How Does Five Element Acupuncture Help?!

🆘 In this week's episode How Does Five Element Acupuncture Help?!, Ben asks Gabriella about the incredible ways Five Element Acupuncture can change lives. Gabriella shares stories from her 20+ years of professional practice. Patients such as Trevor, who said goodbye to laxatives after decades, and Tina, who found relief from chronic pain in just one session.

They also discuss the science behind acupuncture, from easing depression to boosting fertility. But it's not just about physical health—acupuncture can also help with life direction, as seen with Alex's career change after kicking alcohol.

And then there's Paolo's story, a true testament to the power of acupuncture in recovering from a near-death experience.

As they wrap up, they dream of a future where Western medicine and acupuncture work together for even better patient care.

Transcript

Pt 1

Gabriella: Welcome to this week’s episode, The Tao, Yin-

Ben: Woah! Wait a minute, Welcome to this week’s episode, this week we’re or I’m asking the question ‘How Does Five Element Acupuncture Help?!’ What are The Tao, Yin/Yang and Qi Energy?! comes next week!

Gabriella: Oopsie! Well, Five Element Acupuncture helps in many ways, some you’d expect, some you wouldn’t! Right, can we move on to the juicy philosophical bit now Ben?

Ben: You’re not getting away with it that easily! You may know it helps in many ways, and I know how it’s helped me, but wouldn’t it be helpful to let people know how it could help them?

Gabriella: Such a sensible soul. And of course I’m just kidding. I’d love to share just a few examples of how treatment has helped my patients. From Trevor, who phoned his mum to announce he’d had a poo without laxatives for the first time in 20 years, to Tina, who staggered into her first session, barely able to walk, doubled up in pain that had been getting incrementally worse over the past 10 years, sauntering out at the end of that very first session asking “Where’s the pain gone?”

What’s that bit of paper you’re brandishing Ben?

Ben: I’ve done some homework!

Gabriella: Your times tables?

Ben: No, Gabriella. I’ve been looking into what conditions evidence-based trials have proven acupuncture to help with. We’ve posted a number of links on our site so that our listeners can read further. It’d take up the whole episode if we listed them all!

Gabriella: And let’s face it, reading out from a list isn’t the most engaging way to hear about all the potential that acupuncture treatment can offer.

Ben: Check out those links! For example, the British Acupuncture Council has collated an A to Z of fact sheets on the evidence base for a wide range of conditions ranging from acne to post-stroke rehabilitation. The NIH - National Institute of Health - have shown that acupuncture is an effective treatment alone or in combination with conventional therapies to treat (among other conditions) headaches, menstrual cramps, lower back pain and tennis elbow.

Gabriella: And John Hopkins lists conditions ranging from depression and anxiety to bladder dysfunction, male infertility and allergic rhinitis

Ben: There are plenty more. check out our page on whatsthepointacupuncture.com to see a more extensive list! Gabriella, would you agree with the data we’ve just listed?

Gabriella: Absolutely I would…and more! I’ve had as many diverse reasons people want help with as I’ve had patients. As I’ve said before, to me, it doesn’t matter WHAT the condition is. If the theory I’m working on is correcting the imbalance that made things go wrong in the first place, then coming up with the correct diagnosis in Five Element Acupuncture terms is my job. Then I just hand over to nature, which in turn activates all those healing mechanisms in the body to start to rebalance. Time is then what is needed - as well as a patient who is willing to take part in their own process. I could go on for hours about all the ways I have seen treatment help people - are you sitting comfortably?

Ben: Well perhaps we’ll pause for a break at some point. You know how I like my food, Gabriella!

Gabriella: Indeed Ben. No animals or humans, especially those named Ben Worsley, shall be harmed (or deprived of food!) during the making of this podcast!

Ben: Good.

Gabriella: And no need for concern, I won’t go on for hours, but let’s have a look at a few case studies that I think demonstrate the wide potential of this treatment.

In order to maintain patient confidentiality, I have changed names, but these are all cases from my books.

One area that has always interested me is mental health. My mum was training in psychotherapy when I was in my teens and I had many an interesting conversation with her about what she was learning. Then having experienced my own depression disappear through Five Element Acupuncture treatment I felt strongly that I wanted to help others in this way too.

Ben: Is it a talking therapy?

