First year acupuncture students often give themselves away by asking: “what’s a good point for relieving a headache?” After a couple of years of training, students know better: headaches can be as varied as the people that experience them, and no one treatment works for everyone. While this may seem like common sense, all too often […]

My three year old loves sugar! Cookies, candy, ice cream. If it’s sweet, she wants it. This leads to predictable tantrums: “…But I NEEEED something SWEEEEET!”  Of course, for her health and our sanity, my husband and I can’t feed her only sugar, and we’ve developed various strategies (some more effective than others) to talk

Beginning in September I will be returning to my practice! As many of you know, I have been on maternity leave this summer. I have thoroughly enjoyed the special time I’ve spent with my daughters, the baby and the pre-schooler, and now am looking forward to working with patients again in pursuit of health and

When will the bill go into effect? We don’t know exactly, but it will likely be a year or more. Will my insurance cover my visits now that bill has passed? The bill does not contain any provisions regarding insurance coverage.  Once it goes into effect it will be up to individual insurance companies to

I’m not going to lie to you; it was pretty hard to get out of bed this morning.  And then when I heard on the radio about the record breaking low temperatures… Let’s just say it feels like a miracle that I made it into the office rather than scurrying back under the covers (side note:

The supplement industry, with its lack of regulation, is a bit like the Wild West. A bottle may say it contains a certain herb, but how do you know if that is actually true? This problem was brought home for me by some recent news from New York. On Monday the New York State Attorney

I want everyone in Massachusetts to have access to high quality naturopathic health care.  The first step towards this goal is getting naturopathic doctors licensed in Massachusetts.  All of the New England states except for Massachusetts and Rhode Island license naturopathic physicians, and it is high time we joined the club.  If you live in

This is a re-post of an article I wrote last year. If you are interested in learning more, please join me for a free workshop on overcoming chronic stress with natural medicine.  Running out of Fuel? When I was twenty one I moved into an old and rather ramshackle farmhouse.  The house was heated with a

If you think the idea of morphine and oxycodone combined into one pill sounds a bit like a recipe for disaster, you are not alone. A key government panel voted unanimously last Tuesday against the approval of this powerful new drug, known as Moxduo.  A Nation In Pain Perhaps you are one of the 100 million Americans (and that

The information contained in this blog post is for informational purposes only, and is not intended to diagnose or treat any medical condition.    When you have a headache, backache, knee pain, menstrual cramps, or any other type of pain, you want it to go away NOW.  You’ve seen the commercials for pain medications telling

I once ran into a bear on a backpacking trip. There I was, walking along a trail, minding my own business, when I turned a corner and came face to face with a large black bear, who was none to pleased to see me in her blueberry patch.  I was not pleased either. In fact,

In Chinese Medicine, the Summer is associated with the Fire Element, and the Heart. When I learned about the Heart in Chinese Medicine, what it is, and it’s implications for my life and for all of humanity, it was nothing short of revolutionary.  I’d like to share a little here about the Chinese concept of

It’s that time of year again.  The weather is getting warmer, the flowers are starting to pop out of the ground and all over the valley allergy symptoms are coming out of hibernation. What are allergies? In order to understand allergies, we need to understand the immune system.  The immune system is a complex array

What is Fibromyalgia?  What is Chronic Fatigue? For most medical doctors, Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are diagnoses of exclusion.  This means that a patient is said to have one of these conditions when we can’t figure out anything else that is wrong with them, but they are clearly in pain.  There is a value

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Full of family, friends, and yes, LOT’S of food and drink!  I don’t know about you, but after Thanksgiving I am often left feeling a little heavy.  My body feels like it wants a cleans or a detox, but who has the time between Thanksgiving and the Winter holidays?  Luckily,

I am involved in some in depth study of the acupuncture points on the head.  There is so much information that gets processed inside our heads.  The cognition that goes on in there is really special to our particular species.  I love that through acupuncture we can  access the deep intelligence we are all capable