You gotta find your people, Good morning that want to make you feel whole How you feeling?

You look so pretty today.

When youre together you got nothing to lose.

Good job.

In a world full of strangers you dont know who to trust.

You can't go it alone.

Everybody needs help.

go go go go go You gotta find your people then youll find yourself.

well, hello and welcome to HealthLine.

>> I'm Jennifer Blomquist.

I'm so glad you joined us tonight.

If you're one of our regulars, you know how it goes.

We love this show so much because everybody learns something every week and it's live we're here in the studio right now.

That is why the phone number is up at the bottom of the screen .

We have a guest with us tonight.

This show is going to be so amazing they are all amazing.

But tonight I'm really excited we're doing a show about acupuncture and actually we have an acupuncturist with us, a doctor who's an actual acupuncturist.

>> She's going to demonstrate it on herself.

I did not volunteer to do it.

She said she would do it to herself.

But if you have any questions about that, she has some really fascinating information to pass along.

Please call us at any time as I'm conversing with the doctor, we would love to hear from you so we'll keep that phone number up at the bottom of the screen.

It's (969) 27 two zero if you're outside of Fort Wayne just put 866- in front of the air and it won't cost you a penny to call.

You have two options when you call in the first one's my favorite.

I like it if you ask the question leave if you feel brave enough to do so we don't just throw you on the air.

You call in, you talk to a very friendly call screener and then we will connect you so that you can ask the doctor your question.

That's really nice because maybe the doctor needs more information from you to give you a better answer.

But I totally understand if you would prefer not to do it that way.

So when you talk to the call screener you can also just relay your question to her and she will give it to us and one way or the other we'll get an answer for you so just wanted to throw that out there.

The show goes quickly.

I would call sooner rather than later if you have a question.

So without further ado, we'll go ahead and introduce you to tonight's guests.

So she is brand new on our show.

This is Dr.

Lauren Warner and you are an acupuncturist.

>> Thank you for having me.

A pleasure to have you.

I've been doing this show since twenty eight and I don't recall though there's another gentleman who hosts Mark Evans but I don't recall ever doing a show for so excited about it.

>> I think I was telling you before the show I I don't really like needles.

I think most people probably don't and years ago I was writing for a magazine and they assigned me to go talk to an acupuncture doctor who is an acupuncturist and he was just all about it.

>> But really I left kind of scared, you know I really did it did not call me at all.

It was interesting.

Yeah, but just talking to you tonight I thought oh my gosh, it's really come a long way and all because that was what eighteen years ago.

>> Yeah.

So but even then feel free to cut me off if we need to take a caller because I'll talk about punctuality.

>> Yeah I could go but no I think a lot of people get scared of acupuncture.

They don't want to come in because they think we use like big giant hypodermic needles that you get your blood drawn with or an I.V.

These are really small.

They're hair like I mean they're four times just so they're so small they're four times smaller than a sewing needle.

There's stainless steel.

They get used once they get thrown away dispose of they honestly don't even really feel them when they go in.

Some might give you a little hello and I'll kind of demonstrate that later but it's honestly a very safe effective technique.

>> I usually fall asleep on the table every you know, that's just it.

>> I was doing a little research and it was like, you know, the Western culture doesn't really embrace it so much.

Even our medicine is only what a couple hundred years old and this is based on, you know, things that are thousands have been around for thousands of practices for thousands of years.

You so interesting.

So yeah, it originated three thousand years ago in China.

Yeah.

But really in the United States it's just been in the last fifty years or so in nineteen sixty nine you had your first acupuncture class ever taught which was in California in nineteen seventy five California was the first state to license it as a profession but it really kind of sparked the interest was a journalist in President Nixon's press corps went to China with him in nineteen seventy one and while he was over there the journalists had an acute appendicitis so he didn't have surgery over there and he had so much postop pain that the Chinese doctors there used acupuncture bedside to just kind of calm down his pain levels inflammation and he was so blown away by the response he came back and wrote an article about it that was in The New York Times and that was really the first time anything just been published in the media from like a first hand experience.

