Acupuncture Technology News

I don’t know about you, but I have boxes and boxes of notes from college–not to mention all of the continuing education notebooks I’ve accumulated after graduation. On top of that, I have at least two bookcases filled with acupuncture resources. Can you relate?

I’m sure it is no surprise to you that I love studying points. I especially love to read about favorite points from practitioners who have a lot more experience than I do. There is only one PROBLEM with my love for learning. The older I get, the more I forget. I just can’t remember all of those helpful little tidbits that I have written in my notes, or highlighted in textbooks. Lucky for me–I work for Miridia Technology and the guys here at the office developed a software program to compensate for my tired brain.
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We all have images in our mind of what it’s like in “Corporate America.” We see TV shows depicting spacious board rooms, beautiful offices and majestic buildings. These exist to give us confidence that the company we’re doing business with is strong, stable and permanent. What this concept of “business” fails to do is show the human side of things…the REAL reason companies exist.

I was reminded of this last Monday in a company meeting. The CEO of our company, Dr. Adrian Larsen, walked into the meeting with a tray full of smoothies. That’s right, delicious, fruity smoothies! He let each of us take our pick and began to share his thoughts.
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Isn’t it exciting? After all of the vacations, reunions and hot summer days…the kids are now heading back to school! Even if you don’t have kids, or they are grown, Back to School brings a collective sigh of relief since that’s when patients return to their normal schedule and practices become busy again.

As we contemplate our kids going back to school, we mentally start the checklist of the things we want to accomplish before the end of the year (because we know year-end will be here sooner than we realize!).

Here are 3 things you can do to make this your best year ever!

1. Increase the number of new patients you see.

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Do you treat kids in your office? If you don’t, you really should. A week or so ago, I had an 8-year-old child come into my clinic for constipation. The mother informed me that he is afraid of needles and wanted to know if I could still treat him. Luckily, I had multiple options for treatment–so of course I said YES. As it turned out, the chief complaint was constipation, but he also had ADD. Have you ever had a kid come into your office with ADD? It can be a little bit difficult.

Let’s take a look at this case study.

TREATMENT #1:

I wound up using several tools for treatment.

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I often treat patients who have an imbalance in the Pericardium meridian. The pericardium is described as the membrane which surrounds the heart and its primary function is to protect the heart.

Symptoms related to the pericardium channel include:

• Disorders of the heart–pain, palpitations, irregular heart rhythm
• Emotional disturbances–irritability
• Disorders of the chest and lung–difficulty breathing, fever
• Disorders of the upper and middle jiao–from Liver Qi Stagnation
• Swelling and pain–axilla, lateral ribcage, ear, throat, chest, breast, neck

Recently I have been treating Ren 17 (CV 17) for any imbalances in the Pericarium channel. I was a massage therapist for about a dozen years before I became an acupuncturist. In my experience, patients hold many emotions in the chest. Since the pericardium’s role is to protect the heart, I feel like this channel has a huge emotional component. Stuck emotions can cause a lot of physical problems in the body. I have found Ren 17  to be a very powerful point, for the following four reasons:
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I don’t know about you, but as the seasons change, I tend to clean and organize. The funny thing is, there are many areas of our lives that have to be organized over and over again–the house, the kids rooms, the garage, and all the endless paperwork.

Points PC is a great tool for gathering acupuncture information from seminars, research, and class notes–and organizing it into ONE place. The fact that it is fully searchable, means that you won’t ever have to organize it again! I love it!!!

The bad news is, the clock is ticking, and time is running out. The great discount on Points PC expires tomorrow, Friday, August 5th at 5:00pm Eastern time. That’s almost exactly 24 hours from when I am posting this.

Have you seen how awesome Points PC is?  Take a look…

http://www.miridiatech.com/products/points/pc.php

Remember–order your Points PC program before Friday, August 5th at 5:00pm Eastern (2:00pm Pacific)–because the discount will absolutely end!

Kimberly Thompson, L.Ac.

Acupuncture Research Analyst

Miridia Technology Inc.

I’m really not that old.

At least, I don’t consider 41 very old, and I bet you don’t either. But let me tell you, my kids do. What can I say? They’re teenagers. 

This age difference was really apparent this summer when my oldest daughter spent an afternoon writing letters to her friends. And by letters, I don’t mean texts, Facebook updates, or even e-mails. I mean the good old fashioned kind of letters–handwritten on paper, folded into an envelope and put into the mailbox. She did it just for fun…to see what it was like. She has a real interest in everything vintage: clothing, decorations, cars, and even communication methods. She finds real enjoyment in pondering the way things “used to be.”

And there’s nothing wrong with “snail mail.” It works. The letters eventually get there, and you might even get a reply. Trust me, I’m old enough to remember.

But at the same time, I also know that modern communication methods are far more efficient and often more effective at getting the job done. That’s why I don’t really write letters much any more.

What does this have to do with Acupuncture?

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The other day, my eight year old asked me what the word population meant. I used the same answer that my mom gave me when I was a kid:  “Go and look it up in a dictionary.” She looked at me funny and then asked:  “What is a dictionary?” I shook my head and showed her an old dictionary on the bookshelf. She then asked if she could just use the computer to look it up on Google. Sometimes I am jealous of my kids. They live in a world with digital cameras, cell phones, text messaging, Google, iPad, and laptop computers. They can pull together a term paper in a fraction of the time it took me. Why? Because the resources they have at their fingertips are just amazing!

I loved being a college student, and I’ll have to admit that I was a TCM nerd. My books became worn and ragged because I would spend hours studying. I have boxes of hand written notes tucked away in the garage, files and files of notes in my computer from lectures, and textbooks  filled with hand written notes in the margins.  I hold onto these notes because they are filled with valuable information—but I don’t have access to them when I need them in my clinic.

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I love stories that illustrate life’s lessons. So here are two absolutely true stories that perfectly illustrate why we spent the last several months working on a new product to make your life easier.

True story number one: I spoke to a man halfway around the world this morning. He told me he had recently “learned acupuncture” and was busy treating patients. 

His comments started me thinking: Is one ever really finished “learning” acupuncture? At what point is it “learned?” And what information must one master to “learn” acupuncture? I just couldn’t quite get my head around the idea that there’s ever a finish line to learning this incredible healing system.

But I DO know the starting line: The most fundamental, foundational, basic knowledge one must master is the function and location of each of the acupuncture meridians, and each of the points. This basic knowledge is common to all systems and philosophies of acupuncture; it forms the basis of all the nuances of skill and wisdom that follow throughout a lifetime of study.

And it’s not easy to accomplish.

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