Rupesh Harding Acupuncture

28/08/2022

Yesterday's sad news about footballer Ellen White & the life changing injury she suffered at the hands of a physiotherapist are a salutary warning of the need for better regulation & higher standards of training in the use of Acupuncture.
Whilst it is possible for UK health professionals to take short courses in the use of acupuncture needles, as a member of the British Acupuncture Council I had to undergo extensive training to degree level (around 3000 hours of training of which around 400 were in supervised clinical practice), not just in Chinese Medicine but also western physiology & anatomy. I continue to undergo professional development on a regular basis.
Acupuncture has a long history of safe & effective treatment for a wide range of conditions & is recommended by NICE for the treatment of chronic pain.
I hope that people considering acupuncture treatment can be reassured by my level of training in this safe & drug free complementary medicine. It is perhaps wise to enquire what level of training your practitioner has undertaken.

06/07/2020

Thank you for your patience.

Now that the lockdown is being eased, we finally have the go ahead from the British Acupuncture Council to resume some treatments. They have been very helpful in putting together guidelines for safe treatment in these times.

From the 4th of July I should be back to treating all clients but still with the following precautions in place.

When you book a treatment, I will be asking you whether you have any signs or symptoms of a current respiratory infection & your possible exposure to it.

I will also carry out the bulk of your consultation around your main complaint over the phone. I will look at your tongue either via a selfie (for this you will need to take a picture of your tongue under natural light, by a window for example) or perhaps we can do a video call on What’s App.

The cleaning I am having to do between clients will be more intensive, as a result the interval between clients will be longer. The clinic has been rearranged to help maintain social distancing so far as possible & make cleaning between clients straight forward.

I ask you to come freshly bathed, consider using your own toilet before arriving & bring the minimum of extra baggage with you.

We will be aiming to avoid our clients meeting in the reception area where physical distancing is difficult, so I ask you not to arrive before your appointment time, enabling me to es**rt you swiftly through to my clinic room via a hand sanitising station. I will take your temperature with a non-contact thermometer on arrival. Where possible do not touch anything! All door handles will be sanitised before & after sessions.

Maintaining distance is obviously going to be difficult so in order to protect each other we will be wearing masks. I will supply you with a surgical disposable one. My mask protects you, your mask protects me.

23/06/2020

I wrote this to my MP recently, someone suggested I posted it , so here it is!

James Cleverly MP

House of Commons

Dear Mr Cleverly,

I hope you are well & have not been affected by the malaise that has affected some members of the Cabinet.

I believe you are a friend of Boris Johnson. It has been worrying me that people who have suffered viral infection often suffer debilitating post viral symptoms such as fatigue, muscle aches & pains and particularly brain fog, especially if they fail to rest enough during convalescence before going back to work. As an Acupuncturist I see this on a regular basis in my clinic.

It has crossed my mind that this may be the case not just with Boris, but perhaps Dominic Cummings too. This might explain the curious inability to see the carnage that the lack of clear thinking over the matter of the damage that has been done to the government’s messaging concerning ‘Social Distancing’ through No 10’s dissembling & ongoing support for Mr Cummings.

As a true friend of Mr Johnson I believe you should bring your influence on him to bear & raise this issue with him.

Yours

Rupesh Harding

23/03/2020

My clinics are now closed. I will be re-opening as soon as posssible.
Here is a demonstration of some exercises for the lung by Peter Deadman, a well respected Acupuncturist & Qi Gong teacher.

In view of the lung-targeting coronavirus, I've made this 20-minute video of three qigong practices to help strengthen the lung: 1. deep, slow, lower abdomin...

03/07/2019

Summer is here! I sit writing this as temperature records fall throughout Europe. Warm, sunny weather makes many of us feel good. Overdoing the sunshine can also make us feel miserable…. I remember treating someone for heatstroke in the back of a Transit van at a festival once. She had been working as a cook at Madras Café, where I help out every year, raising funds for a small charity working with rural communities in India, particularly targeting women & the disabled. Headache & nausea were the main symptoms, half an hour of treatment brought her back to normal, enabling further enjoyment of the rest of the festival.

Just this morning I gave a fellow therapist a quick treatment for the scratchy throat, clogged nose & itchy eyes of hay fever. She was astonished at the rapid improvement to her symptoms from a few quick pricks with a needle or two. This continues a recent theme of head related problems; two different types of excruciating headache, a facial problem (trigeminal neuralgia) & someone presenting with acute cold sores.

