Acupuncture

Dr. Carol Cooper has taken an alternative path to healing the sick and the weary. A graduate of University of Maryland School of Medicine, Dr. Copper has been practicing family medicine for over 20 years. But sensing a frustration in her patients and a need to explore her interest in alternative medicine, Havre de Grace resident Dr. Cooper recently completed an additional 300 hours of training in acupuncture in order to narrow her field of practice to medical acupuncture. “About 15 years ago, I had a back problem and I went to a doctor who practiced acupuncture.

Maryland will soon be home to a new university — one in which students can train in acupuncture, Chinese herbs and other forms of integrative medicine. The Tai Sophia Institute, a Howard County holistic health training center, has received state accreditation and will be renamed the Maryland University of Integrative Health, school officials announced Monday. The school plans to nearly triple its student body, begin granting doctorates in acupuncture and other healing techniques, and bolster its reputation nationally and internationally, said its provost, Judith Broida.

It began at Howard Community College four years ago as a smoking cessation program, but apparently few students were willing to kick the habit via auricular acupuncture — a form of alternative medicine that involves insertion of fine needles into the ear. Yet HCC students were eager to know if the treatment offered other benefits, and when they heard that it could help them concentrate, relax and sleep better, many lined up to get stuck....

Living with cancer is not easy, but HealingPoint Acupuncture and Healing Arts in Columbia offers services to help ease the pain. Bridget Hughes founded HealingPoint as a general acupuncture practice with her husband, Brandon, in 2001. “We had no idea at the time that we would become so integrated into the oncology community in Howard County,” she says. After a local oncologist realized one of her patients had recovered from the severe side effects associated with radiation and chemotherapy after an acupuncture treatment at HealingPoint, word spread throughout the community.

One of the fastest-growing medical schools in Baltimore-Washington's state-of-the-art health care corridor teaches neither heart surgery nor cardiopulmonary resuscitation. The only subject at this school is an art 3,000 years old: acupuncture.One of just two dozen such schools nationwide, Traditional Acupuncture Institute has made downtown Columbia an American hub for Chinese medicine."With acupuncture becoming more widely known and recognized for its benefits, we've had an enormous influx of applicants seeking to learn from us," said Robert M. Duggan, co-founder and president of the institute.

M y husband the sports writer calls it "Team Reimer," and he says it has more members than the supporting casts behind any Olympic athlete he's ever covered. I tell him that if I was as young and fit as the athletes he writes about, I wouldn't need a team to keep me on the road. But I'm not, and so I have a yoga trainer, a massage therapist, the best hair-colorist in my town, a manicurist, a general practitioner to whom I am devoted and an aesthetician. Not that my husband knows what an aesthetician is. Now there is a new member of Team Reimer.

In the hours before her daughter's birth, Cynthia L. Taylor relied on modern medicine -- and acupuncture -- to help her to a drug-free delivery."The goal with acupuncture was to take the edge off the pain and help me relax -- not to eradicate the pain," said Mrs. Taylor, 28, of Pasadena. "I managed to deliver a 9-pound baby without medication."Sarah Augustina Taylor, the first acupuncture-assisted birth at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, was born at 5:01 p.m. July 7.Mrs. Taylor managed, she said, with help from her husband, Steve, and from Frances L. Gander, who is licensed in the ancient Chinese practice.

Andre Rigby is worried about the pain he'll feel from seven needles an acupuncturist is about to stick in his chest, thighs and the tops of his feet. But the treatment Rigby is undergoing at the Penn North Neighborhood Center is nothing compared with what he has experienced for the past 22 years. Until March, the 35-year-old high school dropout shot heroin, used cocaine and had been in jail three times. "I don't want to use [drugs] ever again," said Rigby. "I think about the pain that's out there -- when I do use. This acupuncture thing really helped me because I let it help me. I see differently, and I think differently, and I feel differently."

Robert Duggan, president of Tai Sophia Institute in North Laurel, was recently honored by the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association for his work in treating drug addicts with acupuncture. "His organization was the first to provide acupuncture treatment behind the walls to female offenders in the country. A decade later, acupuncture is a common practice," said LaMont W. Flanagan, commissioner of Maryland's pretrial detention and services division, who was also honored. At Penn North, a free Baltimore acupuncture clinic run by Tai Sophia, patients are getting better, Duggan said.

WESTMINSTER - The eight pairs of ears in the lounge of the Shoemaker Detoxification Center have heard it a thousand times: Drugs and alcohol are bad for you.But these eight people seem to listen more closely with acupuncture pins stuck in their ears.That's how Bruce Marshall uses one ancient medicine to open up patients to another age-old therapy -- common sense.Patients say Marshall's approach helps them realize how much damage they had been inflicting on their bodies."(Acupuncture) more or less opens your mind to a lot of thinking.

