Acupuncture West - Boise, Idaho

Years ago, while working as an engineer in Boston, I received acupuncture treatments focused on reducing the high level of stress in my life. I had been on a very taxing project at work and after hearing a co-worker rave about an acupuncturist, I became curious enough to begin weekly acupuncture treatments. I found the treatments to be incredibly relaxing. Though difficult to describe in words how I felt physically or emotionally after a treatment, I was certain that I wanted to experience that physical and emotional state at all times, one of extreme contentment, comfort, and awareness.

It was apparent to me that acupuncture treatments brought about a change, but as an engineer, I sought a logical explanation and became curious about how acupuncture could elicit such a response in a patient. It seemed implausible that inserting about ten extremely thin needles into a patient's body for approximately twenty minutes could result in such a dramatic change, and yet that is precisely what was happening. The more treatments I received, the more I was able to feel the therapeutic effects, and the more fascinated I became with acupuncture.

During these treatments, I was frequently frustrated when I asked the acupuncturist to explain how acupuncture worked. The acupuncturist would state tersely that unbalanced energy was being balanced. Each subsequent question seemed to be met with a similarly brief, matter-of-fact response. I assumed that my acupuncturist was actually avoiding my questions. I got the impression that he couldn't really explain how acupuncture worked, so instead he filled the air with incomprehensible, new-age jargon. I just wanted an answer to my question.

Several years later, while living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I met a student who was studying at a local acupuncture college. She had studied acupuncture for two years and would be graduating in another year. Now, I could surely get an answer to my question. I asked her very specifically how a needle inserted into one part of the human body could bring about change in a different part of the body. I asked her what physiological or even chemical changes were taking place to explain that phenomenon. She didn't hesitate at all before telling me, "I don't know. I have no idea." Again, I found this answer very unsatisfying. Wouldn't her education, an accredited master's degree program, focus on that very topic? How could she be incapable of answering this question after two years of studying acupuncture?

After another year had passed, my continued interest in acupuncture led me to apply and enroll at Southwest Acupuncture College in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The 3,000 hour program, leading to a Master of Science in Oriental Medicine, helped me see my questions and their answers in a new light. With the benefit of hindsight, I can now fully understand why the answers to my questions had been so unsatisfying. I was unaware at the time that I had been seeking a Western explanation of a very Eastern concept. In asking my questions, I was not only interested in learning about how acupuncture worked, but I was also implicitly expecting an answer in my language, in terms understandable by someone living in the West.

In the academic programs teaching traditional Chinese medicine in the United States today, there is little emphasis placed upon the subject of how acupuncture works from a scientific point of view. Rather, the educational programs focus upon helping the student understand the Eastern explanation of acupuncture, the one that I originally found so evasive and confusing.

This isn't to say that research studies aren't focused on determining how acupuncture works from a modern scientific viewpoint. In many such studies, acupuncture has been shown to trigger the brain to release endorphins and enkephalins, chemicals with pain relieving properties. Other theories propose that acupuncture needles jam the neuronal pathways and thereby prevent pain signals from reaching the brain. Additional studies have shown that acupuncture needle insertion activates the brain's regulation of neurotransmitters and hormones, affecting many primary systems in the body, including the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems.

Yet during my acupuncture studies, I finally began to see the value of understanding the traditional Chinese explanation of acupuncture, since that was the paradigm within which instructors and practitioners had worked for thousands of years. If we try to talk about Chinese medicine strictly from a scientific viewpoint, then we are not really talking about Chinese medicine. We would be excluding a large quantity of important Chinese medical philosophy which is inextricably linked to what this medicine is and from where it has come. During the course of my studies, I began to see and eventually embrace the fact that in order to learn how traditional Chinese medicine works, it is necessary to understand those who have a history of practicing it.

