One Good Reason: Treating Medication Side Effects
As an acupuncturist, I see a lot of people who are trying to avoid or reduce dependence on medications.
Here’s the story of a woman we’ll call A.
She takes a medication daily to prevent cancer recurrence. A. is so grateful for this important drug, however she happens to be one of the 27% who gets a non-serious heart problem as a side effect. For her, it’s thumping and skipping beats – really uncomfortable. The doctor reassures her the palpitations, called PACs, are benign, and prescribes a beta blocker to address the misfiring of the heart’s rhythm. Concerned about the beta blocker’s own list of various side effects, she takes a friend’s advice and tries acupuncture. And guess what – after one week of treatment – the disturbing heart-attack-like feeling decreased dramatically to mild and less often.
In less than 3 weeks, the skipping and thumping abated so much, and stayed so mild, that we were able to incorporate treatment of secondary complaints while continuing to address the heart’s signaling imbalance to ensure it continued to regulate and heal.
Now we’re starting to space treatments further apart as symptoms continue to improve and not return between visits. She went from having to take this beta blocker when it got bad (a few times a week), to not touching the stuff!