Under national health care reform, insurance policies in Maryland will be required to cover acupuncture for pain management and chiropractic care in certain cases. The plans won't cover acupuncture for other treatments, such as infertility or stress, and will limit home health care to 120 visits per year and physical therapy for ailments such as sports injuries to 50 days a year. The state panel charged with implementing health care reform in Maryland voted Thursday to include these services among those insurers will be required to cover once reform is fully implemented in 2014.

A growing number of people looking for less invasive procedures than plastic surgery or Botox injections to do away with wrinkles and sagging jawlines are turning to the ancient Chinese-rooted practice of acupuncture. And they are starting to come to Laurel's Main Street for the treatment. Since late 2011, acupuncturist Janet Young, of Laurel, has offered facial rejuvenation treatments at the Neighborhood Acupuncture center in the 300 block of Main Street. A master's-degree graduate of the Tai Sophia Institute in North Laurel, Young said using acupuncture to slow the aging process is not a quick fix like Botox, which relaxes the muscles and provides immediate results, but it does work.

Looking for an alternative to pharmaceuticals? Try heading east. Chinese herbs and acupuncture are the remedies of choice at Cheng's Acupuncture & Herbs Clinic, which opened in February in Columbia. The clinic is run by licensed acupuncturist Chengzhang Shi, who is certified by the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine. He specializes in traditional Chinese medicine, which he first learned from his father, a traditional Chinese medicine professor in Beijing.

Dr. Carol Cooper has taken an alternative path to healing the sick and the weary. A graduate of University of Maryland School of Medicine, Dr. Copper has been practicing family medicine for over 20 years. But sensing a frustration in her patients and a need to explore her interest in alternative medicine, Havre de Grace resident Dr. Cooper recently completed an additional 300 hours of training in acupuncture in order to narrow her field of practice to medical acupuncture. “About 15 years ago, I had a back problem and I went to a doctor who practiced acupuncture.

Acupuncture, the traditional Chinese medicine that uses needles for treatment, is increasingly being used with cancer patients. Dr. Ting Bao, an assistant professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and faculty at Maryland's Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center and Center for Integrative Medicine, regularly used acupuncture to alleviate pain and treat side effects. Question : How common is it for cancer patients to seek relief using acupuncture? Answer : It is difficult for me to come up with a percentage because there have not been many studies performed to answer this question yet. What I can say is that based on my experience at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center, more and more cancer patients are interested in integrating acupuncture into their cancer treatment.

It began at Howard Community College four years ago as a smoking cessation program, but apparently few students were willing to kick the habit via auricular acupuncture — a form of alternative medicine that involves insertion of fine needles into the ear. Yet HCC students were eager to know if the treatment offered other benefits, and when they heard that it could help them concentrate, relax and sleep better, many lined up to get stuck....

I lie down on the table, sighing in grateful anticipation as my longtime acupuncturist, Jen Forrest Evans, goes to work. Some days, she gently pokes needles into my chronically tight lower back. Other days, she focuses on my pesky sinuses. Still other days - the best ones - the goal is a general tuneup of my qi (pronounced "chee"), the Chinese term for vital (and sometimes, not vital enough) energy. This ancient Chinese technique of sticking needles into the skin to relieve pain, nausea and many other ills never fails to make me feel better - more mellow and energized.

In an effort to keep families together, Baltimore will open an innovative clinic that uses acupuncture to help mothers fight their drug addictions.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke yesterday unveiled plans for the Acupuncture--Maternal Substance Abuse Project, which starts in September.The goal, he said, will be to "allow children to stay within home and to allow mothers to function as the strong role models in the home."The project will treat up to 150 mothers with the 3,000-year-old Chinese medical practice, which uses long needles inserted at various points of the body.

Kathy Woods tried everything she could think of to save the female red-tailed hawk that was injured last year by crashing into a library window at the Johns Hopkins University. Even bird acupuncture. But the hawk's nerve damage proved too serious to overcome, and she was put to sleep. "The impact of the glass was just too much," Woods, who runs the Phoenix Wildlife Center in Baltimore County, said Tuesday. It wasn't the happy ending many wished for at Hopkins, where the hawk and her mate were such common sights that they attained "celebrity status on the Homewood campus," according to The Gazette, the university's newspaper.

Constant headaches and migraines had Diana Schulin considering acupuncture, but she found herself tensing at the thought of sitting alone in a room while being poked by a dozen needles. She finally took the plunge, and she's glad she did. The needles remain. But at least now she has company. The health care information worker is among a small but growing number of people experiencing the ancient Asian treatment in a group. Some come for the lower cost, while some, like Schulin, are drawn by the camaraderie.