I recently wrote about my friend Maria, who came to visit and stayed for two weeks while I gave her intensive acupuncture treatment for chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. One of the things that struck me was how for years, she was prescribed very strong opioids like OxyContin. Opioids are a class of drugs that are prescribed to relieve persistent or severe pain, and include morphine and codeine. We know now that opioids are addictive and side effects are numerous, including increased pain. The US is in the grip of an opioid crisis, and abuse of these drugs has caused tens of thousands of deaths a year.

Part of the response in the US has been to push non-pharmaceutical options for pain control. This is when Chinese medicine can be invaluable. For example, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) recommend acupuncture as a first-line therapy for coping with the opioid crisis because it is found to be effective, safe and cost-effective for numerous types of acute and chronic pain.

In the UK, there is no official support for acupuncture or other unconventional treatment options to opioids. Acupuncture primarily sits outside the National Health Service, so people usually pay privately for treatment. But people come for treatment because they hear about it from friends and family. The evidence is also clear about the effectiveness of acupuncture for 117 conditions.

In my day-to-day practice, about a third of patients come for pain, usually for musculoskeletal or neurological reasons. It is wonderful seeing someone walk out of clinic a different person, one in less pain, more relaxed, and with a smile on their face. Because this is what I do every day I sometimes take acupuncture for granted, but it is a truly remarkable system of medicine.

​Photo by Dima Vishnevetsky from FreeImages

When an old friend from Manila - let's call her Maria - got in touch six weeks ago to ask if I can help with fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue, I said yes of course. But when that friend said she will stay in London for two weeks to have acupuncture treatment, I was bowled over by her trust and commitment.

So over these past two weeks, I saw Maria roughly every other day to give her acupuncture. She has suffered from a debilitating constellation of low-grade fevers, muscle/joint aches and pains, sweating, and fatigue for the past 15 years. But it had worsened significantly in the past two years so she could barely walk a few minutes without getting wiped out. All that conventional medicine doctors could offer were painkillers, steroids and antidepressants - at one point Maria was told there was nothing they could do for her any more.

When I told my friend that of course Chinese medicine can help, it's because it sees auto-immune conditions as difficult but not impossible to treat. The incidence of auto-immune diseases such as fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis has been on the rise, and there is universal agreement among scientists that industrial toxins and chemicals in the environment are interfering with the functioning of our immune systems. According to the UK's National Health Service, fibromyalgia (a long-term condition that causes pain all over the body) is estimated to affect one in 20 people.

I focused on releasing the fever, lowering her temperature, removing toxins, and easing the aches and pains in her body. And over the past two weeks, Maria has got stronger as the sweats and fever abated and pain reduced. Chinese medicine focuses on lifestyle choices as well - part of Maria's work is making changes to the food she eats (her daily medicine!) and learning Qi Gong (Chinese internal exercises that focuses on breathing and simple movements) to circulate and generate energy, allowing her to get stronger and manage her condition.

It was wonderful to see the shift in Maria's energy levels in a short space of time. She was grateful because she hasn't felt this well in 10 years. But I was also grateful to have had an opportunity to see how intensive treatment can work with someone so committed to getting better.

Photo by Christian Fregnan on Unsplash

I love Chinese medicine for many reasons, but over the past weekend I discovered another one. I was spending the weekend with some dear friends in the beautiful medieval town of Rye, in East Sussex. My host, Brian, who is in his late 80s, had just had a procedure done to alleviate knee pain. All of a sudden, he started to have bouts of hiccups, which no amount of water-drinking or being given a fright could alleviate.

I scoured my memory for some acupuncture point that might help. Hiccups are sudden, involuntary contractions of the diaphragm muscles, so I thought of using one of the lung points (the diaphragm being involved in breathing) on the arm. So while chatting away at friends across the dinner table, I pressed Lung 6 on one of Brian's forearm for a few minutes. Lung 6 (Kong zui or Maximum opening) is an acupuncture point used for acute respiratory conditions such as asthma, wheezing or severe cough.

Sure enough, after a few moments, Brian's hiccups stopped. A nice way to end the evening.

I am always on the lookout for good music to play in the treatment room. When I first started learning tai chi in Hong Kong many years ago, my teacher Alex used to play opera and reggae to accompany our rounds of t'ai chi. So before long I started associating these genres with relaxation and Chinese medicine (tai chi being one modality of Chinese medicine, along with acupuncture, herbs, food and tuina massage). So when I started my acupuncture practice some years ago, I automatically played classical music or reggae in the treatment room.

These days I tend to favour playing "non-music" in the treatment room so  patients have something to listen to while I leave the needles to do their work. Tibetan singing bowls or the sound of water are my favourites. Not everyone likes opera, but most people  appreciate the soothing sound of chimes being gently caressed by the breeze.

