Another Long Deep Breathing Newpaper Article!

This article form the Fairfax Times actually came out in December, 2009.   In addition to talking about the Long Deep Breathing App, it talks  about our practice.

Here’s the link:

http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/cms/story.php?id=779

Here’s the article:

Software application teaches benefits of deep breathing by Gregg MacDonald | Staff writer

Shamus Ian Fatzinger/Fairfax County Times Darshan S. Khalsa, of Reston’s Khalsa Integrative Medicine, LLC, displays the iPhone application he helped design to lead users through a series of deep breathing exercises. A Reston alternative healer has teamed up with a Herndon software developer to create an iPhone software application that helps people practice holistic deep breathing techniques — and it is selling all over the world.

Darshan Khalsa, 61, and his wife Carol O’Donnell Khalsa are Reston-based alternative medicine providers whose Khalsa Integrative Medicine practice centers on holistic care, including Oriental medicine, acupuncture, herbal and enzyme therapy, nutrition, yogic breathing, detoxification, sound therapy and fertility medicine.

The practice has been in existence since 2003.

“In holistic medicine we take a logical, step-by-step approach to discover what is out of balance and bring people back into balance,” Darshan Khalsa said. “Stress is the catalyst for 70 percent of other problems, and getting it under control is a logical first step.”

Khalsa achieves this in part by having patients utilize the Kundalini Yoga technique of long, deep breathing that he has practiced since converting to Sikhism more than 30 years ago.

“Sit with your spine straight or lay on the floor with your spine straight,” the application instructs. “All inhaling and exhaling is through the nose …”

“Stress creates short, shallow breathing, much like a fight-or-flight response,” Khalsa said. “By controlling breath, you induce a more relaxed state in your body and enable it to lower blood pressure, increase blood circulation and aid in digestion.”

“Every form of yoga has its form of breathing practices,” agreed Suzanne Leitner-Wise, founder of U.S. 1. Yoga Teacher Training Academy in Alexandria.

“Scientific study has shown that breathing practices are extremely beneficial to health as they help to release toxins from the body, and can lower high blood pressure and help asthma sufferers,” she said.

Carol Khalsa attributes the original spark that led to developing the iPhone application to President Obama.

“When we went to President Obama’s inauguration, we were inspired by the president telling people to go out into their communities and ‘do some good,’” Carol Khalsa said. “So we thought, ‘Why not figure out a way to tell more people about the benefits of long deep breathing exercises?’”

It turns out that the Khalsas already had the means to make their vision into a reality.

Jeanne Churchwell is a patient of Darshan Khalsa. She is also half-owner of Herndon software company Tech 2000 Inc.

When the Khalsas related their desire to get the deep breathing technique out to a wider audience, Churchwell knew exactly what to do. “I told them, ‘You need to make that into an app!’” she said.

“As soon as I saw an iPhone, I wanted one,” Darshan Khalsa said. “I’m a little bit of a techie, so the idea appealed to me.”

Tech 2000, which employs about 15 people, has been in business since 1984 but only began developing iPhone applications this year.

The Khalsas and the Churchwells collaborated and came up with the Long Deep Breathing application that launched last month. “The Khalsas really hit a niche market,” Churchwell said. “We were amazed. It began selling in Great Britain and Australia the day it came out.”

The application, which sells for 99 cents, has both an informational component that lists the benefits and history of the deep breathing technique, and a feature that allows you to set the pace and duration of your breathing exercise regimen. An optional verbal prompt can assist users as they perform their breathing.

A visual aid helps the user to inhale and exhale correctly by following a moving vertical scale and keeps track of time, so that the user can perform the exercises for the correctly allotted period.

Although the application is currently selling at a rate of about 20 a day and their costs are expected to be recouped in about six months, the Khalsas insist that they did not create the application for the money.

“This is our gift to the community,” said Carol Khalsa. “In our office, we can reach at most a couple of thousand people a year to let them know about this technique.

“With the application, we can reach untold millions.”