Thus, acupuncture works because with extremely thin, sterile, disposable acupuncture needles, an acupuncturist accesses a patient's energy and restores balance. Traditional Chinese medical theory is based upon the fact that there is an energy that flows in the human body through specific pathways, or channels. The energy flowing through these pathways can become blocked or obstructed due to emotional stress, unhealthy lifestyle choices, harmful environmental factors, poor diet, or physical injury. When this energy becomes blocked, the result is pain, discomfort, or disease. An acupuncturist uses acupuncture needles (and other methods) to mildly stimulate certain specific points on the body to restore balance to the normal flow of that energy, relieving pain, and treating disease. Hopefully, you don't find this explanation unsatisfying. If you do, you may not be alone.

About the author: Peter Games is a licensed acupuncturist in the state of Idaho. Peter owns and operates Acupuncture Boise with his wife (also a licensed acupuncturist). To learn more about their practice or acupuncture pain treatment in Boise, please visit www.acuboise.com.

As an acupuncturist, I see a lot of patients who are interested in learning what action to take in order to become healthier. They ask questions about why their elbow hurts, why their digestion is sluggish, or why they suffer from chronic headaches. They want to know which specific steps they need to take in order to become healthier, and they are often surprised by my answer. I believe one of the most important steps we can take to become healthier starts with an examination of our own belief system about health, and specifically our accountability for our own health.

It is my opinion that the first, all-important step toward becoming healthier is accepting complete responsibility for one's current health situation, however negative it may be. For some, this is significantly more difficult than it may sound. You may find it much easier to blame your poor health on your bad back, your low metabolism, your genes, your dysfunctional immune system, your brittle bones, your low energy, or even your back luck. Yet, it strikes me as inconsistent and even slightly strange that we blame our poor health on body parts or systems, as though they were external entities. Rather than blaming your back, your metabolism, or your immune system, begin to recognize that you are your back, your metabolism, and your immune system. Your body isn't to blame. Your body is you, and you are ultimately responsible for you. Your body is an amazing instrument that should be responsibly cared for. By understanding this, we can begin to see our important role in creating health.

Only by accepting full accountability for our health, do we adopt the mindset that we are capable of improving our present health landscape. If we honestly believe that we created our current state of health, than we can logically deduce that we may create a better state of health. If you accept full responsibility for your health and agree that your actions and choices have lead to your current state of health, you acknowledge your capability of choosing different actions and making different choices that will lead you to become healthier.

If instead you choose to blame your poor health on various "outside" entities, you may believe, perhaps even unconsciously, that external entities have the power to keep you from becoming healthier, and worse yet, they may always do so. This intuitively decreases our own perceived chance of success in becoming healthier. The belief that elements outside of our control can keep us from becoming healthy may also decrease or even eliminate any incentive to take the necessary steps to become healthier. Conversely, by adopting the mindset of accountability, we inherently recognize our own ability and potential. If we are accountable for a lack of health, then we can just as easily be accountable for an abundance of health. With this attitude of responsibility, our actions matter, our choices matter, and our ability to create health is limitless.

This concept can be expressed through exploring the etymology of the word responsible. The word responsible derives from the Anglo-French word responsable, which implies being able to respond or capable of responding. In other words, we are able to respond when we choose to be responsible for our health. If we choose instead to blame a laundry list of items for our health woes, our ability to respond proactively diminishes and we are left feeling incapable of improving our own health.

Once this responsibility mindset is accepted and implemented, we are then empowered to make specific healthy choices and as a result, become healthier. Far too often, I see patients that are temporarily motivated to make healthy changes in their lives, but who fail to maintain that motivation because of a feeling of powerlessness. Thus, I feel the first and most important step should be accepting responsibility for your health. Once that principle is integrated into your belief system, you can begin to make improving your health a priority and incorporate into your life wise, healthy dietary and lifestyle choices. In this way, we tap into our unlimited potential to create a healthier reality.

About the author: Peter Games is a licensed acupuncturist in the state of Idaho. Peter owns and operates Acupuncture Boise with his wife (also a licensed acupuncturist). To learn more about their clinic or the Boise acupuncturists at their clinic, please visit www.acuboise.com.