Imagine my delight when a patient gave us a CD recording of her playing the piano while being accompanied by a blackbird in her garden. This patient is a piano teacher and said she first noticed the blackbird singing in her garden two years ago, especially while she played the piano. So one day she recorded the blackbird while she was playing. Later on when she was playing back the recording, she realised that the blackbird seemed to be accompanying her piano-playing. And this magical CD is often what I play when I'm treating these days because the sound of nature is deeply relaxing. 

This isn't the first time I've heard of birds accompanying musicians playing. A famous recording from 1924 captured cellist Beatrice Harrison dueting with nightingales at her home near the  woods in Surrey, England. She received 50,000 fan letters from this time!

Last week I attended what I thought would be an ordinary case study day -- where acupuncturists present difficult or challenging cases and explain their clinical reasoning and acupuncture points used. Like other clinicians, acupuncturists have to do a certain number of continuing professional development (CPD) hours a year, and this case study day was free to members of the British Acupuncture Council. 

I enjoyed the interesting cases, but by far the most thought-provoking presentation came from Sheria Chan, an acupuncturist who helped organise free emergency acupuncture clinics for victims of the Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017 (a fire in a 24-storey block of flats in west London that claimed 72 lives and shocked the UK).

I always knew that this 2,000-year-old medicine is used in disaster situations. I have heard of acupuncture used to help people suffering from post 9/11 trauma in New York City. Battlefield acupuncture is used by the US military to give rapid pain relief, enabling medical personnel to get wounded soldiers away from the battlefield quickly. I regularly treat patients for symptoms of trauma in my clinic. But as I listened to Sheria talk about the the immense challenges of setting up emergency acupuncture clinics in a chaotic disaster environment, I was moved and inspired. 

In the Grenfell case,  volunteer acupuncturists used ear acupuncture to treat shock, trauma and anxiety at three clinics for more than a year. This is an emergency measure, to help people caught up in the chaos after the fire, to help them cope until they can get formal treatment. It is a reminder of the power and flexibility of this ancient medicine.

Everyday we hear about how sugar is bad for us, but for me that message didn't really hit home until January this year when I found out that my blood glucose (or sugar) level is in the pre-diabetic range. You see, type 2 diabetes runs in my family so although I am not overweight, I am genetically predisposed to insulin resistance. This is when the body's tissues become less sensitive to insulin, which is what enables the body to take up glucose from the bloodstream. This leads to uncontrolled high levels of blood glucose, which we know results in serious problems with the kidneys, eyes, skin and the nervous system. Diabetes is a huge problem: the National Health Service spends £2.3bn-2.5bn a year on inpatient care for people with diabetes. That is equivalent to 11% of its budget!

I remember what my favourite biomedicine teacher, Awais Mian, always used to say about diabetes - the lifestyle advice you're given is not just for those with diabetes, it's for everyone who wants good health. This includes a diet rich in fruit and vegetables, with lots of complex carbs and food with a low glycemic index (delivering sugar to the bloodstream slowly). It means saying no to cakes and biscuits. Vigorous exercise is key, and in my case it's fast walking - not the gentle walks that I used to do, but walking fast enough to really raise my heart beat - and swimming. It helps to have a husband who loves swimming and thinks nothing is more fun than an excursion to London Fields Lido on a Sunday morning.

And of course, I also went down the route of  acupuncture and Chinese herbs. This combination of Chinese medicine and lifestyle changes works - I just has a blood test a few weeks ago and my blood sugar level is back to normal. This is probably going to be a lifelong war with sugar, but at the moment the score is Sugar 0 - Tess 1.

My friend Lina and I (I'm on the left) spent a couple of hours this morning with a group of carers in north London to give a talk on complementary therapies. The event was organised by the Brent Carers Centre, which offers support and activities to carers in the local area. This is a very large group of people whose work often goes unrecognised in society. One in eight adults in the UK are carers, according to Carers UK. This really hit home a few years ago when my mother-in-law started caring for my father-in-law at home, which is effectively a 24-hour job.

I spoke about the benefits of acupuncture and Chinese medicine to address physical, psychological and mental conditions. This seems to have resonated deeply with the attendees and it was great to see such  level of interest, presumably because of the very high mental and physical toll on carers. Seventy-two percent of respondents to Carers UK's State of Caring survey said they suffered mental ill health as a result of caring, while 61% said they suffered physical ill health. Many of the attendees wanted to know what they can do to help themselves, whether that is getting treatment or learning tai chi or qi gong (Chinese exercises that are based on principles of relaxation, balance and breathing, among others). They had conditions such as migraines, sciatica and tinnitus that respond well to acupuncture.

Apart from anything else, it was great to team up with my friend Lina Ramchand, whom I first met in Hong Kong about 20 years ago when we were both copy editors at the South China Morning Post. She is now practising reflexology, Indian head massage and sekhem energy work, and I am now an acupuncturist so we can help patients and carers in so many ways.