[Via http://darshankhalsa.wordpress.com]

Acupuncture Facelift

              

Photo 1 is before treatment Photo 2 is half way through and an after Photo will be posted when treatments are finished.  Photo 3 is during treatment.  The changes are great, as you can see but also she feels her skin has firmed up, she has better blood circulation also her skin is very soft, and smooth.  It is a wonderful treamtent and great alternative to surgical facelift, and botox.

[Via http://drlisamarie.wordpress.com]

Chinese Medicine / Acupuncture May "Cure"(Controled Very Well) Dystonia in a Long-term Treatment

Dear Dr. Fan,                                                                                        02/18/2010

 

My name is L……  I have 9.5 years old daughter who has dystonia since she was about 6 years old. The dystonia started with her right leg, and now also affect her left leg.

She also has mild dystonia on her eyes and mouth. Since the dystonia started, Josephine has been having problem with walking. Her feet turned inward and also stiff.

She walks very very slow, and her gait makes it even worse. She also gets a lot of headache.

Her neurologist precribed her Artane for the dystonia, and she has been taking it until today.

 

I look forward to have alternative treatment such as acupuncture, and Chinese herbal medication. For right now I can not take her outside California to visit your clinic, but I am working on it to be able to take her seeing you. However, I would like her to get Chinese herbal medication and start taking it asap.

 

I am still working on having her video and sending it to you. Please respond to me about how we could get her Chinese herbal medication.  Her insurance will not cover this alternative treatment, so we will pay by ourselves. So please also let us know the cost of the medication.

 

Thank you very much for returning my call this morning. I have a very high hope after reading your website. I realize dystonia is not something that can be cured, but at least if it can be mild it will mean so much for my daughter’s life. Looking forward to hearing from you.

 

Sincerely,

 

L

The Reply from Dr.Arthur Fan 02/19/2010 9:00AM

Dear Lenny, 

That is correct. Almost all of treatments for dystonia in conventional medicine is symptom treatment(no cure). Using Chinese medicine,acupuncture plus herbs, it is also very hard to be cured in a short time. However, we do have some patients “cured” ! 

That does the “cured ” mean in dystonia? 

Answer: most of dystonia symptomes gone and just need mild herbal medicine or acupuncture maintainess. The treatment for that aim is at least 6 month to one year, or even more.

This treatments are not payable from your insurance in current time.  And you need patience.

 Please give me her other information: 

Appetite, bowel movement condition,sleep condition.

Tongue color–coating(white? yellow? thin or thick) and tongue color(pink or very red),

Pulse (you could let a local acupuncturist have a look).

 For more information, such how much the fee for herbs, capsule, etc. You could read the detail online in my blog.www.arthuryinfan.wordpress.com(dystonia part)

Arthur Yin Fan, PhD,CMD,LAc McLean Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, PLC 8214 Old Courthouse Road, Tysons Square Office Park, Vienna, VA 22182. Phone:(703)499-4428; Fax:(703)547-8197 Web: www.ChineseMedicineDoctor.US Blogs: www.arthuryinfan.wordpress.com

[Via http://arthuryinfan.wordpress.com]

Acupuncture for TMD & Chronic Pain

When you’re suffering from TMJ pain or a full-blown TM Joint Disorder (TMD), with its tangle of head, face, jaw, neck and shoulder pain, getting rid of that pain is always the first priority. Ideally, this is accompanied by treatment of what’s causing the pain so that it stops.

The easiest thing to do, of course, is to take drugs to mask the pain, but this measure is stop-gap at best, potentially expensive and not conducive to true health. Consequently, a good number of people opt not to go that route and instead turn to any number of nontoxic therapies for pain-reduction.

One of the most commonly used is acupuncture, which is the focus of a new study in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. For it, researchers reviewed studies in four different databases, selecting only those studies published in scientific journals between 1997 and 2008 that used randomized controlled trials, acupuncture treatment and subjects with TMD of muscular origin. Four studies were found to be acceptable, and of those, three demonstrated “short-term improvement of TMD signs and symptoms of muscular origin.” The remaining study showed no significant difference between acupuncture and sham treatment.

