Bellingen Acupuncture & Traditional Chinese Medicine

I've had broad experience in over 35 years of practice.

I've treated every type of injury, disease or distress in my career, and usually make a positive difference.

My clinic is warm and friendly and I work hard to help you feel better!

Basically I treat everything, and can usually make a difference.

I also work with my patients, helping you to manage your own health concerns with practical tips and encouragement to optimise your own self c are.

I volunteered with Lifeline for many years, so I'm very good listener, and being heard can help resolve emotional burdens which have both physical and psychological symptoms.

Below is a selection of the things I routinely treat:

• All musculoskeletal problems (neck, shoulder, elbow, lower back and knee & foot problems)
• Headaches especially migraine
• Macular degeneration, glaucoma, dry or weepy eyes
• Mental health issues like depression and anxiety, PTSD
• Peripheral neuropathy
• Plantar fasciitis
• Arthritis
• Digestive and bowel disorders (bloating, burping, farting, diarhhoea, constipation, irritable bowel)
• Reproductive and gynaecological issues (period pain, infertility, PMT, libido)
• Pregnancy support and induction of labour!
• Insomnia (difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, feeling unrefreshed) 
• poor circulation & non-healing ulcers including tropical & diabetic ulcers, cold or hot extremities.
• skin conditions including excema, dermatitis, acne and psoriasis
• respiritory conditions ranging from coughs and colds to post-URTI fatigue, asthma and COPD
• low energy, including post-covid or following major stresors

I am particularly interested in macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and glaucoma: these are conditions where Chinese medicine can be of great benefit and can stimulate reversal of the underlying retinal starvation that biomedicine fails to address.

Acupuncture

I use both local and distal acupuncture: local is great for really gnarly muscle spasms and tendinopathies, it gets blood and oxygen into muscles that have been starved and suffering. Distal uses points away from the injury, which may be too sore & spastic to needle directly, and is great for more sensitive patients. Often I will use both together. Acupuncture also inolves far-infrared heat therapy, massage, cupping and gua sha.

Far-infrared heat treatment (FIHT), massage, cupping and scraping.

Acupuncture treatment usually incorporates far-infrared heat lamps (which warm from the inside out) to improve perfusion of blood and oxygen in muscle and organs, firm remedial massage using quality organic oils, cupping (which softens spastic muscles and tendons) and gua sha or spooning which simmilarly breaks up tight muscle and tendon. It is a comprehensive treatment.

Chinese Herbal Medicine

Chinese medicine has a great armoury of case history, describing every imaginable situation to which humans are subject, with imaginative and practical solutions. This means that "wierd" symptoms, that in biomedicine are ignored, but which can be really annoying or debilitating in real life, can be addressed by us witchdoctors. I've seen lots of cases of chronic "subclinical" symptoms, that while they don't endanger your life, make day to day living difficult, resolve with the right formula. And sometimes these situations can become very complicated. I had one patient whose blood sugers varied greatly throughout the day: she was diagnosed as hypoglycaemic and was about to be put on insulin. One of her chronic symptoms was alternating chills and fever, related to an unresolved, undiagnosed exposure to malaria as a child. I treated her with a formula named Minor Bupleurum Combination, recomended for chronic alternating chills & fever: her blood sugers normalised, her migraines resolved and her energy levels evened out. Similarly, Chinese medicine ascribes particular symptoms to particular emotional states. For instance, someone who is living with chronic repressed anger will tend to sigh a lot, and may suffer from a feeling of something stuck in their throat. We call this "plum-stone throat", biomedicine calls it "globulus hystericus" and sends you off for months of speech therapy. We have a formula that not only addresses the "plum-stone throat" but also relieves the feeling of frustration! Of course the patient needs to learn ways of expressing or avoiding frustration, but Pinellia & Magnolia formula provides a great circuit breaker while they master those skills!

I use granulated individual herbs that are combined into formulas, depending on your particular constellation of symptoms. This allows great flexibility, as of course each individual has a slightly different collection of symptoms, and these can be addressed separately by adjusting particular herbs to that individuals symptoms. I also keep my prices as close to cost as possible, so my herbs are cheaper than anywhere else.