Immunity & Vitality
Are you looking for a way to naturally prevent disease, improve energy, promote wellness, and cultivate longevity? At GoldStar Acupuncture in Modesto, CA, we offer 100% drug-free all-natural acupuncture treatment for immunity and vitality.
Learn more about how this traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) procedure can help support natural immunity and vitality safely and effectively, and improve quality of life and overall well-being:
Discover How Acupuncture Can Help Promote Natural Immunity & Vitality
A strong balanced immune system is pivotal to living a long, healthy and vibrant life. It plays an important role in protecting the body from disease-causing pathogens and toxins. But in this fast-paced world, filled with high levels of stress, pollutants, exposure to radiofrequency (RF) and microwave (MW) radiation, and the use of artificial and processed foods and synthetic drugs, immunity can be weakened and put homeostasis at risk.
Weak immunity not only causes frequent colds, flus and infections that take longer to overcome, but it is also linked to fatigue, low energy, stress, depression, poor memory, cognitive decline, sleep disturbances, digestive problems, skin rashes, poor wound healing, excessive weight gain, musculoskeletal pain and soreness, and other symptoms that commonly appear with decline in age. Left ignored, an imbalanced immune system can impair fundamental tissue and cell function, putting you at risk of suffering from various debilitating long-term illnesses and disabilities, including severe diseases such as autoimmune disorders and cancer.
Do you know acupuncture is a time-tested complete system of holistic natural medicine that emphasizes cultivating wellness and preventing illness over treatment of disease?
Acupuncture is a 2,200 year-old holistic medicine practice focused on supporting total well-being to avoid severe illnesses from occurring in the first place. It excels in activating and balancing the body’s natural ability to resist illnesses, balance mood and promote vitality, vigor, and longevity. Acupuncture strengthens immunity, aids digestion and metabolism, improves elimination of waste and toxins, and increases physical and mental-emotional energy and resilience. It not only helps ease a wide variety of symptoms and poor health conditions that normally arise with the aging process, but also aims to point you on the path toward cultivating a long healthy life free from serious disease, disability, and discomfort.
Benefits of Acupuncture for Immunity & Vitality
How Acupuncture Treatment Works for Immunity & Vitality
Acupuncture is an ancient Chinese medical practice that stimulates a person’s own health-promoting mechanism. It involves the insertion of ultra-thin therapeutic needles into specific points along the body’s energy meridians. Acupuncture helps encourage healing, improve resistance to disease, and increase stamina by balancing and restoring the flow of energy, known as Qi, in the meridians.
While it has been recently popularized for its effectiveness in treating pain conditions, acupuncture has been used to prevent disease, boost vitality and vigor, and promote overall well-being for thousands of years.
In acupuncture, poor health conditions begin as an imbalance within the functioning of organs and body systems, namely the Heart, Liver, and Kidneys, and the digestive, endocrine, and immune systems. Acupuncture for immunity and vitality works by stimulating specific points on the body that are related to these organs and body systems to help balance their functions and interactions, improve metabolism and circulation, encourage the elimination of pathogenic toxins and waste, boost resistance to disease, increase stamina, balance mood, and promote well-being. Some key acupuncture points for immunity and vitality include:
- CV 4 (Guan Yuan 關元): Enhances kidney function, regulates blood circulation, replenishes energy reserves, alleviates pain, promotes healing, boosts immunity.
- CV 6 (Qi Hai 氣海): Enhances kidney function, regulates blood circulation, strengthens energy, alleviates pain, promotes healing, boosts immunity.
- GV 4 (Meng Men 命門): Supports kidney function, improves energy and blood circulation, alleviates pain, balances mood, promotes healing, boosts immunity.
- GV 20 (Tian Man 百會): Improves energy and blood circulation, alleviates stress, balances mood, promotes healing, boosts immunity.
- Kidney 3 (Tai Xi 太谿): Supports kidney function, boosts immunity, balances mood.
- Liver 3 (Tai Chong 太沖): Enhances liver detoxification function, relieves pain, balances mood and emotions, promotes healing, boosts immunity.
- Kidney 3 (Tai Xi 太谿): Supports kidney detoxification function, boosts immunity, and balances mood.
- Urinary Bladder 17 (Ge Shu 膈俞): Improves blood circulation, and supports the elimination of toxins.
- Large Intestine 4 (He Gu 合谷): Improves digestive motility, boosts immunity, relieves pain, and supports the elimination of toxins.
- Stomach 36 (Zu San Li 足三里): Boosts digestive metabolism and immunity, enhances blood circulation, and supports the elimination of toxins.
Research shows that acupuncture can help stimulate the anti-inflammatory mechanism in the body that not only promotes healing and eases the severity of pain, stress, fatigue, poor sleep, depression, and other symptoms, but also boosts immune function to improve resistance to disease and conditions of poor health. It has also been shown to help regulate hormone metabolism, fat storage, blood circulation, and digestion to enhance the elimination of toxic waste from the body, improve the absorption of nutrients, replenish energy, and increase stamina.
Acupuncture Treatment for Immunity & Vitality Uses Herbal Medicine Formulas
Acupuncture treatment for immunity and vitality also includes the use of medicinal Chinese herbs. Chinese herbal medicine is well known for its excellent ability to help enhance and optimize immunity and maintain a healthy gut flora balance to aid overall healing and strengthen resistance to disease.