Last year, my wife and I moved to Boise, Idaho, also known as the city of trees. The name Boise comes from the French word boisé, which means "wooded" or "forest-covered", and compared to the desert landscape to the south and west, the name Boise is very appropriate. A few days ago, on a hot, sunny August afternoon, I was passing by one of the city parks and noticed a massive tree with a huge canopy of leaves. The tree provided welcome shade for the many people relaxing in the park and enjoying a break from the hot sun and triple digit temperatures. The scene made me recall a quote I had heard years before.

Warren Buffet, the brilliant investor and businessman, once said, "Somebody's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago." Put another way, if we have the foresight and discipline to take appropriate action, we will reap the benefits in years (or even decades) to come. I think he was referring primarily to finances, investments, and the accumulation of wealth, but the quote can be applied to other aspects of our lives, as well. In fact, I think the quote can apply equally well to becoming healthy as it can to becoming wealthy.

There is no simple shortcut available to attain health. We are largely responsible for our own health based upon the lifestyle choices that we make. There are a few external factors which influence our health landscape, such as the genes that we inherit from our parents and the healthy or unhealthy behavior that we learn from those around us. Yet despite these factors, we have the opportunity to become healthier and more balanced by way of making healthier, more mindful decisions. The best way to improve upon your current health situation is by making healthier choices, so that in years to come you are able to enjoy the shade provided by your wise and prudent action today.

This entire concept underscores the importance of preventive health care, or health care aimed at promoting health and reducing our risks of health problems before they occur. As a society, we tend to be more reactive, seeking medical care when our problems can no longer be ignored, than proactive, taking preventive measures and making healthy lifestyle choices that may reduce or eliminate our risks before problems actually arise.

Whether you are aware of it or not, you make myriad decisions every day that affect your health. Do you fuel your body with natural foods, including vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, and essential fatty acids? Does your diet include processed foods, junk foods, or fast foods, often containing sky-high levels of sugar, fat, or sodium? Are you getting adequate and appropriate levels of exercise? Do you forego exercise completely because there's not enough time? Are you a weekend warrior, exercising infrequently, too intensely, and without warm-up, only to lead to injury? Do you take time out to reduce stress and anxiety in your life? Are you constructively expressing your feelings or keeping them bottled up to avoid potentially uneasy situations? Are you allowing yourself to get enough sleep? Do you set aside time to take part in activities that make you feel good, such as walking, gardening, being in nature, or spending time with a beloved pet? Do you smoke? Do you drink alcohol to excess? Do you require stimulants, such as caffeine, to get you through the day? All of these choices that we make, sometimes unconsciously, can positively or negatively affect our health today and for years to come.

In addition to making healthy lifestyle choices, there are also a variety of preventive health care modalities which promote wellness and balance, including acupuncture, massage, and yoga. A well-trained acupuncturist recognizes subtle imbalances in an individual and focuses treatment on returning that individual to a state of balance by using Chinese medicine techniques such as acupuncture and Chinese herbs. In addition, most acupuncturists make lifestyle recommendations that are custom-tailored to an individual patient's unique situation. For example, an acupuncture specialist may recommend that one patient consume more cooked vegetables and fewer raw vegetables to address a constitutional imbalance, while another patient with a very different imbalance may receive the opposite advice.

It is important to recognize the numerous choices that we make which affect our health and also the importance of making mindful, healthy decisions. Your state of health is an accumulation of your actions and decisions over a long period of time. There is no way to circumvent the laws of nature and become healthy overnight. When making healthful choices becomes part of your daily life rather than a quick fix scheme to create a temporary outcome, you will naturally and inevitably migrate towards a healthier state. Making healthy lifestyle choices on a consistent basis, combined with preventive health care modalities such as acupuncture, massage, and yoga, can allow your tree of health to provide you with adequate shade today and well into the future.