>> Yeah, well it goes it it really it looks scary because it's not natural to you know, to think about putting needles in your liver in your skin but you know, you brought your brought a model and everything with I mean it's it's hard to imagine it being relaxed but you of you you fall asleep.

>> Oh I fall asleep.

A lot of patients in general will just say they can't believe how relaxed they are having needles in them and it's true but it's a very relaxing environment.

I'm going to demonstrate it in a little bit.

>> You'll see how tiny they are.

We're not going deep.

It's fairly superficial right into the skin.

Yeah.

Is that how it at all is for acupuncture or there are different kinds?

>> Yeah there are different kinds.

First is there's kind of a spectrum on the types of treatment.

There's individual private sessions where you're in a treatment room by yourself and it's usually full body.

They'll do a front treatment, a back treatment.

You're there for about an hour then you have community acupuncture where you could be sitting in a room in a chair in zero gravity chairs, OK, five to ten other people just getting superficial like lower extremity upper extremity point something like at the beauty salon or whatever.

>> OK, or then there's things like battlefield acupuncture where I could just treat somebody right here just putting needles in your ear so there is a there is varying degrees of treatment.

But what I do like to explain to people is that there is you know, the traditional Chinese medicine has been around for thousands of years.

So I like to explain the eastern perspective but also just like the Western perspective now that we have modern anatomy and MRI's and EKG's, we kind of explain how it's working and what it's doing.

So the Eastern theory was very much based on hey, you've got these channels running up and down your body and that's where they would say your blood would flow or your chee your your energy would flow and back then they would say anything that block that flow, whether it was a physical trauma stress or an illness, what kind of caused stagnation of that flow and that stagnation would result in a physical or emotional symptom .

So if someone came in with shoulder pain they would say something's blocked here and they would tap points and along these channels to kind of open up that flow.

I'll fast forward all these years now we have this technology we can kind of measure things and do scientific studies.

It's like you do have these channels.

It's your nervous system in your vasculature the connective tissue is a huge part of it.

>> So I always say the physiology is very similar like if I were to take a little knife to cut myself I don't have to sit there and go make a scab, make us get like your body just knows how to do something injured the skin, get blood there, heal the wound.

So essentially when you're on the table we're just tapping in these little micro injuries so you lay on the table, you get a really nice increase in blood flow which is anytime you're moving blood you're moving oxygen nutrients carrying out lactic acid.

So it's a really nice antiinflammatory treatment and then we love acupuncture.

>> I love working on muscle tension.

It's very effective.

But one of the best parts in my opinion is how it's so effective for chronic pain because when the needles tap in your brain thinks hey, something pierced your skin, she must be in pain and it kind of tricks itself into releasing endorphins.

So you get this nice kind of happy chemical buzz and that's what calms down stress levels, cortisol levels and just kind of dials your pain signal down.

So that's kind of the eastern and western way to look at it.

Yeah, it's you know and I know there's been a lot of breakthrough medications but you know and I have two children who have chronic illnesses and I just I'm always kind of keep my eyes open for is there a more natural way that they can manage it it's Crohn's disease or have it their whole life insurance.

>> Sure.

And so I'm always looking at it because I just sit there when they're getting their infusions and I think I kind of feel like they're putting poison, you know?

>> I mean there are side effects.

Every drug has a side effect, you know, so I don't know what like is acupuncture I was told doesn't really have any side effects except positive things I'm sure no.

>> There's always you know, you could get a little bruise just a tiny drop bleeding maybe a little muscle soreness.

But acupuncture well the World Health Organization recognizes it for for treating over 40 different conditions.

But then there's a whole other list that it's recognized for being a really great complementary treatment.

It goes very well with medication postop procedures, fertility when women are getting IVF or right.

