Well. I've always believed in Eastern medicine, growing up. Come on now, this is a practice used…read moresince 3000 BC, I think these kung fu panda masters know what they're doing, or they wouldn't still be in business. All joking aside, I used to have a very severe sciatic nerve problem (some days it was hard to walk), and after going through treatment with an acupuncturist up in nor cal, my MRIs showed that I no longer had a sciatic problem, and I was almost completely pain free. At the time, another white dude that was also going through treatment claimed that she had healed his torn ACL- but I don't have any personal experience with that.
Anyway, the bf sprained his ankle last weekend playing ball. It was swollen like a balloon. I think I also meanly referred to them as cankles. Well, his parents told him to go to Dr. Amy Aiping Sun in Rosemead to get it fixed and I offered to take him since I was in a car accident a couple months back and wanted to get it looked at as well, and didn't know who to go to in the area. (You really should choose your acupuncturists wisely, as some just really don't know the technique and poke away and maybe make your pain worse.)
Anyway, she started to go to work on his foot. It was swollen, purple, and he had to crutch his way in to the second floor. Thank God for the elevator. There's no way we would have made it otherwise. About an hour later, she was done with him and he walked out of the clinic.
What, you say? I don't belief. How can possible be? I don't really know, but all I know is she got rid of the purple bruised stuff with some Cupping (read about the technique here http://ezinearticles.com/?Cupping---An-Alternative-to-Acupuncture&id=326025) and use some needles to poke magical powers into him. He wasn't able to put any pressure on his sprained foot before, and after the treatment, he could. I mean it doesn't get any more black and white than that.
I guess you're also wondering what happened to me. Well, she started out the treatment by asking me where the pain was and what had happened. She began treatment with some needles, which didn't hurt too much. It just felt like a pinch. After the needles, she did some acupressure therapy (like massaging) and told me the problem was in this one area and that she needed to use the cupping technique to draw out the bad stuff. Well. The cups don't feel all that great. Just think of a glass cup, sucking your skin with a large amount of pressure. Luckily, it only lasted for a couple minutes. Then, she showed me this hardened clot of blood that was in my back (calcified?), and told me this was what was causing the pain. She said if I never took that out, I'd probably have pain for a long time.
Four months after my car crash, after going through countless chiropractic visits, I am finally almost pain free (after only one visit!). It was like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders, except from my back.
Anyway, I don't think acupuncture is for everyone. I think it definitely has its merits with alleviating pain. It's a practice that has been developed over thousands of years, though Westerners don't really understand it. It has to do with the yin-yang of your qi and drawing the bad stuff out, instead of battling it out internally with medicine. Though people here call it "alternative" medicine, I don't think it is an alternative for anything. I think poppin some vicodin for my pain would have been the alternative. Anyway, I am pretty drug free and rarely even take tylenol unless I have a fever. I likely won't need to (for pain) with Dr. Aiping around.
This clinic is safe and clean, and Dr. Aiping uses new needles and has been doing it over 30 years, in case u were worried about that. She is awesome and really knew what she was doing in my case and the bf's case. I think they take some PPO insurances, but you'll have to check your plan for that.
Also, the address needs to be updated: 9143 valley blvd #201B, 91770. 626-280-9268