Gabriella: No, and that’s a good question. We don’t psychoanalyse our patients, and we’re not really counsellors. But we do talk to our patients. With most people it’s between 10 to 20 minutes before I start the treatment. The talking gives me an idea of the progress the patient is making, and leads me to my choice of points, alongside the important information I gather from taking pulses (more on pulses later in the series).

A few years into my practice, I received an email from a woman, let’s call her Kath. Kath had been on anti-depressant drugs for her entire adult life, which was around 20 years at the point she came to see me. She was in her late 30s, and while the anti-depressants had allowed her to function on some basic level, she was still suffering from depression. The drugs hadn’t got rid of it, they aren’t designed to. They’d just given her more of an ability to function from her depressed state - which is really all that anti-depressants can do. Kath’s husband had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. You’d think it wouldn’t be an ideal time to come off an anti-depressant, while losing one’s partner of 12 years, however Kath was determined. She’d had enough of how she felt on the drugs: a bit like an automaton, performing actions a bit like a wind up toy, not really in control, suppressed let’s say. Or in other words, she was getting by, but not thriving. In conjunction with Kath’s doctor, we were able to help her to come off the drugs very slowly, AND not to be depressed! The whole process took a few months, as anti-depressant drug reduction must be very gradual, but it is very possible, even when it would seem all the odds are against it.

Ben: Did you say her husband was terminally ill?

Gabriella: Yes, tragically he was, and in fact the primary reason that Kath had contacted me was to see how I could support her husband, we’ll call him Sebastian. He had recently been diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer, in other words, the original cancer had metastasised or spread to another organ. When he started seeing me, he was expected to live just another 6 months. He lived almost another 2 years. His quality of life was greatly improved through much of this time, as the side effects of chemotherapy and radiotherapy were reduced by the acupuncture treatment. He had more energy, his mind was clearer and the painful lymphoedema (or swelling) that appeared in his left leg following chemotherapy disappeared after each acupuncture treatment. Perhaps the most profound thing was that he was able to share his fears of dying with me. Can you believe that Sebastian’s biggest fear was ‘how will everybody know that I love them after I’ve gone?’ So heartbreaking to see such a young person ‘s life come to an end (just 38 when he died) however, it’s an immense privilege that he entrusted me to assist him through the process of his life coming to an end and it gave some solace to know that I was able to help him find peace and comfort in those final days.

Ben: The World Health Organisation doesn’t talk about that kind of emotional support, but it does recommend acupuncture for the treatment of adverse reactions to radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy, because it has been proved - through controlled trials – to be an effective treatment.

Gabriella: Patients having chemotherapy are more prone to infections as the toxic drugs also kill off the white blood cells we need to ward off infections. I’ve noticed that patients I’ve treated who are undergoing a course of chemotherapy report staying well and not being so vulnerable to colds and viruses during this time, as well as having more energy - chemotherapy really does drain the energy reserves.

Let’s move on, I’ve also helped a number of women with fertility issues. One of my very first patients announced, when I asked her how she’d like acupuncture to help “I want YOU to make me pregnant!”

Ben: Right. That might be a bit tricky…

Gabriella: Well, precisely! And… no pressure! I did point out that while I might be able to assist nature to rebalance her body, there’d probably need to be some form of contribution from her husband! They’d been trying for a baby for a couple of years and she was pregnant the month following her first treatment. Her child must now be around 19!

Aruna came to me in her early 40s, having tried for a baby both naturally and had gone through several courses of IVF treatment over the past ten years. She really had reached the stage where she’d given up hope. A few months after starting acupuncture, she was feeling at peace in herself and accepting that she may not become a mother, while working on making changes to create a life she felt happier living and no longer suffering from depression and anxiety. One day she phoned to cancel her appointment because she was too nauseous to make the journey - she was pregnant!

Ben: So, it helps with fertility as well as depression.

Gabriella: It does, and let’s look at a more physical case now. Mae Lin, a woman in her early 20s, came to me with one of the worst cases of acne I’ve ever seen. She had a lot of scarring from past lesions as well as the current active condition. She had a severe hormonal imbalance, causing a highly irregular menstrual cycle. She was returning to live in Singapore just 3 months after starting her treatment with me.

Ben: No pressure to get things going quickly then!

Gabriella: Exactly. I advised her we may not have enough time to get as far as we’d like, but we’d do our best in the limited time we had. Alongside the treatment in my clinic, I gave her a treatment she should do at home each day.

Ben: Needles?