So there is a way to really integrate it with Western medicine.

It can be I wouldn't say it makes the medication more effective but if the acupuncture can be used to make the patient sleep a little better, have a little less inflammation, it just works as a whole with all these other things like the surgery or the pharmaceuticals.

So it does go really well with Western medicine but it can be used for certain things by itself.

Yeah, it's amazing.

It seems like they're endless.

Yeah yeah.

There's a lot of conditions.

It's been around for so long so you can Google almost any condition with acupuncture to find it but there are certain ones that are more effective than others.

Sure.

What we did we did have a question from somebody let's see I guess they wanted to ask the question for them.

>> So it was Doris.

She says she has myopathy and she's wondering if acupuncture would be helpful shoura for that it can be really good with myopathy which is a muscle type of pain muscle fatigue there we always you know when the patient comes in we would talk to her about other comorbidities, what other conditions she might have where the myopathy is coming from.

We'd look at her nutrition a little bit, work with her medical doctor to to see what she's taking supplement wise.

But the acupuncture can be really nice for temporary pain relief.

It can last longer depending on the condition, depending on how long she's had the myopathy, how severe it is.

The results may vary but would definitely be worth trying normally we'll say let's give it four or five visits over the first few weeks and then we reassess and see how you're doing if we're not noticing progress we'll tweak it a little bit and try a different protocol.

But myopathy would be a condition that I like acupuncture it's like having come into their office and if we don't think we can help you we will definitely send the provider that can do it.

>> Yeah, well there and there's just I think in general you just I see all these ads and commercials for things just to relieve achy joints and you know, just things that I can tell you from experience when you get old you start yeah.

Something different hurts like every day.

Yeah.

Yes I know.

And it's not from doing something cool like you know skydiving is just from living and you know I know it can be debilitating and you know and then that gets into I think a mental issue as well.

>> Just kind of depressing that you don't feel well.

So you know I don't know if it is acupuncture you know something people to turn to just for normal.

>> You know, wear and tear.

Yes.

Oh my gosh.

It's great for osteoarthritis, neck stiffness, low back pain.

But you even touched on how chronic pain will sometimes start to cause an emotional effect.

Oh, does depression go hand in hand?

Depression is one of those conditions.

Acupuncture is a great complementary treatment with the primary treatment being medication and counseling.

But the acupuncture really can help control some of the hormones and neurotransmitters and just help kind of give a calming antiinflammatory to them.

But yeah, it's an amazing treatment for muscle aches, stiffness, tension headaches are probably some of the favorite things to treat.

I think a lot of people have that.

Oh we all do.

I mean we live in a world we kind of wear our shoulders up like your hands and keep your chin jutted for and we're at the computer for a long time and so you'll get that tension that comes to the base of your skull and just kind of wraps around.

That's part one of my favorite conditions to treat a lot of acupuncture.

Stryper oh yeah.

Good to know.

So we have a couple calls I wanted to get to work before we do I want to ask you I've got to ask you about children like our children except can they can they do this or yeah.

>> And this will vary by practitioner so I always say call the office and see talk to the practitioner, the front desk staff see the ages that they'll treat sometimes at sixteen and up you can do acupuncture on any age but sometimes with little kids they're not big.

>> You don't see write like a toddler's not so that probably wouldn't work.

Yeah we'll recommend acupressure which instead of inserting a needle it's just using a light steady pressure about what you would press on a tomato when you're checking and you can kind of activate the Makana receptors there in the acupuncture point.

So acupressure is a really good one.

Some practitioners will do laser acupuncture.

You don't feel the laser.

It's a different kind.

It's very superficial but they'll do that to activate the point on kids.

So that's a good alternative.

It's good to know.

Yeah.

So let me go ahead and let's see there's actually Jody thank you Jody or she was going to ask her question live.

>> Jody, are you still there?

I sure am.

Oh thank you so much for calling.

Go ahead with your question.

