Your spine ages with time, just as your hair gets gray and your skin wrinkles. An impressive study followed the spine MRIs of 2,000 patients of different ages having no back pain. Changes showed disc degeneration, disc protrusion, and/or disc bulge began as early as 20 years old, worsened steadily over the years, reaching 90% by their […]
Pain Management
Treatments / Pain Management
Pain Management
We understand, at WholeHealth Chicago, that pain may not be just a symptom of a larger problem and is a medical condition to take seriously.
If left untreated, pain can lead to stress, loss of strength, physical impairment, sleep disturbance and emotional suffering. It is our goal to get to the root of the problem, identify the site and underlying causes of pain, and alleviate discomfort for a better quality of life.
In recent years, policymakers and insurance companies have been obligated to look into ways to make acupuncture available and affordable nationally. Even though acupuncture needles are about as fine as a human hair and most patients feel very little discomfort, some people are just needle-phobic. No problem. Most practitioners of Chinese medicine also are trained in shiatsu, best described as needle-free acupuncture in which fingertip pressure is applied to acupuncture points. Here’s an article on it.
As helpful as acupuncture might be for chronic pain, the researchers emphasize that it rarely works alone. Opioids for pain relief can likely be reduced with acupuncture, but medications must remain available without the stigma unhelpfully provided by many pharmacists, emergency rooms, and the young doctors vowing “no opioids ever.”
Other therapeutic modalities are needed, too, including chiropractic, relaxation techniques like yoga, physical therapy (especially transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation–TENS–units for home use), occupational therapy, and counseling. When combined with some of these therapies, acupuncture–plus national access to medical marijuana—can reduce a patients pain and ultimately the use of prescription opioids.
- Acupuncture
- Traditional Chinese Medicine & Herbs
- Homeopathy
- Chiropractic Medicine
- Nutrition
Providers
David Edelberg, MD
Medical Director & Internal Medicine Physician
Dr. Edelberg, board certified in Internal Medicine in 1974, began incorporating alternative therapies into his practice during the 1980’s. Since founding the parent company of WholeHealth Chicago in 1993, he has become nationally recognized as one of the pioneers of integrative medicine, the new medical specialty combining conventional medicine with alternative therapies.
Health Tips
Decades ago, when I was first piecing together what has now become WholeHealth Chicago, I listened to a talk by Carolyn Myss, Ph.D. author of, “Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can.” From her, I heard “your biography determines your biology.” Later, I read the works of Dr. John Sarno, a specialist in physical […]
It’s good for you to know a little something about ‘cytokines.’ ‘Cyto’ is Greek for ‘cell,’ ‘kine’ for movement, like ‘kinetic.’ ‘Cytokines’ are molecules released by cells during episodes of ‘stress,’ like an injury, an infection, or fighting a cancer. Some cytokines increase inflammation, imaginatively called pro-inflammatory cytokines, others decrease it: anti-inflammatory cytokines. They cause […]
Well, maybe not all of conventional medicine. But almost every day, in order to find material for Health Tips, I scan through the JAMA Journal of the AMA websites, Medscape, and their links, as well as a couple of nutritional and natural medicine sites. After thirty years, I know what I’m looking for and can […]
Patti came to our offices with her daughter and she’d written “Everything hurts” on our patient intake form. As she rose from the waiting room chair, her face grimaced in pain. Patti was middle-aged and seriously overweight. If there’d ever been a spring in her step, it had vanished long ago. Patti said she’d been […]
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