is probably the most powerful way of stimulating and empowering the immune system and one of the most remarkable systems of healing ever discovered by human beings.

How Does it Work

The body is like a fortress, patrolled by a myriad of troops with various defensive and restorative skills. 

The thing this body fears most is the presence of a foreign entity within the castle gates.  Any kind of parasite, fungus, bacteria, foreign body or wound is seen as a serious threat, to be annihilated, healed or removed or repaired ASAP.  

Any wound however trivial shocks the immune system into action. A thin needle inserted lightly through the skin and into the body interior is the least invasive way to fully initiate this powerful protective response. 

The acupuncturist chooses a series of locations on the body surface.  When a needle is inserted, brain areas linked to these points are stimulated powerfully.  The result is a dramatic awakening of the body’s response mechanisms.

A modern acupuncturist trained under WHO (World Health Organisation) directives, is in good position to know how to achieve the best possible results. 

What conditions does acupuncture treat?

Clients frequently seek acupuncture treatment for back pain, headache, migraine and sports injuries.

However, acupuncture provides more than pain relief.  At the Merrion Clinic we effectively treat anxiety, insomnia, digestive problems, respiratory disorders, disorders of the bones, muscles, joints and nervous system, menstrual problems, tiredness, sinusitis, infertility, weight control, and much more.

Treatment Sessions

Over its 5000-year history, Chinese physicians have determined that the best results are obtained using three treatments weekly. This is due to the immune boost from the treatment peaks over twelve hours after the treatment. Then the effect declines over two days. Each treatment “reminds” the body’s intricate reactive mechanism to take another step forward.

Reviews

It is also customary in traditional medicine to review and redirect the case every three weeks. (In Chinese herbal medicine it may be as little as four days). This coincides with the beginning, middle and end of the liver’s regrowth period. As patients progress, the reviews can be spaced further apart.

Cupping Therapy

 Many forms of traditional therapies work on the principle of challenge. A normal body stays healthy by taking notice when any of its systems start to fail. This is known as the “Reactive Mechanism”. It includes systems like hunger, desire to warm up or cool down and even getting sleepy. It also includes the immune system. The job of all these interacting systems is to:

1. Notice a potential problem and

2. Do something to fix it immediately.

One of the jobs of a traditional doctor when examining a patient is to take notice if any of the body’s early warning systems are starting to go into decline. The next step is to introduce a challenge, give it a shake to wake it up. For example:

1. Acupunture works by challenging the electrical systems that control everything from moving around to maintaining normal blood flow

2. Massage works by physically moving the blood and lymph. This also triggers an improvement in the nervous system that is supposed to regulate the blood flow in the first place.

With cupping, we “wake up” the nervous system by deliberately stretching the blood vessels in the skin. The cups are applied to the skin using either heat or a suction pump to create a vacuum. They may be placed over various acupuncture points, over major organs or injured muscles. The Chinese have been doing this since ancient times by using heat to drive the air out of varnished bamboo cups. Even in Ireland there are still a few traditional healers who use a short candle over which they place the cup.

An interesting aspect of the nervous system is that those nerves which control blood flow split into two branches. One branch goes to the internal organs and another branch of the same nerve to the skin. So when we stretch and challenge the vessels in the skin by various means, we may also trigger an improvement of the circulation in the for example the heart, uterus or liver.

Nutritional Therapy   

A Nutritional Therapy consultation assesses your digestive, endocrine and immune systems and offers solutions to strengthen your body naturally. Nutritional therapy is a holistic discipline; nutrition as the key to good health is the all-embracing fundamental principle used since the time of the famous Greek doctor and founder of western medicine, Hippocrates, to help people of all ages to stay at their personal peak of energy and vitality. Today, new insights of food scientists play a significant role in the practice of nutritional therapy as preventative medicine. Nutritional therapy will also benefit you if you have no specific illness, but want to maintain a state of optimum health. It is safe for babies and children as well as adults, and the change of eating patterns that is typically prescribed usually has far fewer side effects than synthetic medicines.

What is Homeopathy?

Homeopathy is a system of alternative medicine created in 1796 by Samuel Hahnemann.  It embraces an holistic and natural approach.  It is holistic because it treats the person as a whole, rather than focusing on a labeled disease.  It is natural because its remedies are produced according to the US FDA-recognized Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia of the United States from natural sources, whether vegetable, mineral, or animal in nature.