My question is if there is a patient who's is like a post up recovery time and they want to add acupuncture to are the treatment options, is there a window of time where it's not appropriate or is it something that you could use as part of your postdoc recovery in enhancing healing and faster recovery ?

>> Sure for sure it can be great during post but in general I usually say wait four to six weeks post OP just because you want to have your follow up with your surgeon, you want to get cleared.

We want to make sure the incision is healing.

OK, so generally I recommend four to six weeks now there are some different things.

For example somebody has a hip replacement.

I don't necessarily want to put them in prone which is a face down position so we'll wait six weeks for them if a woman has had a hysterectomy, hysterectomy or a laparoscopy will wait about two months before putting them face down on the treatment.

So four to six weeks is a safe bet and always just mention it to your surgeon or primary care physician to make sure they're OK with it.

But we would never do any needling around the incision before that time.

Jody, if you had anything else you wanted to ask.

So thank you for calling.

Thank you, Joe.

Thanks.

Also wanted to take a question from a woman named It was Michelle and so you wanted me to ask for her.

She wanted to know about blood thinners like are there risks or can you do acupuncture if you're on blood thinners?

>> Yeah, you can definitely do acupuncture on blood thinners.

However, there is a baby aspirin is pretty benign.

That's fine.

But if they're on a higher dose, if they've had a stroke they're on higher doses of Eliquis or another blood thinner we would modify the protocol.

You're not going to do any scalp.

Certain points would be eliminated.

The needle in depth would be changed.

I will say if you have just had a stroke and this is just an example and you get on a high dose blood thinner, I would give it a few weeks if you're still going in to get your what's called an INR like your blood ratio checked everything I would hold off on acupuncture until your body's adjusted to it for a few weeks and again always checking with your doctor is a good idea but yeah ,the acupuncturist will modify the protocol on the points for blood thinners and I'm sure you know, we always tell people don't do anything drastic without checking with your family doctor.

But I mean I'm I'm assuming you probably have had many conversations with physicians acting in between.

Yeah, yeah.

And if the patient comes in to any office, practitioners are happy to let them know like look you need to wait a few weeks or let's talk to your doctor first just to make sure they're on board with it.

Yeah.

Thank you for calling in.

Yeah no I appreciate that so the phone lines are empty now we've cleared him up.

We've had three great calls.

Yeah, great questions.

We welcome more so again there's that phone number at the bottom of the screen it's (969) 27 two zero makes it a toll recall if you put eighty six in front of there in case you're outside of Fort Wayne we only have Dr.

Warner here for a little bit longer like another ten minutes.

I don't so I don't I don't know.

The show goes very quickly so please call sooner rather than later.

>> We'd hate to miss your question.

So I think some people, you know, might be a little overwhelmed at the thought of because you know, it reminds me of when I first got contacts when I was I was still in high school and I remember the woman saying I couldn't do it.

>> She said because it's just not natural.

She's like it's natural for us to want to put our finger all the way up to your eye.

So she was trying to get me to calm down about it and I guess I kind of think about acupuncture the same way like I look at a needle I think I don't you know, maybe it's like a quick shot but the thought of like laying down or sitting down and just being calm and having those so people are truly shocked at how relaxing it is.

>> I'll get you up to the demonstration.

>> Yes, please.

So like I said, normally if we're doing it we'll talk about individual kind of private sessions.

Some practitioners might put you in a gown or in shorts.

You'll get on a massage table.

So let's say we're going to do a face down treatment.

I always tell people the needles I mentioned stainless steel sterile.

I get used once and they get thrown away dispose of OK years ago I think in the seventies and eighties they used to sterilize them and reuse nobody.

>> No, you definitely want sterile single use needles but you can see how tiny they are now when I pull them out this is about a half inch you see if you don't oh yeah.

And if you can see oh there you see it on my shirt a little better trying to get it's very and that's the handle you're really seeing the actual tip of it is very very thin and so I always show that to patients is to alleviate any concerns about how why it looks like a hair.

