Beginning June 6, CommuniChi will offer free treatments every Saturday for Veterans and their immediate family members from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m. Young men and women are returning from war overseas with broken bodies, shellshocked, depressed, angry, disoriented, and suicidal. We are losing too many. One is too many. A recent NY times article quotes a spokesman from the Dept. of Veteran’s Affairs that there were an average of 18 suicides a day among the nations 25 million veterans and that one in five of those were in the VA’s care.
According to a Rand Study one in five of Vets returning from Iraq and Afghanistan (300,000 total) suffer from PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). A study at the Unversity of Arizona Psychiatry Dept. found that acupuncture may benefit individuals suffering from PTSD.
Community acupuncture clinics are ideally structured to help deal with this epidemic of PTSD and save lives. Veterans suffering from PTSD suffer from an array of problems which, though not completely understood, might broadly be categorized in Chinese medicine as imbalances of energy flow due to extreme shock. This may manifest as traumatic flashbacks, nightmares, nightsweats, anxiety, irritability, depression, hypervigilance and other mental imbalances. Utilizing the five point auricular protocol, originally developed by the National Acupuncture Detox Association (NADA), in a community setting, individuals receiving regular treatment may experience improvements in energy, sleep, mood, concentration, memory and overall sense of well being.
To borrow the words from some of my colleagues affiliated with the AWB (Acupuncturists Without Borders) Veterans Program:
“We will be using the five-point protocol for a number of reasons: it is quick and easy (we can treat lots of people in a short amount of time), requires no lengthy intake (everyone gets the same treatment), and provides a whole body-mind-spirit treatment. Because the technique enables us to treat many people in a short period of time, it maximizes the utilization of scarce resources (i.e. our time and expertise) and makes them available to the largest possible number of suffering people. Vets and families support each other, sitting together in a silent circle, where no one has to speak about their experiences (potentially re-traumatizing themselves or reactivating family conflict), and everyone has the opportunity to release a bit of their respective trauma or stress into the deep relaxation of treatment. It’s particularly important that combat vets may be able to release pent up combat stress, without having to conjure up feelings or images involving their experiences.”
from Bountiful Blog.
Acupuncture is not a substitute for professional counseling. We do not try to talk to Vets and cheer them up. We just smile and embrace them with all of our being, envelop them with the silent, invisible, but palpable love and support of community. We offer a safe space to relax, a chance to breathe and set down the traumatic burdens they may be carrying or that their family may be struggling with.
How does it work? Some researchers say it’s the endorphins- natural feel-good chemicals in the brain which the acupuncture activates. I honestly don’t know, but I certainly saw it work with hundreds of PTSD affected individuals in post-Katrina New Orleans. If individuals receive this care on a regular basis, they are more likely to stay alive. Time will heal everything. If these Vets access counseling, all the better. If individuals choose to also receive pharmaceutical medication, there is no conflict over using both therapies simultaneously. Acupuncture gives them a lifeline of hope.
Please help us help the veterans by sharing information about our clinic with them and their families directly, as well as with caregivers in the community.
Individuals wishing to participate in CommuniChi’s Veteran’s Program may sign up for treatments directly on our website. To sign up for a free treatment on Saturday’s starting June 7, please visit our website and click on the “Veterans and their Families” schedule. For treatments during the rest of the week, please click on the “New”, or “Return Visit” schedule, as appropriate. Outside of the free Saturday treatment time, veteran’s will receive a $10 discount off of our usual sliding scale of $15 to $35 per treatment.
For acupuncturists or other interested members of the general public wishing to volunteer in the clinic – on Saturdays, please contact Serena or myself on ways that you may help. We appreciate your support so that we may offer these services to the wider community freely for as long as needed.
Thank you. May all beings quickly be free of physical and mental pain and stress. May very soon the words “war, disease, brain trauma, suffering” and the like, never be heard again in the world.
With grateful acknowledgment to Acupuncturists Without Borders for the groundbreaking work they are undertaking in the area of healing this epidemic of PTSD in Veterans. Further acknowledgment is due to Lisa, Skip, and Lupine at Working Class Acupuncture in Portland, Oregon, for the development of the Community Acupuncture model which makes this sort of work easy to integrate into the usual flow of an acupuncture clinic.