Hello Moms!

I would like to thank Kimberly for the invitation to join FMs4Ms network.  I will be contributing with regular posts related to family health – the complementary way, to help out some moms and their little ones.  I am also available to address your family health related questions or if necessary point you to the appropriate specialist.  We will also be organising workshops on topical health issues – the complementary way.  If you have any issues you would wish to cover, please feel free to suggest.

By way of introducing myself, I am a qualified acupuncturist and the member of the British Acupuncture Council.

I work both with needles and without needles, the appropriateness of which is assessed with each person individually.  In both cases, working with the acupuncture points I assist with the flow of the vital life force (called Qi, energy) in a person for establishing recovery to health and optimising wellbeing.

I begin with a comprehensive consultation that permits me to make a diagnosis of the current flow of the vital life force and to design a completely personalised series of treatments.  Along the way, the treatment progress is continually being assessed and discussed with each person.

Classical Five Element Acupuncture is ever so able to address the great complexity of our modern health issues.  The effects of the therapy are usually much more gradual than the farmacological intervention, so it requires a little more patience.  The upside of it is, it has no adverse side effects (if any, little discomforts that pass away easily).  The only unexpected effects are other added improvements that come along whilst treating the cause! For example, someone who comes for insomnia may notice that their digestion has got better with the treatment as well.

Most importantly, it is a therapy that has a potential to cure you from any disease, but we are not allowed to say that because no significant controlled trials have been carried out to prove it yet.

Diseases, symptoms or conditions for which acupuncture has been proved-through controlled trials-to be an effective treatment (according to WHO):

Adverse reactions to radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy
Allergic rhinitis (including hay fever)
Biliary colic
Depression (including depressive neurosis and depression following stroke)
Dysentery, acute bacillary
Dysmenorrhoea, primary
Epigastralgia, acute (in peptic ulcer, acute and chronic gastritis, and gastrospasm)
Facial pain (including craniomandibular disorders)
Headache
Hypertension, essential
Hypotension, primary
Induction of labour
Knee pain
Leukopenia
Low back pain
Malposition of fetus, correction of
Morning sickness
Nausea and vomiting
Neck pain
Pain in dentistry (including dental pain and temporomandibular dysfunction)
Periarthritis of shoulder
Postoperative pain
Renal colic
Rheumatoid arthritis
Sciatica
Sprain
Stroke
Tennis elbow

Diseases, symptoms or conditions for which the therapeutic effect of acupuncture has been shown but for which further proof is needed – is listed under the link:

http://apps.who.int/medicinedocs/en/d/Js4926e/5.html

What is missing from those lists is the improved quality of life that possibly 99% of my patients have experienced during their treatment, such as improved relationships with family or collegues, a new way of looking at life, motivated to excersise again, more courage to apply for a better job, finding own life passion or appropriate life partner, etc.

All along the way, I encourage a balanced, healthy lifestyle for my patients.  The ancients’ knowledge of Five Elements is very comprehensive in giving sound indications for a balanced lifestyle. Additionally, some years of working with herbs and supplements have equipped me to give some basic suggestions on the diet and supplementation to aid the healing process.

I should add that among many, my areas of interest are fertility, pregnancy, menaupause, addictions and depression. I am also specialised in estetic acupuncture, rejuvenating pre-maturely ageing faces.

I currently practise at the home studio in Fiesole and at ArteMedica in Milan http://www.artemedica.it/il-team.

I am of Polish origin, educated in England and since 2007 living in Italy.

Piacere!

Dorota Anna Kowal
BSc (Hons), LicAc, OMBAcC

For contact and info:

dorota@dorotakowal.com

www.dorotakowal.com

tel. 329 0065 921