>> I know he's very tiny like I said four times smaller than a sewing needle.

But what I tell patients is once you're comfortable on the table the area is cleaned with an alcohol swab and then I take the guide tube and just so my patients know what it feels like, I'll say this is the guide tube that's just what the plastic feels like.

>> Right?

So I want them to be used to it and then once the needle is loaded you'll still just feel the tube.

But when I'm ready to insert it you just feel me drop it and then it tapson just like that so and how long so how long do you leave that in.

>> It depends it'll vary on the condition the patient's age and what we're treating but once they're in people get worried they don't have to be stiff.

You can move a little with a man I don't want you to get up and walk around the room or anything but you can relax if you have them on your stomach.

Obviously don't bring your your arms up but you can see it's very comfortable now that one I didn't even feel someone they tap in you might feel a quick little pinch.

I say give it about ten seconds.

OK, let me know if it doesn't calm down or let your practitioner know if it doesn't calm down.

Now there are certain things you can do with the needle.

I like to come back to it and just tap it .

I'm not going to press it in deep.

We're just kind of tapping the needle because that creates a vibration and the vibration is what your skin receptors pick up on and signal your brain like hey, something's going on, get the blood move in the connective tissue responds to it now once they're in in Chinese medicine they call it the Dorce they want you to feel that stuck energy moving.

So I'll have patients some feel really heavy, some feel like they're floating.

I usually fall asleep, take a little nap.

We say there's no better nap than an acupuncture now.

Yeah but yeah once they're in no uncertain conditions like chronic low back pain or peripheral neuropathy we will actually clip a tens unit to it and that will give a little extra stimulation versus me manually tapping it.

But we do want you to feel sometimes a little pressure, warmth, tingling that's all a colleague is even a beneficial sign that we want to see.

We just don't want anything sharper, uncomfortable.

OK, and then normally let's say we're doing a full body treatment.

You'll relax on the table for about twenty minutes when the needles come out you just sometimes think about yeah sometimes you might get a little drop of blood occasion.

I gave myself a bruise the other day but in my itch a little but once they come out everything's thrown away.

Yeah.

So I've got my little sharps container everything's disposed of .

>> Yeah but yeah so a lot of times we might do a face down treatment.

The needles will be in for twenty minutes we take everything out in addition to acupuncture you might get some Gwoza which is a scraping technique you might get some cupping or some practitioners will utilize Sebastian which is like a warming Chinese herb and that's used to warm certain points and then you just would rub it on the skin.

It depends Max abortions used by certain practitioners they might have in cones or on sticks and little devices that you actually set on the skin where it burns.

So just the heat coming from it's not in direct contact but yeah.

So normally it's maybe twenty or twenty five minutes on each side they might do a hot pack.

>> I mean it's usually about an hour but that depends on the condition and the patient but it's very comfortable you can expect anywhere from five to twenty five needles on each side at separate times obviously but yeah I mean it'll vary by practitioner and go to somebody who knows what they're doing like don't hey my best friend's sister used to do this and you can she'll do it for free.

This is not this is not like you know sometimes I would have friends go through massage school this is actually laughing because I was behind the camera when she is a massage therapist but I had friends that would be like just wanting to do it on the side.

Sure.

And you know, it's not that it's not it's it's to be taken seriously.

Yeah.

I will tell anybody no matter where you live in this they just change their name it you used to be the NCC AOL mug and that was the website you could go to to find a practitioner that was a master's or doctoral level degree in acupuncture.

They just as of January 1st this year change their name and modernize it a little bit to the National Certification Board for Acupuncture and Herbal Medicine.

But that website is still the same.

I just checked it this morning.

It's still NCCAM or go to find a practitioner like I said, those are the those are the practitioners who have their master's degree or doctoral degree in acupuncture and I'm always a fan saying call the office, talk to them because usually practitioners if it's not a condition they specialize and they are happy to refer you to another practitioner there.