These are promising results, but of course limited, both in terms of understanding acupuncture’s long-term effects and the relative lack of research.

Clearly, more work needs to be done in this area, even as other research continues to provide evidence that acupuncture can be an effective treatment for all sorts of pain.

For instance, another recent meta-analysis – this one published in Pain Practice – reviewed eight eligible studies published between 2003 and 2008 on acupuncture for chronic pain. The authors found that

For short-term outcomes, acupuncture showed significant superiority over sham for back pain, knee pain, and headache. For longer-term outcomes (6 to12 months), acupuncture was significantly more effective for knee pain and tension-type headache but inconsistent for back pain (one positive and one inconclusive). In general, effect sizes (standardized mean differences) were found to be relatively small.

Thus, they conclude that, “The accumulating evidence from recent reviews suggests that acupuncture is more than a placebo for commonly occurring chronic pain conditions. If this conclusion is correct, then we ask the question: is it now time to shift research priorities away from asking placebo-related questions and shift toward asking more practical questions…?”

In light of this, as well as other exciting research showing the effects of acupuncture on the brain – specifically, those areas that process pain – we say, “Absolutely.”

 

[Via http://drvee.wordpress.com]

How did your internship in China influence your practice?

As the first American to study at the Xi Yuan Hospital in Beijing, I was honored to be mentored by some of China’s most experienced doctors.   I  worked in a setting where Chinese Medicine and Western Medicine were integrated and serious conditions were effectively treated with acupuncture and herbal medicine in the hospital setting.  Today in my clinic I still draw on the wisdom and practical tips from my teachers in China. A favorite line of one of my teachers was, “One disease, long life.  No disease, short life,”  that is, it usually takes an illness for people to learn good self-care which is essential for longevity.

[Via http://acucenter.wordpress.com]

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Waning Moon

Mars Retrograde

Snowy and cold

We had about four inches of snow overnight. The roads look pretty clear, so I think I can hold on to my original intent to go to Greenwich Library after lunch to do some research.

Linkage stuff to share: My SDR blog is up “The Intersection of Life and Fiction.” The new issue of THE SCRUFFY DOG REVIEW is out, with my Literary Athlete column on workshops. Kim Smith kindly awarded me a “Prolific Blogger” award last week, and I haven’t had the chance to pay it forward, although I plan to in the next few days.

Acupuncture was great yesterday, and I felt so much better once I was done. Driving to and from Long Island wasn’t all that bad, either.

The writing went very well, so that was a relief. Switching between the long WIP I’ve been working on (tentatively titled POWER OF WORDS) and the dark piece (REDEMPTION KILL) works because they’re very different, and yet, they feed off each other in a weird way. Hey, I’m not going to argue, I’m just going to roll with it.

Two very interesting and different conversations yesterday re: scriptwriting jobs for which I’d pitched. The first really liked my samples, but they need someone local (in LA) to be on-site doing topical revisions — it’s the monologue for a small, daily show. They hired someone to fit that, but wanted to talk to me anyway about future projects. They’re in negotiations for a development deal for some scripted web projects, and wanted to know if they could keep me on file and contact me if and when they had funding for something like that. That project could be done mostly remotely, but, if and when they needed me present, they’d also have the funds to bring me out west as needed, whereas this project doesn’t have the budget. Everything’s an “if”, but they came across as having integrity, and should the opportunity come up, I think we’d work together well. If the opportunity doesn’t come up, at least we had a good talk!

The second conversation was more typical. They like the samples, but wanted me to write a project-specific script for them to “help them make their decision.” Without pay. I refused. I said I’d write a partial at a specially-negotiated rate, but I don’t do free project-specific samples. I know that road — the “employer” sends out different “samples” to different individuals, tells everyone they’ve hired someone else and gets the whole project for free, not paying anyone. I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck. They also said that, although, in the ad, they’d listed a per-script rate (which I found acceptable but not brilliant), they’d decided that was the rate they were paying for ALL the scripts, not just one. I said no, thank you. These are NOT people I’d want to work with in the future.