The first case involved a client I have known virtually from the outset of my practice, more than 10 years ago. This person asked for help with an intractable ‘migraine’, after coming down with a viral infection, that was not responding to regular medication, the headache had been very intense for more than 36hrs preventing sleep or movement. After presenting at the Accident & Emergency department with little benefit & getting no relief, I was called to see if acupuncture could help her. She reported that the first treatment brought the pain down to manageable levels shortly after. The following day there were just the vestiges of the previous ache & after a third treatment she was fine.
The second head problem I was presented with was a man with cluster headache, this excruciatingly painful condition comes on without warning with a piercing, burning pain around the eye & sometimes into the face, it may last anything from 15 mins to several hours. They will often happen at the same time every day, & may occur several times in a day. Typically the cluster of headaches will last for 4-12 weeks before disappearing, perhaps only to reappear at the same time the following year or years later. Treatment consisted of three sessions close together in the first week. After the first he had no attack until two days later, when I saw him again. He had another attack the following day & then no attacks for three days. He had 6 treatments in a fortnight, by which time the cluster headaches had stopped.
When clients need to see me several times in quick succession I charge a much reduced fee for follow up sessions for two reasons; 1. To encourage people to come for as much treatment as is needed to make them better &
2. To make it more easily affordable for them.

Trigeminal neuralgia is a nerve pain that typically causes severe jolting, electrical type pain in the face, often going to the teeth & side of the face following the course of the trigeminal nerve, often triggered by touch, chewing or brushing the teeth. Just recently someone came to see me with this problem, she has responded well so far, needing less medication & having days with no pain at all, I would expect further treatment to make more difference.
She is pleased with the results so far & as a result brought her daughter in for emergency treatment for a chronic tonsil inflammation that doesn’t respond well to antibiotics, leaving her with a very sore throat, swollen glands & difficulty moving her neck. 45 minutes on my couch made her feel much better with reduced sore throat & much free-er neck movement.
A young mother was referred by another of my clients, she was run down & was getting repeated cold sores around her mouth, one session reduced the burning sensation from two lip sores rapidly, by the second treatment a few days later they had crusted over & she was feeling much more relaxed.

Don’t make acupuncture your last resort!
Come & get a drug free treatment for your ailments.

Call Rupesh now for an appointment.

Tuesdays & Fridays by appointment in Halstead, or at Colchester Community Acupuncture on Mondays & Thursdays

11/12/2018

What a glorious Summer & Autumn we had! The colours were amazing, as the sap started to fall in the trees, the leaves faded & fell. The trees having stored up what they need from the earlier seasons ready for the quiet time of Winter, preparing for the fresh growth of Spring. The buds are already in place for next year’s leaves and fruit, each part of the cycle feeding into and creating the next one; much like one of the models that Acupuncture & Chinese Medicine applies in the treatment of disease.
Treatment in Winter can help to prepare you for the coming Spring. Hay Fever is a common condition that can benefit from treatment before it starts to appear.

Recent cases from my clinics, at Ego in Halstead & at Colchester Community Acupuncture, based at the Buddhist Centre in Colchester, give an idea of the range of conditions Acupuncture can be beneficial for.

Following on from cases I highlighted in the last edition of Around Halstead I can report back that at least two more healthy babies have appeared after routine pre-birth treatments. One needed a bit of extra acupuncture persuasion to get labour properly established. His Mum also benefitted from treatment a couple of times after his birth, she was having difficulty with sleeping due to night sweats, an occasional complaint following childbirth as well as menopause! Two very simple treatments quickly re-established normal temperature control.
I just took a booking today from someone needing treatment for morning sickness.

I have been treating a man with an unusual numb sensation in one thigh. This condition arose from using his leg to support a demolition hammer whilst doing construction work several years ago. Using muscle testing techniques it became clear which particular muscles were affected, treatment firstly addressed the specific muscles involved in a conventional anatomical sense. This was then followed up with treatment addressing the affected Chinese Medicine pathways (or channels), an approach combining the best of both systems. After three sessions it is clear that he has regained more normal feeling in his thigh, I am confident another session or two will bring further improvement.

I recently treated a woman with one leg shorter than the other for muscle spasm in the back & side of leg pain, she was finding getting up from a chair very difficult. This leg asymmetry tilts the pelvis & means that muscles on one side of the spine are held in greater tension than the other which sets up imbalances that will often leave people vulnerable to muscle pain. The immediate cause of her pain was from taking a higher step up than usual. She had been having regular chiropractic treatment to maintain her flexibility, including a session the previous day that had not given her much relief. The first session gave her relief on the day but some pain had returned when she came back for follow up treatment 4 days later, her second treatment helped some more, with the pain retreating into just one buttock by the time she returned for her next treatment. She had no further pain after that session, I hope to see her for some maintenance treatment before she seizes up again!

