Browse our articles on Herbal Medicine

In Western culture, it is a little-known fact that Chinese medicine is fantastic for sports and traumatic injuries. This medicine evolved alongside martial arts and warfare, but we can also use it for more everyday injuries like sprained ankles. Treatments were designed to be practical, and effective. Some of the techniques used are acupuncture, internal […]

Please read the following updates if you intend to either book an herbal medicine consultation or get an herbal medicine refill at our clinic in the future.  We are changing certain protocols and rates for herbal medicine consultations. Effective July 15, 2017, the changes are designed to better account for the time, expertise and cost of […]

If you’ve had one, you know: a migraine is so much more than a headache. Patients with migraines often report that they get in the way of their day-to-day lives, forcing them to cancel plans, stay in bed and call in sick. Here’s how we help our clients–like the ones below–become migraine-free, naturally. Most common […]

We love turmeric for its myriad health benefits, which is why we carry the very finest turmeric supplements in our clinic shop. Here we detail (and trumpet) the benefits of Gaia brand’s Turmeric Supreme formula for Pain, which, along with Gaia’s Turmeric Joint and Turmeric Cardio, is available at our Washington DC acupuncture clinic in […]

Do you have tension headaches with any regularity? If so, congratulations – you’re part of a colossally large club. Of all headache types, tension headaches (also called myogenic or muscle contraction headaches) are the most common, with the World Health Organization reporting episodic tension headaches for 70% of some populations1. Read on to find to […]

Different types of sciatic pain Sciatic pain (sciatica) usually affects only one side of the body, with the pain extending from the lower back/buttocks down the leg. When asked to specify what they’re feeling, our patients with sciatic pain describe the following: Pain in the buttocks or leg that worsens with sitting Burning, tingling, or […]

When insomnia rears its restless head, it can have many different faces. Traditional Chinese herbal medicine recognizes several different patterns of insomnia, and treats them according to their specificities. Here we walk you through four common types of insomnia and the herbal formulas used to address them. But broadly speaking, Chinese herbal formulas treat treat […]

Modern city life has a lot to offer, sometimes even too much. Many people find themselves frazzled and exhausted at the end of a long work day, wanting nothing but a good night’s sleep, only to find themselves lying in bed for hours watching their minds race like a runaway train. This is because we […]

As we discussed in our Secrets of Pulse Diagnosis post, tongue diagnosis is another primary method in Chinese Medicine for understanding what is happening inside the human body. It is the other “MRI” of traditional medical systems. While tongue diagnosis can be used for acupuncture, it is of particular importance for determining the proper diagnosis […]

The pulse is measured in both Western medicine and Chinese medicine, but there are key differences.  In Western medicine, we typically measure the heart rate, which is taken with blood pressure as part of a standard physical exam. In Chinese medicine, pulse diagnosis is a significantly more developed art form, a tool that practitioners use […]

Back pain for all ages… We all know the quintessential image of low vitality: the hunched, hobbling elderly person, one hand holding a cane, the other supporting their aching back. But if our patients are any indication, back pain does not discriminate by age. We have as many twenty-somethings coming in for back pain as […]

An estimated 36 million people in the US suffer from migraines – that’s a lot of headache.  But migraines are much more than a bad headache. They are a collection of debilitating neurological symptoms that can last from 4-72 hours. The most common symptoms experienced by migraine sufferers are: throbbing/pulsating pain extreme sensitivity to light, […]