Posts

Spring into Wood – Living with the Seasons

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Living with the Seasons

The shift from darkness to light, yang bursting from yin is officially upon us.  Spring brings a dramatic shift in seasons with longer days, warmer weather, budding blossoms, fresh earthly scents, and a rebirth of plants breaking through the soil.  Spring’s time of renewal, expansion, and growth offers many lessons to be learned from observing nature’s cyclical transitions.  Chinese Medicine is strongly based on the natural rhythms, expressions, and phases of nature.  Together with the philosophy of Yin-Yang, the theory of the Five Elements (Wu Xing) sets the foundation for Chinese medical theory.  Each season is viewed as possessing and expressing its own unique energy which directly influences all aspects of life, health, and balanced well being.  Read more

The Test Your Doctor Isn’t Ordering, But Should Be.

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ORGANIC ACID TESTING (OAT)

This at-home urine analysis is one of the most clinically valuable laboratory diagnostics available today.  This little known test tells you everything you need to know about your cellular metabolism and is what I consider “the most bang for your buck”.  You can think of this test like an emissions test you run on your car.  The exhaust is examined to see how efficiently the engine is burning fuel.  Similarly, these “organic acids” in your urine reveal how efficiently several of your body systems are running.  Organic acids are byproducts resulting from the metabolic pathways, or chemical reactions, your body uses to transform food into energy, during growth, maintenance, and repair of body tissue.  This test looks at 46 organic acids to give a comprehensive snapshot of a patient’s overall health and how effectively metabolism is functioning.  Our state of metabolism determines our state of health and is the result of an interplay of our genetics, diet, lifestyle, toxic exposure, stress response, thoughts/emotions, and other environmental factors.  With this one sample we can gain insight into several different processes happening in the body and discover where any breakdowns may be occurring.  Read more