Dr. "Winnie" Xiangjun Dong, LAc, DACM
Acupuncture & Wellness
(503) 343-9828
Frequently Asked Questions
How does acupuncture work?
Acupuncture is a procedure in which very fine needles are placed just below the skin’s surface in different parts of the body. There are acupuncture points in every part of the body including head, neck, back, arms, legs, and ears. Typically, needles are left in place for 30 minutes. Treatment can be done on a massage table or with patients in comfortable chairs.
Acupuncture treatment encourages the body to promote natural healing and improve function. The World Health Organization recognizes that acupuncture is appropriate for treating insomnia, sinus problems, the common cold, asthma, bronchitis, eye disorders, pain in various locations, tennis elbow, sciatica, low back pain, rheumatoid arthritis, hiccups, diarrhea, constipation and other gastrointestinal problems, headaches, and other neurologic conditions.
How does Chinese Herbs work?
Chinese herbal medicines treat the underlying causes of illness rather than individual symptoms. Herbal medicine uses plants and natural substances for medicinal purposes. Many herbs are well known plants found in the kitchen. For example, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, walnut, and pearl powder. Others are well-known but not common eaten such as peony, Cicada, Gecko, Rhubarb root and gizzard lining.
Herbal treatment is the world’s most ancient form of healing. A formula is meticulously designed based on an individual's presentations, and applied holistically to address physical, emotional and spiritual issues.
There are three ways herbs are delivered: bulk (which requires soaking and cooking herbs at home); granules (which are preprocessed and condensed in 5:1 ratio); and patterns that are typically in small round ball shape used for cases which are relatively uncomplicated.
What is cupping?
Cupping is a technique that uses small glass cups as suction devices placed on the skin. There are several ways that a practitioner can create the suction in the cups. One method involves lighting an alcohol-soaked cotton ball and quickly inserted into a cup, creating a vacuum, and placing the cup on the skin. Once the suction has occurred, the cups can sometimes be gently moved across the skin. The suction in the cups causes the skin and superficial muscle layer to be lightly drawn into the cup. Cupping is much like the inverse of massage - rather than applying pressure to muscles, it uses gentle pressure to pull them upward. For most patients, this is a particularly relaxing and relieving sensation. Once suctioned, the cups are generally left in place for about ten minutes while the patient relaxes.
This is similar to the practice of Tui Na, a traditional Chinese medicine massage technique that targets acupuncture points as well as painful body parts, and is well-known to provide relief through pressure. Generally, cupping is combined with acupuncture in one treatment, but it can also be used alone. The suction and negative pressure provided by cupping can loosen muscles, encourage blood flow, and sedate the nervous system (which makes it an excellent treatment for high blood pressure).
Cupping is used to relieve back and neck pains, stiff muscles, anxiety, fatigue, migraines, rheumatism, and even cellulite. For weight loss and cellulite treatments, oil is first applied to the skin, and then the cups are moved up and down the surrounding area.
Cupping is one of the best deep-tissue therapies available. It is thought to affect tissues up to four inches deep from the external skin. Toxins can be released, blockages can be cleared, and veins and arteries can be refreshed within these four inches of affected materials. Even hands, wrists, legs, and ankles can be 'cupped,' thus applying the healing to specific organs that correlate with these points. This treatment is also valuable for the lungs, and can clear congestion from a common cold or help to control a person's asthma. In fact, respiratory conditions are some of the most common maladies that cupping is used to relieve.
Testimonials
"Winnie Dong is gentle and intuitively gets to the core of health issues. Winnie offers her patients a wealth of healing modalities, and can always speed up healing with her extensive knowledge of herbs, acupuncture, shiatsu massage and diet.
Our family has had numerous physical challenges permanently resolved with Winnie’s help and my children trust her completely. "
Shirley K
What is Gua Sha?
Gua Sha is performed by scrapping the skin surface using a smooth edged object to produce Petechiae. It helps to detoxify the body and relieve pain. Gua Sha is popular in Asia because the technique is simple, easy to use, and the results are often fast and effective. Gua Sha is used in the clinic to treat acute or chronic pain, common cold, respiratory issues, muscle spasm, sprain and strain.
In China, Gua Sha is a widely-used home remedy, but the efficacy of this modality brings the attention of researchers of the medical community as well. Researchers from institutions like Harvard and Beth Israel Medical Center are demonstrating both efficacy, as well as offering insight on why Gua Sha works. A study published by researchers from Harvard and Beth Israel Medical Center in a 2011 edition of Pain Medicine demonstrated that Gua Sha decreased pain for chronic neck pain sufferers, noting that “neck pain severity after 1 week improved significantly better in the Gua Sha group compared with the control group (heat therapy).”
What is Chinese Nutrition Therapy?
In ancient China, nutrition was considered the primary medicine of choice that encompasses the energetics of foods. Every food has a type of energy in addition to its physical components: foods are warming or cooling, drying or moistening, tonifying, calming, stimulating and moving etc.
Different foods affect different organs of the body in the Chinese system, so that a patient’s diet may be altered to specifically target different organs and tissues. For example, eating fruits and food with white-colored flesh is good for stopping dry coughing typically nagging during fall for seniors. Such food includes pears, chrysanthemum, lily bulb and wolfiporia.
As such, the Chinese system considers how food affects the body on an energetic level when it is eaten. In WyEast, food recommendations are given to enhance health or supplemental to herbs for healing.