I regularly see someone in her own home due to her disabilities, treating her for whatever is causing her most discomfort on the day (she is never out of pain). I regularly also treat her carers, currently I am working with a woman who was getting migraine headaches resulting from neck pain, IBS and fibromyalgia. Since the first treatment her headaches have disappeared and now there is more focus on her irritable bowel condition. Today’s treatment addressed the psoriasis, as well as the digestion and fibromyalgia, using one particular set of points that address all three conditions.


Don’t make acupuncture your last resort!
Come & get a drug free treatment for your ailments.

Call Rupesh now for an appointment.

05/12/2018

Lin is a long term client of mine, She has cerebral palsy and has been blind since the age of 13 and is now only able to get about in her wheelchair.
She has been an amazing advocate for disability rights and continues to lecture at various educational establishments in the east of England.
Through her setting up & initially running a charity, The Lin Berwick Trust, she has been instrumental in raising over £2,000,000 towards the creation of three holiday homes for disabled people and their families. One in Norfolk, one in the Scottish Borders and the latest one situated on Duchy of Cornwall land near Looe in Cornwall.
This inspirational woman needs some help herself now. The major source of her enjoyment in life is classical music concerts & without her car she is unable to get out at all.

I desperately need a specialist vehicle and a more comfortable wheelchair - my existing car has got to be scrapped and wheelchair is unsafe.

07/09/2018

I am going to be at the Colchester Festival of Rice & Spice this weekend. Come along with your musculo-skeletal problems & let me diagnose which muscles are dysfunctional and explain how acupuncture at Colchester Community Acupuncture can help you back to fitness.

27/02/2018

Spring’s first glimpses are creeping up on us as I write this. Just how do potatoes know that the days have started to lengthen & the time is ripe to start sprouting? Such complexity is as nothing compared to the human body. The origins of Chinese Medicine are rooted some 3-4000yrs ago but how the forerunners of today’s acupuncturists & herbalists discovered how to categorize & treat human dis-ease remains a significant mystery; yet treat it, it does.
It is possible that after massage, the earliest interventions used ‘stone needles’, possibly sharp flints, being used to let a little blood from bruised or damaged areas, so allowing fresh new blood into the area to assist the healing process. How this changed into the use of the very fine stainless steel disposable needles of much modern practice is unclear, but the concepts set down in the early writings of Chinese Medicine are still valid today. I apply these same principles when faced with much more modern day complaints that were rarely, if ever, encountered in those prehistoric times.

Recent cases I have treated include a woman who came in complaining of neck pain that had gone on for a couple of months after a hard day at work in a care home, doing washing up. She had pain radiating down one arm with tingling into two of her fingers & was unable to sit down when leaning forward without pain. I worked on the muscles located in her neck that were likely to be causing the problem initially & then treated areas on her ankles & wrists that target the neck area. She felt much better after treatment & after explaining that she would need further sessions to consolidate the effect, she booked in for another session. She phoned up to cancel her second treatment because the first seemed to have sorted the problem.

I got a call from my cousin’s wife, she had shingles. This can be a very painful condition. It is a manifestation of the chicken pox virus, where the virus has typically lodged in one particular vertebra, resulting in painful blister like eruptions that spread around the body, normally only on one side, following the path of what is known as the dermatome. This is the area of skin that is supplied by the nerve that communicates with the spine at the level of the affected vertebra. Since she lives in London and works full time in a high powered job, she was only able to fit in one treatment with me. This treatment made a significant difference to her pain, she then went to see another Chinese medicine practitioner, more local to her, for follow up treatments. Two months later she still has occasional pain and has scheduled another appointment with me to try to sort it out completely.

In the last two to three months a number of women have consulted me with a view to improving their chances of conceiving. Four women have been or are going through IVF treatment. Acupuncture can help to improve the success rate of IVF, improving the function of the reproductive organs, calming the emotions and helping to deal with some of the unwanted side effects of aggressive hormone manipulation. I am currently awaiting news to hear how three of them are doing. IVF has not yet been successful in the fourth woman, but she continues in treatment.
Three other women have fallen pregnant during their course of acupuncture treatment from me recently. One woman was in the initial stages of western medical fertility treatment, she conceived without having had a period. Early scans showed a healthy heartbeat. Another had suffered a recent miscarriage & needed work to regulate her period again. The third pregnancy came about after five or six treatments, her period pain became less intrusive during the course of treatment & she cancelled her next scheduled appointment after a test revealed she was pregnant after more than a year of trying. It should not be forgotten that the male’s contribution in sub-fertility is a significant factor too. Acupuncture can make a difference to s***m parameters too.

The woman with sleep problems I mentioned in the previous issue of Around Halstead has not been to see me for quite a while, so I am assuming she is sleeping well now, her shoulder is good too!

Don’t make acupuncture your last resort!
Come & get a drug free treatment for your ailments.

Call Rupesh now for an appointment.