Gabriella: No, I wouldn’t advise anyone to needle themselves, that really wouldn’t be a good idea, but there is a treatment that’s quite safe to do at home involving a heated stick of the herb moxa, you’ll remember we talked about it in our last episode, ‘What’s in an acupuncturist’s toolkit! plus I also asked her to apply a poultice that’s easily made at home. She did her homework religiously, and in the clinic, we worked on rebalancing her energy. Her periods stabilised, she stopped getting fresh outbreaks of acne, and by the time she left, she was beginning to see some healing of the old scarring.

Ben: So, Five Element Acupuncture ‘unscars’ you for life then!

Gabriella: Ooh, great line, Ben! I like it…

Pt 2

Ben: It really seems that we’re talking about a powerful form of medicine, tell me, what else can Five Element Acupuncture do?

Gabriella: Many people come to me feeling their lives are in a mess. I can’t sit there and sort their life out, however, my ability to assist nature itself to rebalance in turn helps the patient to reorganise their life. Gradually a place where a clear direction of what they want, where they’re going and who they are can emerge. I’ve described this in my own path as if I were living in a garden full of trash and weeds and gradually removed the rubbish and each unwanted weed to expose a beautiful garden.

Ben: Yeah I feel that acupuncture has had a similar influence on my life. I feel more energised, my mind is clearer and I feel I have a stronger sense of purpose and direction.

Gabriella: Thanks for sharing that Ben. Here’s another case. Alex came to me with chest pains and within minutes of starting the consultation, it was clear that he was severely alcoholic. In his acupuncture sessions, I encouraged him to join Alcoholics Anonymous, and we worked on what had led him to obliterate his whole consciousness from 12pm onwards every day. It turned out he was deeply unhappy in his job and felt an imposter in the role. Around a couple of months after starting treatment, he completely stopped drinking and over time found it within himself to quit the job, start a degree in photography and relocate to a place where he felt much happier. 13 years on, he still doesn’t drink and is leading a happier, more fulfilled life and no longer has any chest pains!

Ben: It seems to have an effect on the trajectory of our lives right?

Gabriella: Right, and here is an extraordinary case that very few acupuncturists would ever have the opportunity to experience, that unquestionably changed one person’s life trajectory. I had a patient in his late 50s, let’s call him Paolo, who’d been coming to me regularly for 5 years. He’d smoked for many years, and was working towards giving it up. One evening his flatmate had to dial 999 - Paolo was having a cardiac arrest. The ambulance arrived within 6 or 7 minutes, but Paolo had already sustained severe brain damage. He spent the next few days in intensive care, heavily sedated and kept alive by a ventilator.

The time came when Paolo was able to breathe without the support of the ventilator, so it was removed and they stopped sedating him. However, he didn’t come round as he was expected to. The doctors suspected at this point that Paolo was in ‘vegetative state’ or as we so inelegantly describe, a vegetable. I however knew my patient, and I could detect recognition in his eyes when he looked at me, even during those first days in intensive care. I sensed he was trying to communicate, but couldn’t. I observed him becoming extremely agitated just after he’d been moved to a high dependency ward for example, and a couple of his colleagues were visiting. One of them had mentioned Brexit - Paolo was vehemently anti-Brexit, so it was clear to me observing this physical response that he’d understood what was being discussed and was desperately trying to communicate!

Paolo’s family were far away, in South America. They knew of the benefits Paolo had experienced from acupuncture, and asked me to do anything I could to help him. The doctors were very much against me treating him, and I didn’t know exactly how much I could help to be honest, but I felt a strong duty of care towards my patient, even though the doctors protested, saying there was an issue over patient consent. But this was a man who’d come to me voluntarily and paid me for treatment for the past 5 years - he even had an appointment booked with me the week of the cardiac arrest. Among Paolo’s relatives were three doctors: an ENT surgeon, a General Practitioner and a cardiologist. If THEY were asking me to help, then who was I to turn them down? My clinic was relatively quiet at the time, it was the summer, and I was able to visit at least once a day as the hospital isn’t too far from my home. It was actually helpful that Paolo had contracted a hospital infection and had been put in a separate room to isolate him, so when I visited I could close the door and treat Paolo without the doctors knowing. I reported back to his relatives every day, sometimes several times a day, giving details of medications and any progress. Medication was very basic, paracetamol and antibiotics for the infection, but no neurological drugs were administered during these weeks.

