It is a good medical choice for several reasons. It can treat a wide range of conditions and illnesses in your child. It is safe and non-invasive compared to surgery and drugs. It is holistic—always considering the connections between mind, body and spirit. Often it can reach the root of the problem and correct it at a deeper level, rather than just treating the symptoms. And the long-term effects are to strengthen and support the child.

Some of the pediatric conditions commonly treated with acupuncture are respiratory disorders, such as asthma, tonsillitis or pneumonia, and digestive disorders, such as vomiting or diarrhea. I have also seen successes with treating earaches, headaches, bedwetting and rashes. Chinese Medicine may also help with regulating blood sugar. I remember one young diabetic patient, whom I treated in a local hospital for his symptoms of nausea and loss of appetite. After the treatment, he sat up and requested a salmon dinner!

Often, children are treated preventively in accordance with the four seasons. For example, in the fall, prior to the advent of cold and flu season, your child’s acupuncturist would boost the energy of his or her lungs and immune system with herbs and acupuncture. In the spring, when liver energy is most active, treatment would be aimed at detoxifying and supporting the liver. Warm and kinetic heart energy, which our children exemplify in excess, is addressed in the summer. In this season of heat and light and growth, we seek harmony of the heart energy. Having balanced heart energy during an Alaskan summer is especially beneficial as it enables your child to sleep while the sun shines! With Chinese Medicine, we align with the cycles and rhythms of life, tapping into ancient wisdom.

There are within the cycles of life pockets of pain and suffering in children. Seemingly out of season, these events are difficult to understand, difficult to accept, yet very real to those who are touched by them. In the face of life-threatening or chronic diseases such as cancer, the gift of Chinese Medicine is twofold. It minimizes the destructive side effects of the disease and associated drugs. At the same time, it maximizes the body’s ability to recover.

To be fair, Chinese Medicine does have a huge advantage over other systems in maximizing the body’s healing ability. It works with this miraculous body with its brilliant self-healing design, not against it. There is no antibiotic, no anti-acid, no anticonvulsant, no anti-inflammatory, no anti-anything prescribed. The goal in every treatment is to work with the body, to rebalance, to restore homeostasis, to punch the reset button, to plug in what has been unplugged, to remind the body of its innate intelligence. When in balance, the body has its best chance to heal.

A recent edition of Acupuncture Today reports a clinical study (by researchers from Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts) of acupuncture’s ability to treat pain in children. Seventy percent of the children treated with acupuncture felt it helped their symptoms and two-thirds found the treatment “pleasant.” The children also experienced “overall improvement of well-being” while being treated. Other “side effects” were increased attendance at school, improved sleep patterns and increased participation in extra-curricular activities.

One of the first questions of children and their parents in considering acupuncture as a treatment is: “Will it hurt?” Most children are willing to try one of the tiny needles—or “acupuncture wands”-- as an experiment to see how it feels. Nearly always they find it tolerable and will continue with treatment. If their fear still persists, however, we use other methods: small “rollers” to stimulate a meridian, finger pressure, oils massaged into acupuncture points, or moxa, the heating of an herb called mugwort on acupuncture points. On a recent Saturday, while treating an 11-year old girl at the Healing Toby Network Kid’s Clinic, I asked her to identify the level of pain she experienced with acupuncture on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the strongest pain. Her answer? “Minus three.”

At your child’s first acupuncture appointment, expect a thorough interview about your child’s health history, diet, sleeping patterns, emotional tendencies, urination, bowel movements and mental development. Your acupuncturist will feel your child’s pulses, look at his/her tongue and possibly palpate the abdomen before the treatment. Recommendations for herbal supplements, dietary and lifestyle changes may be given. We attempt to make treatments playful and fun.

As Voltaire once said: “The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.” I believe that this is especially evident as we work with these little “geniuses.” As parents and practitioners, we focus on making the best selections from Heaven and Earth, then step aside and let nature lead the way.