Eyes and acupuncture were the focus of the Ponte Vedra Woman’s Club’s April meeting as acupuncture physician Dr. Erica Joy Siegel of Joy Vision Acupuncture was the guest speaker.
She began her talk by dispelling some myths that are often associated with acupuncture, including that it is voodoo and that it is not research-based.
“Acupuncture over the past 20 years or so, especially has had a huge amount of research behind it and they’ve started doing doctorate programs and the acupuncture schools and those programs are based on getting people to do the research,” Siegel said.
Not only is it evidence based, but it also has time-tested results that date back beyond most other forms of medicine.
“It dates back for over 1,000 years, and even the “Iceman” that they found in Scandinavia had tattoos that they found on acupuncture points that would have been 10,000 years ago,” Siegel said. “It’s medicine so old, that you’ve probably had it in a past life or many past lives.”
China was where the methods of acupuncture were refined throughout the years and they have a rich history of using it as a healing tool, which is why Siegel went to China to train and grow her skills within the practice of it.
Another myth is that acupuncture is just a placebo effect, which is where believing a medicine causes therapeutic effect.
“Acupuncture works on animals, so if you see a limp horse that can’t walk but then gets acupuncture and starts walking, they’re then not sitting around talking about their belief systems, so although positive thinking can be beneficial, it is not essential to acupuncture’s success,” Siegel said.
In recent years, Siegel has seen more people begin to embrace the help acupuncture can provide, and it often comes after they’ve undergone the procedure themselves.
“I’ve had many people who came to me as a last line of resort after they’ve tried everything,” Siegel said. “Lo and behold, just a couple weeks later and they are singing acupuncture’s praises and wishing they would have done it 20 years ago.”
Perhaps one of the most common misunderstandings she encounters is the belief that acupuncture is painful, which she reiterated to the crowd is just not the case.
According to Siegel, the thing is most people just compare it to the hypodermic needles used when getting a shot, but the two are extremely different.
“Most acupuncture has little to no sensation to it,” Siegel said. “If you take your arm hair and give it a little tug, that’s about what it feels like for about a second and then it goes away. Acupuncture needles are stainless steel and there is nothing in them. We’re not putting anything in or taking anything out.”
However, at the end of the day acupuncture is successful because a person’s body is full of electricity and water, so by sticking the metal slightly in, signals can be sent up to a person’s brain which in turn controls everything and can therefore help in the first step toward relieving pain or tension in the various parts of the body.
“We’re basically just using your brain to help heal yourself, because you have a built-in mechanism for self-healing,” Siegel said.
While Siegel has performed acupuncture on many areas of the body over the years, she now specializes in the pressure points on the body that can most make a difference and impact a person’s eye health.
She even is working toward developing a connection with the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind, in hopes of working with the students to try and help heal their certain issues they are facing.