There's that Web address.

Sure.

Like doing that.

>> Yeah, that's great.

Yeah well because it is kind of a newer thing, you know and and there you may have a physician who's hesitant to it so you may have to explore it on your own and make sure it's the right thing for you.

>> Yes.

You know so do you find that you know somebody like I was intrigued by the chronic illness issue like something like I was mentioning my sons have Crohn's disease.

>> Oh sure.

So or you know, whatever the disease may be other people is OK to do acupuncture like your whole life .

>> Oh, I like I don't know if there's limits like you shouldn't do it more than oh so many times per year.

Yeah you can definitely do it for years I will say the limitations more on how often you're doing it I wouldn't say for particular conditions for a regular person just looking for relaxation or tension you don't need it daily.

You don't want that needles in for extended periods of time because it can be really fatiguing.

Oh sure yeah.

Protocols are definitely adjusted and I will say somebody sprains her ankle and they have a little swelling that's probably two visits, maybe three.

OK, somebody who's had bilateral knee pain for twenty years you're expecting probably eight to ten visits off the that just to kind of see how you're doing with it because of how long you've had the condition but yeah no acupuncture can be used throughout the life .

It's just how long the needles are in and how often you're having the treatment.

What there was there was we just have a couple of minutes left.

I just want to quickly ask you because I know I have heard of this dry needling and I feel like, you know, things are always there's always so confused ladies.

>> Yeah.

So is that different than acupuncture?

Yeah, it's kind of a hot question.

Yeah.

With acupuncture I will say they use the exact same kind of needle.

It just depends on the practitioner doing so with acupuncture.

So if you go to see an acupuncturist let's say for shoulder pain yeah yeah we might do some trigger point acupuncture which is a little bit deeper to release what we call Ashie or Trigger points.

It's been around for thousands of years this ashie acupuncture trigger point acupuncture but in addition to the shoulder we're also going to ask about your sleep and your stress and your digestion and you're going to get points other places besides your shoulder.

>> So that's kind of that difference.

Acupuncture still takes into account the whole body and the traditional Chinese medicine you go to dry needling the easiest way to describe those are Western practitioners who use an acupuncture needle to release trigger points, relieve myofascial pain.

It can be very effective.

It's just a hyperfocus use of an acupuncture needle.

It's very much based on just the Western medicine.

But acupuncture also addresses musculoskeletal issues.

I think both are very effective.

I just always recommend again calling the practitioner, talking to the mother training how often they they've done it what they had to do to get their certification and it you want to make sure that they do it frequently enough to be an expert at it?

Sure.

Because with dry needling or trigger point acupuncture for that matter, you are going a little deeper.

You're not just going into the connective tissue.

You're usually going down to the muscle to create a little reflex to get that muscle to relax.

So again, I know dry needling practitioners who are amazing and I know amazing acupuncture .

It's just finding the right person and seeing what they do.

I was going to say so I don't jump on the bandwagon until you really test.

There's always these trends in well-being so you want to make sure you're making good choices for sure for sure.

>> Sadly we have like 15 seconds left so I know you're a wonderful guest.

>> Thank you.

So nice talking to you for sure.

Same here.

Thank you for the demonstration.

I think hopefully you know, maybe you want to think about it.

You know, it's it's kind of maybe a new thing to you but definitely interesting.

So yes.

Dr.

Lauren Worner, thank you for having me go back and I hope you will join us next week.

>> One week from tonight we'll have another helpline for you.

>> I'm Jennifer Ludden.

Please take care.

Have a good night You gotta find your people, Good morning that want to make you feel whole How you feeling?

You look so pretty today.

When youre together you got nothing to lose.

Good job.

In a world full of strangers you dont know who to trust.

You can't go it alone.

Everybody needs help.

go go go go go You gotta find your people then youll find yourself.