Exeter Quayside Acupuncture

03/11/2020

During lockdown, Exeter Quayside Acupuncture will remain open to patients in need of urgent care or who are in high need of treatment. Because of this, I am unable to undertake any cosmetic work or to give treatments that are purely for relaxation and enhanced wellbeing – only medical acupuncture is permitted. But if you are suffering from high levels of emotional distress or pain that interferes with the running of your daily life, please do still get in touch.

As the season turns to cold and damp, I am using moxa more frequently. This wonderful herb (Artemisia vulgaris) is used extensively in Chinese medicine … so much so that the Chinese name for acupuncture is moxa-needle. Moxa is burnt to smoulder over acupuncture points, invigorating the body and warming places that feel cold or more painful in cold or damp weather. It can be applied safely in many different ways, some of which are in my moxa tray in the photo.

12/07/2020

It’s no news that Covid-19 attacks the lungs. In Chinese medicine, your Lung includes your nose, mouth and throat, and even your skin (think of pores breathing). Currently at the clinic, hay fever sufferers have dwindled right down, planning to come back in the autumn for their lungs to be strengthened as they go through into winter.

But unexpectedly for this time of year, patients with Lung imbalances are still plentiful. Not as you might guess, people recovering from the virus, nor for nipping sniffles in the bud (acupuncture is very helpful at turning away a cold, so long as you catch it on the first day). No, these patients are manifesting the emotional imbalance the Chinese medicine associates with the Lung – grief and the inability to let go. Often their upper torsos are clenched in stillness, sometimes accompanied by shoulder or chest pain and constipation. How often frozen shoulder strikes six months after a bereavement!

There can’t be a person in the country that hasn’t suffered from loss this year, whether it was the death of a partner, or the forced cancellation of a significant rite of passage such as a longed-for festival and or social activities in the summer. Some of us have resiliently shrugged this off, but others are struggling.

If this speaks to you, or reminds you of a family member or friend, it might help to mention acupuncture to them. Immediately following a bereavement, it is best to allow nature to take its course. But, when all-pervading grief continues, stimulating a few acupuncture points on a patient invites them, body, mind and spirit, to let go of what is no longer of benefit, and to open their chest, inhale and reconnect with heavenly inspiration.

19/06/2020

02/02/2020

Bone broth is chicken soup+++ in Chinese medicine. 20 hour slow cooked organic chicken, beef and lamb bones along with veg and herbs for extra flavour and goodness, this the the food I most often suggest to reinvigorate run-down patients.
So how lovely on visiting Ben's Farm Shop to meet Peregrine, the cook of this far too rare health elixir (Peregrine is to the right of Morgan and Kirsty) at Ben's Farm Shop, Magdalen Road, Exeter EX2 4TA Other branches of this excellent shop are in Staverton, Totnes and Yealampton
www.bensfarmshop.co.uk