Beach Community Acupuncture (BCA), community acupuncture studio in Ocean Beach, is offering San Diegans a chance to boost up their immunity during flu season.
Acupuncture is well-known to be preventative medicine. While not promising to “cure” any condition or disease, acupuncture balances the body to help strengthen its resistance to pathogenic factors.
There have been many scientific studies that bear out acupuncture's effectiveness in raising immunity. In a recent Japanese study, for example, researchers tested subjects' blood before and after acupuncture. They measured different types of immunity cells, including T-cells, B-cells, macrophages and Natural killer (NK) cells, and they found a statistically significant increase in these cells after acupuncture. The researchers concluded that “...acupuncture may regulate the immune system and promote the activities of humoral and cellular immunity as well as NK cell activity.”
Influenza is a highly contagious upper respiratory viral infection. According to MedLine Plus, tens of millions of people in the United States get the flu each year. Thousands of these people become sick enough to require hospitalization and, “about 36,000 people die each year from complications of the flu.”
Beach Community Acupuncture (BCA) is trying to help prevent people from getting sick. For the month of October, BCA if offering people $15 acupuncture treatments to boost immunity.
For those just getting sick, BCA's owner and licensed acupuncturist Nicole Murray says, “It's always better to try to balance the body to try to ward off illness. But if you are getting sick, come in for acupuncture right away. Acupuncture, and Chinese medicine, are proven to both shorten the duration and reduce the severity of illness.”
At BCA, located a block from the Ocean Beach pier, patients receive treatment in comfortable recliners. The regular fee for an acupuncture treatment is $20 (there is a one-time additional paperwork charge of $10 at the first visit). Appointments are encouraged, but walk-ins are welcome.
BCA is one of a growing number of community acupuncture clinics in the country. People are treated in an open area, rather than in private treatment rooms.
“The community acupuncture movement is gaining momentum nationwide,”
Acupuncture is proven effective to treat pain, addictions, stress, anxiety, and much more, according to the World Health Organization and the National Institutes of Health. “Acupuncture works. It is usually prescribed as a course of treatment, for example, twice a week for a month,” says Murray. “People should be able to access acupuncture, if they want it. Often, if they need it.”
Nicole Murray, L.Ac. is licensed by the California Acupuncture Board. She and her family live in Ocean Beach.
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