About the author: Peter Games is a Licensed Acupuncturist in the state of Idaho. Peter owns and operates a Boise acupuncture clinic with his wife (who is also a Licensed Acupuncturist). To learn more about their clinic or the Boise acupuncturists at their clinic, please visit www.acuboise.com.

Since man and woman first walked on the earth, the existence of human beings has been dependent upon our ability to reproduce. This is, of course, true for all animals. Yet today, more and more people are surprised to find that reproducing is not as simple or straightforward as it may seem. Instead, for many couples, the happiness and excitement of planning a family has been replaced with the stress, anxiety, and frustration of infertility.

Infertility is defined as an inability to conceive after twelve months of well-timed, contraceptive-free intercourse. The time frame is reduced to six months if the woman is over the age of 35. This reflects the fact that a woman's egg quality declines after the age of 35 and a couple should consequently seek medical assistance earlier. In addition, women who are unable to carry a pregnancy to term are said to be infertile.

Just how common is infertility? About one in eight couples have problems conceiving, and statistically speaking, the cause of infertility is as likely to originate from the man as it is from the woman. One-third of infertility cases are caused by male issues and one-third are caused by female issues. In the remaining one-third of infertility cases, the cause is either a combination of male and female issues or the cause is simply unknown.

In order for a couple to successfully conceive, many complex processes must take place in the proper sequence. To start, a woman must release an egg from an ovary and that egg must flow through the fallopian tube to the uterus. While this is happening, a sperm must join with and fertilize the egg. This fertilized egg must then attach to the inside of the uterus. There are many factors which can interfere with these processes and result in infertility. Therefore, hormones must be balanced and reproductive systems must be operating at optimum levels in order to conceive. In considering all of the physiological, psychological, and hormonal events that must take place properly, it is no wonder that infertility is so common.

The possible causes of infertility are numerous. In men, a low sperm count or lack of sperm motility can result in the sperm's failure to reach the egg. In women, damaged fallopian tubes, physical problems with the uterus, or uterine fibroids can be a cause of infertility. In certain cases, there is a genetic cause, while in other cases, environmental factors are to blame, especially exposure to toxins. Also, egg production is adversely affected in women who are severely underweight or overweight and egg quality declines as a woman approaches the age of 40. With such a long list of variables, determining the possible cause of infertility can be difficult. This is further complicated by the fact that 15% of infertility cases have no known cause.

Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) has made great gains in recent years and offers a ray of hope for infertile couples. Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) is a general term referring to a variety of techniques that can help infertile couples become pregnant. One such technique is intrauterine insemination (IUI), or artificial insemination, in which sperm are introduced into the female uterus and fertilization takes place inside the woman's body. Another increasingly common approach is in vitro fertilization (IVF), in which ovulation is controlled hormonally, eggs are removed from the woman's ovaries, sperm fertilizes the eggs outside the woman's body, and the fertilized egg is transferred to the woman's uterus. In addition, there are many other ART techniques available depending upon a couple's unique situation.

However, most people are surprised to learn that modern, state-of-the-art reproductive technology is routinely combined with an ancient Chinese healing system that has been in use for thousands of years. The Chinese art of acupuncture has been shown clinically to play an important role in the treatment of infertility, and in ART specifically. In one study, women undergoing in vitro fertilization (IVF) received acupuncture treatment 25 minutes before and 25 minutes after the fertilized egg was transferred to the uterus. These women had a significantly higher pregnancy rate than a group of women undergoing IVF without acupuncture treatment. This study is documented in the publication entitled Influence of Acupuncture on the Pregnancy Rate in Patients Who Undergo Assisted Reproduction Therapy.