The word Homeopathy, which comes from the Greek, through Latin into English, literally means “like disease”.  This means that the medicine given is like the disease that the person is expressing. The similar medicine acts as a stimulus to the body’s natural vital response, giving it the information it needs to complete its healing work.

Why is homeopathy so popular?

• Homeopathic treatment works with your body’s own healing powers to bring about health and well being.
• Homeopathy treats all your symptoms at all levels of your being – spiritual, emotional, mental and physical and finds the ‘like cures like’ match for them.
• Homeopathically prepared remedies, providing the minimum dose, are gentle, subtle and powerful. They are non-addictive, and not tested on animals.

INTAKE - CASE HISTORY - TESTING - PLAN - TREATMENT - REVIEW - COURSE CORRECTION

COMING SOON

Intensive Health Coaching

Personal Mentoring

This program is particularly personally rewarding for both the coach and the student. Close contact and sustained attention facilitate sustained, measurable progress over reasonable time. It also helps develop a deeper understanding of the essentials necessary for success.

It was originally designed to facilitate long-distance and international clients who were unable to attend the clinic. Due to the time commitment required to supervise each student, we can naturally only take limited numbers.

The desired outcome of the course is to bring the student to a thorough understanding of:

1. How we lose our health and vigour

2. How we can recover it

3. How to maintain and nurture optimum health once we have recovered it

4. How to plan for a long, healthy and fulfilling life

In terms of planning and commitment, such a program is comparable to embarking on a new business venture, to mastering a new profession or attaining fluency in a foreign language. It takes much a similar amount of time, attention and commitment to become truly professional in most arenas.

One of the key principles of success in any venture is to work with a mentor or a coach. The job of the coach is to keep both the student and the project on track. As in an apprenticeship, the coach is an experienced supervisor who helps the student continue to learn while on the job.

Coaching provides the guidance needed for students to be able to work most effectively while utilising the skills of their own local health professionals and other available resources, wherever they may reside.

To this end, we have our students produce a weekly progress report and interact with them in the clinic, by email and/or video conferencing. There are many significant advantages to this approach.

1. Regular reporting creates the habit in the student of weekly journaling and reflection.

2. It quickly becomes clear that failure to sustain the weekly review and “falling off the wagon” go hand in hand. Students quickly come to understand that continuing this practice can not only support their immediate efforts but becomes invaluable in sustaining their achievements in many areas life long. These mini-reviews enable both the coach and the student to stay keenly aware of the progress of the case and to continue moving forward efficiently and on track.

3. They enable the coach to spot the inevitable misunderstandings and small errors that arise and to use these as teaching opportunities

4. Every time the student stumbles and then recovers under direction, the lesson becomes a personal reality for them.

5. REALISATIONS COMPOUND. It is a very simple matter to accumulate knowledge, but realisations through experience lead to understanding and thus become the building blocks of true wisdom.

6. So with experience comes realisation, and realisations progressively evolve into wisdom or innate understanding. Obstacles that once seemed insurmountable turn out to have become the steps in a stairway to success. What once seemed impossible becomes an assumed, everyday reality. One of the characteristics of wisdom is perspective, i.e. the ability to see something from many varying viewpoints. “Perspective is the prize of life. Everything else is just information”. (Harry Palmer)

7. These mini-reviews also enable the coach to determine the most opportune times at which to change course, adjust dosages, introduce supplementary modalities etc.

8. The content of the weekly review prompts the coach to advise, encourage and direct students as they negotiate the unfamiliar territory they inevitably encounter on their journey. 

9. Continued close contact and feedback helps students maintain enthusiasm, motivation and consistency of attention over the entire course of the program.

10. Health recovery is a growth process. Our bodies periodically lay down new generations of cells. In the case of Liver cells, this occurs every 6 weeks. That amounts to two generations of new cells every season. The aim of the program is to ensure that each new generation of cells is more healthy and vigorous than the previous one. This is a rejuvenation process. We are actually growing our body back towards a more youthful state, cell by cell. The classroom is the student’s own body and the lessons endure for life.

11. Most chronic cases take at least twelve of these half-seasonal cycles, i.e. six seasons to approach optimal health. In some cases, people have been stuck in chronic health conditions for many years. These may take more time and effort to reach whatever is optimal for the individual.

Our end goal is that by the time they have completed this program, our students will have a thorough understanding of what is needed to take care of their personal health for the remainder of their lives. Of course, this includes getting expert medical advice when appropriate.