During my visits, I would take Paolo’s pulses, needle several select points, and spend time sitting with Paolo, holding his hand and talking to him. His hand was in spasm, and I would ask him to allow his hand to become softer and more relaxed, and within a few minutes of encouraging him to relax his hand, it indeed did, it came out of spasm. I spoke to him about his brain, suggesting that some pathways may have closed but that new ones could open. I’d ask him to imagine his hands and feet moving. Even if he couldn’t consciously move them, just imagining it was firing up his brain to start learning how to do it again. I also asked his sister to send some voice recordings she’d made of their mother talking about her childhood before she’d died. I played those recordings repeatedly and I could see Paolo concentrate intently on listening. Signs were very subtle, but as I had time to sit with him, (a luxury not afforded for the overworked hospital staff tending him), I was able to give the family hope as I reported back tiny changes every day, like the day Paolo laughed when I cracked an old in-joke that we shared, or when I could see his mouth trying to form a syllable, even though he was completely unable to even say a word.

One day, nearly a month after the cardiac arrest, my heart sank when the doctors told me they were waiting for a bed for Paolo in Royal Putney, (the place where they send all the hopeless cases). I closed the door to his room, and took the decision to carefully sit him forward and needle two points on his back - I’d not done this before as he was always lying down in bed, often writhing in involuntary spasm caused by the brain damage, so I had no easy access to his back. However, with this new development, I felt more of an urgency now, I needed to reach these points and made a snap decision to go for it. I needled GV 14 and III 38, and instantly, I heard Paolo speak for the first time since the cardiac arrest. “Water” he said! Excitedly, I asked “Paolo, did you say water because you can say it, or are you dehydrated?” Very slowly and in slurred speech, the response came, “de-hy-drat-ed!” I laid Paolo back down and rushed to get the doctors.

Over the coming weeks, I continued to illicitly treat Paolo, alongside the help he was receiving from the neurological team and the physiotherapists, and after 3 months, he was discharged from hospital. They would never have been able to even start their work if acupuncture hadn’t brought Paolo out of what I thought was actually a locked in state, that had been misdiagnosed as a vegetative state and Paolo would either be languishing in a bed in the Royal Putney, or might even not be here at all. Paolo has since told me that he is sure he was locked in because he remembers being aware of things happening around him and not being able to find a way to express himself or communicate.

He even remembers vividly how parched he was and being completely unable to communicate that to anybody.

Ben: Wow, what a story!

Gabriella: It is, Ben, even for me. I had no idea what acupuncture could do in this case, and let’s face it, how often in life would I get the opportunity to find out? Let’s remind ourselves that Western medicine is extremely important, it saved Paolo’s life. Acupuncture then gave him back his life.

I would love to see us working alongside medical teams in ways we currently aren’t being given the opportunity to do. Just imagine what our combined skills and medicines could do!

Conclusion

Ben: So Gabriella, What’s the point?! How does Five Element Acupuncture help?

Gabriella: There are many diverse ways Five Element Acupuncture can impact people's lives. The stories shared in this episode offer a glimpse into the transformative power of Five Element Acupuncture. From alleviating physical ailments to offering profound emotional support, it's clear that this ancient practice holds immense potential for holistic healing.

Ben: Absolutely, Gabriella. These anecdotes remind us that acupuncture is not just about treating symptoms but about addressing the underlying imbalances that contribute to our health challenges.

Gabriella: It’s a shame that I had to conduct my treatment behind closed doors for Paolo, when a collaboration between Western medicine and acupuncture could new open doors to new possibilities in patient care. A partnership could revolutionise how we approach health and healing.

Ben: Indeed. I believe there's a future where acupuncture and Western medicine can complement each other more seamlessly, offering patients the best of both worlds.

Gabriella: Absolutely, some allopathic medicines are life saving, others are the best option available within the confines of Western medical practice. I believe that Five Element Acupuncture could fill in this gap; it is rare for a physician to look at the whole person which is where the practice of Five Element Acupuncture really shines. There's so much more to explore, and I'm excited to continue this journey with our listeners in future episodes.

Ben: And with that, we'll say goodbye for now. We look forward to having you join us in the next episode, where I WILL be asking Gabriella, What Are The Tao, Yin/Yang & Qi Energy?

Gabriella: Oo goodie! The juicy philosophical stuff!

Ben: That's all for this episode, folks. Thanks for tuning in, and until next time, stay curious and keep on seeking the point where healing begins. Goodbye for now!

Gabriella: Ta-Ra!