How does acupuncture improve fertility rates? Acupuncture can help in regulating a woman's hormones and menstrual cycle, increasing blood flow to the ovaries and uterus, and improving the production and quality of follicles in the ovaries. For men, acupuncture can be helpful in improving sperm parameters. Acupuncture is becoming increasingly common in the treatment of infertility, given that it has been shown to improve rates of pregnancy and live birth. Whether used in conjunction with ART techniques or not, acupuncture can help increase a couple's chance of getting pregnant and creating the family of their dreams.

About the author: Peter Games is a Licensed Acupuncturist in the state of Idaho. Peter owns and operates an acupuncture clinic with his wife (who is also a Licensed Acupuncturist). They specialize in pain and fertility-infertility acupuncture treatment in Boise, Idaho. To learn more about their clinic or the Boise acupuncture specialists at their clinic, please visit www.acuboise.com.

Many new cars today are equipped with automotive navigation systems. These systems use satellite technology to locate the car and provide directions to a location of our choice. The directions are often provided by voice prompts, which describe the path to follow in order to reach our destination. Thanks to the wonders of modern science, we receive this information immediately. The voice prompts can also inform us that we have missed a turn or even taken a wrong turn. Again, we obtain this feedback right away. We have, in many ways, become a society of immediacy. We often expect immediate feedback or immediate gratification and anything less is seen as unfulfilling, slow, or outdated.

Now let's consider navigating our way to a different type of destination, a destination that most of us find vague and elusive. That destination is health. Imagine a health navigation system implanted in our bodies that is capable of directing us toward that goal. Perhaps it would notify us if our dietary choices are a deviation from the path we should follow. Perhaps it would inform us that our lack of exercise or our need for relaxation is thwarting our efforts to reach our ultimate goal. It may provide prompts in its monotone, mediocre, matter-of-fact voice such as, "To arrive at your destination, put that cookie down." It may also remind us of activities that we have neglected, such as, "You overlooked exercise again today. Engage in physical exercise at the next possible opportunity."

But alas, there is no health navigation system available at present. So, how can we find and follow our all-important path to health? One such approach makes use of an age-old, antiquated system. That is, we can measure our proximity to destination health by examining how we feel--physically, mentally, and spiritually. Yet, most of us rarely notice the feedback from this system immediately. It may take days, weeks, or even years before we see or feel the effects of our lifestyle choices, positive or negative. We may need to be hit over the head with a hammer before finally hearing the message. Thus, it would be wise to examine if we are listening to what our bodies have to say, while at the same time exploring how we can become better listeners.

One approach to increasing awareness and listening to our bodies is through receiving acupuncture treatment. As an acupuncturist, I am told by many patients that with regular treatment, they become more aware of their bodies and the way in which their bodies communicate with them. Many patients begin to see patterns that were previously not recognizable. These patterns may include vague low back pain due to lack of exercise, constipation during highly stressful situations, abdominal pain related to not expressing emotions constructively, or energy levels that spike and crash as a result of specific dietary habits. Even though patterns such as these may exist for years, many individuals fail to notice the connection. Once they finally choose to slow down and listen to their bodies, they begin to hear the subtle messages.

In many cases, acupuncture can help to treat these imbalances, but in some cases it may not. And when it cannot, most patients find that their problems are far more manageable with the knowledge of specific causative factors. They are pleased to learn that their lifestyle choices can directly affect how they feel, and that by making different lifestyle choices, as difficult as that may be, they can proactively choose to be healthier. I don't mean to imply that acupuncture is the only approach to increasing awareness and becoming a better listener. There are many such approaches. I believe that receiving massage or practicing meditation can be helpful for this purpose, as well as meditative activities, such as reading, conscious walking, gardening, or yoga. All of these modalities can help us learn to listen to the messages that our bodies are sending, until the day when we have our health navigation system implanted.

About the Author: Peter Games is a Licensed Acupuncturist in the state of Idaho. Peter owns and operates a Boise, Idaho acupuncture clinic with his wife (who is also a Licensed Acupuncturist). To learn more about their clinic or the Boise acupuncture specialists at their clinic, please visit www.acuboise.com.