So, I watched the premiere of LOST’s final season. I didn’t watch the narrated pre-show explanation — I stand by my belief that if you have to keep explaining things, you’re not telling the story well. I enjoyed seeing old, familiar faces from the first season, the season I liked. I enjoyed the scenes from “the plane didn’t crash” section. I see where they’re going with the rest of it, and I’m just sighing and shaking my head. As I’ve said frequently when I’ve dipped into it once I stopped watching regularly, I enjoy the scene work, but not the overall arc, and I don’t trust the creators to lead me on a fulfilling journey. I’m glad the show gets the support it does, it is truly innovative on so many levels, and I’m glad so many people are fanatically loyal to it — that helps everyone creatively, the show’s creators, the writers, the actors — and, once the knock-offs run out of steam, will hopefully open the door to more innovation. But LOST lost me at the top of Season 3 and never won me back. It’s really well done, and, in spite of it, I feel like they’re over-manipulating the audience. To me, that’s a turn-off. I’ll probably watch it here and there over the coming weeks, and I want to see the series finale to see if my speculations are correct. But I’m certainly not planning my week around it.

Imbolc ritual was lovely, honoring the stirring of what is to come.

Good first writing session this morning. The word count is low, but I’m writing a scene that’s both physically and emotionally complex and I’d rather take my time with it than rush through it. It’s pivotal to the rest of the book, so I’d rather get it mostly right (there’s always room for improvements during revision) than rush through it, blow it, and then not have built a strong foundation for the rest of the piece.

Back to the page for a bit, and then I’m headed off to the library.

Devon

[Via http://devonellington.wordpress.com]

Exercise, Nutrition & Needles - not sewing ones

I ordered an exercise bike on Thursday which arrived on Saturday. Last night I unpacked it and the very last bit I got out which was the main part looked like it had been charged by a rhino. The company are sending me a new casing and in the meantime I’m going to put the rest of it together to see if it works because I need to get this fat shifting.

I have received from the nurse at Myeloma UK a couple of leaflets on stretching and strengthening exercises for people with Myeloma. They are really good but a little basic compared to the Oxygen magazine I subscribe too but then I thought well they were probably originally designed with an older age group in mind and I need to consider my collapsed vertebra (just the one fortunately) so maybe no handstands yet. The professor we meet re the stem cell transplant said no lower body exercises, that walking or cycling should be enough but I really liked doing squats and I don’t think I’m yet ready to part with my 7ft barbell. Don’t tell hubby I’m even thinking about the barbell.

I’ve started going back to an acupuncturist. I went when my back problem was thought to be muscular. And am going to try eating from a ‘Traditional Chinese Food Energetics’ viewpoint to improve my overall health. We had a very nice lamb dish yesterday which would benefit my Qi, Blood, Spleen and Kidney. I’m not going to even pretend I know how it works but apparently it does (10 squillion Chinese can’t be wrong).

When I fell off my bike two years ago and needed nine stitches under my knee we were chatting with the orthopaedic surgeon who stitched me up (Eleanor). (The A&E doctor wouldn’t do it and wanted someone from plastics obviously thinking I had very attractive knees.) Anyway whilst we were chatting we got onto the subject of alternative therapies and Eleanor was saying that acupuncture is one that western medicine has proven scientifically to work but doesn’t know how. So that’s good enough for me.

I also need to eat better because I am becoming a small round pudding. I got on the scales last night and I am 64kg. I have bought (on ebay auction) a dress mannequin to photograph my seductively draped scarves on for my etsy shop and also to make clothes. I did not get an adjustable one but a fixed one – 36 26 36 because they look better and are cheaper AND as I am currently (I can’t believe I am going to put my current measurements in hard print but figure it will shame me into action) 39.5 34 39!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Via http://feresaknit.wordpress.com]