Chinese herbs are also used to help regulate detoxification pathways and metabolic function, improve digestion, reduce inflammation, and promote healing. They offer natural relief of various symptoms of poor health, including indigestion, bloating, constipation, stress, pain, poor sleep, low immunity, inability to lose weight or excess weight gain, and others. Common Chinese herbs used in acupuncture for immunity and vitality include:
- Angelica Sinensis (Dang Gui / Radix Angelicae Sinensis): Tonifies blood, promotes blood circulation, eases pain, boosts energy, strengthens immunity.
- Astragalus (Huang Qi/ Radix Astragali Membranaceus): Strengthens immunity, tonifies blood, boosts energy, promotes healing.
- Atractylodes (Bai Zhu/ Rhizoma Atractylodis Macrocephalae): Boosts energy, strengthens immunity, promotes blood circulation.
- Codonopsis (Dang Shen / Radix Codonopsitis Pilosulae): Boosts energy, strengthens immunity, tonifies blood, promotes healing, restores constitution, expels pathogenic factors.
- Cordyceps (Dong Chong Xia Cao / Cordyceps Sinensis): Boosts energy, strengthens immunity, promotes healing.
- Ginseng (Ren Shen / Radix Ginseng): Boosts energy, strengthens immunity, tonifies blood, balances mood, promotes healing.
Acupuncture Treatment for Immunity & Vitality Uses Nutrition Therapy
Acupuncture for immunity and vitality also uses dietary modification and nutrition as part of treatment. Nutrition therapy in acupuncture promotes eating a diet consisting mainly of fresh plant-based foods that are the most vital and free from chemicals, preservatives, and over-processing. Studies have shown that eating a low calorie, high-fiber, nutrient-rich diet consisting of more whole, non-processed, plant-based foods helps eliminate excess waste and toxins from the body, promote healing and boost immunity, while minimizing inflammation and pain, and maintaining optimal metabolic and digestive function to promote total well-being.
What to Expect During Your First Acupuncture Treatment for Immunity & Vitality
FAQs
Unfortunately, there is no straight easy answer. Insurance coverage for acupuncture varies widely among insurance companies both statewide and nationally, with plans requiring certain criteria to be met before coverage is applied. This criteria is not standardized, and insurance companies all make their own policies, including exclusions, limitations and restrictions, regarding acupuncture coverage.
As a result, even when insurance companies advertise they offer acupuncture coverage, it doesn’t necessarily mean they will actually pay for all of it, or even some of it. Most people with an acupuncture-friendly health insurance plan that want to try to use it to pay for acupuncture should expect to accrue at least some out-of-pocket costs, anywhere from co-pays and deductibles to paying for uncovered procedures and products such as herbal medicine and nutritional supplements. It is also not uncommon for acupuncture-related claims to be entirely denied by insurance companies, leaving insured patients responsible for paying the total amount billed.
Fortunately, our office is well-versed on these details to help you understand how and when it is possible to use your insurance to help pay for acupuncture. For more information, or to begin the verification process and request prior authorization for using your PPO insurance with our office, please send us a message.
No, you do not need a referral to receive acupuncture treatment. California acupuncturists are primary care providers and can provide you treatment independently without referral. Some people may seek a doctor referral for acupuncture to try and use their insurance to cover expenses or for help finding a practitioner, but this is not required.
Acupuncture itself is very safe in the hands of a competent practitioner. It generally presents little to no side effects and rarely makes a condition worse. If these do occur it’s usually indicative of the healing process and any ill effects disappear within days of treatment.
However acupuncture is not for everyone, and there are times when precautions must be made. For example, people who are not eligible for acupuncture include those with hemophilia or contagious skin diseases. On the other hand, people on blood-thinning medication, or who tend to bruise easily, or who are pregnant, can receive acupuncture but should disclose their medical history to their acupuncturist prior to treatment so that certain precautions are made.
Where severe danger exists is in the inappropriate application of acupuncture by poorly trained and unskilled non-acupuncture therapists and physicians, many which do not receive the same instruction and training as licensed acupuncturists. To ensure safety when receiving acupuncture, it is highly recommended to use a practitioner who has received proper education and schooling in acupuncture, and is certified and licensed to practice acupuncture by an official governing acupuncture board, agency, or organization.
In general, acupuncture will not minimize any treatment or medication you have used or will use. Recent studies suggest acupuncture may actually enhance the therapeutic effectiveness of other treatments and reduce some of their adverse reactions.
However because acupuncture and some herbal and nutritional supplements prescribed by acupuncturists can sometimes diminish or potentiate the effects of other treatments, it is advisable that you disclose all of your medical history to your acupuncturist, especially if you’re taking medication or are undergoing other types of treatment, or have recently undergone other treatments, so that any precautions can be made prior to treatment. For more information, send us a message.
Depending on the type of service, total visit time is between 60-90 minutes, with 20-75 minute acupuncture treatment time.
Everyone responds to acupuncture differently but in general the approach we use is so gentle and the acupuncture needles we use are so thin that most people won’t even be aware when the needles are inserted. If they feel anything at all, it may be a slight pinch at the site of needle insertion followed by a brief dull ache that dissipates within seconds. Other common sensations felt during treatment include slight tingling, subtle muscle twitching and spasms, heaviness, extreme relaxation, and warmth in the hands and feet.
Most adults looking for a natural approach to health and overall wellness are candidates for acupuncture. But if you have a specific health condition and you’re not sure if acupuncture is right for you, the best way to find out is to request an appointment for an evaluation and consult.
