60 seconds with Lisa Lee, PhD, Lic.Ac
Lisa Lee, PhD, is a fully qualified and licensed Five-Element acupuncturist and a member of the British Acupuncture Council. Lisa’s approach to treatment places a strong emphasis on understanding the root cause of every patient’s health and well-being issues and on establishing their goals. This understanding of individuals’ physical and emotional health is incorporated into every treatment she delivers, to ensure the very best results for each and every person she sees. In a recent systematic review of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) therapies for psoriasis (Complementary and Alternative Medicine Therapies for Psoriasis: A Systematic Review) it was concluded that the CAM therapies with the most robust evidence of efficacy for treatment of psoriasis are indigo naturalis, curcumin, dietary modification, fish oil, meditation, and acupuncture.
Hi Lisa, thanks so much for taking 60 seconds out your day to share your wisdom! I have so many questions for you but I will try and keep it to four 😊. First off, how did you get into acupuncture and what makes you so passionate about this work? I experienced the amazing effect of acupuncture first hand following a very stressful and difficult time in my life. I remember how one day, after an acupuncture session, I was walking along when suddenly, I realised how different I was feeling … myself again. It reminded me somehow of being a child. It was incredible, like a switch, and from then on, everything seemed to fall into place. It was as if my body and mind had reconnected, and through it regained that natural intelligence to heal, and to perform the everyday miracles that the human body is capable of. This is what makes me so passionate about acupuncture: I know from my own experience, and from seeing the results with my patients, how well it can work, how it can help us regain control of our bodies and minds to stay in good health, and how it can help overcome difficult, poorly understood, even complex conditions. Acupuncture gave me my life back, and this is really what I strive to do for my patients. And seeing the incredible results day after day in the clinic, fuels that passion.
Not everyone knows about acupuncture, could you describe it in 40 words? Acupuncture is an ancient Eastern medical treatment that supports our natural ability to heal. It involves inserting ultra-fine needles into specific points on the body, triggering changes in blood flow and chemistry, that re-establish internal physical and mental balance.
There was a great piece recently in Time Magazine titled Want to Stay Healthy as You Age? Let Go of Anger. It talks about how stress, for example, may heighten the risk of both chronic and acute health conditions. What are your thoughts on this and how can acupuncture help? It is great that people are now recognising the connection between our mental and physical health, and there is more and more evidence supporting this connection, as rightly pointed out in the TIME Magazine article. This link between emotions and physical health is certainly a critical aspect of how any condition is approached in an acupuncture treatment. This is because, both emotional excess and conversely deficiency in an emotion, can lead to imbalances, and therefore to specific symptoms. At a physiological level, according to acupuncture theory, emotions such as fear, worry, anger, sadness, or excessive behavioural patterns (yes even getting overly excited!), can lead to an inappropriate energetic flow in our system. In practical terms, this could show up as either a build-up or lack of blood flow to a particular area, resulting for instance in inflammation, sluggishness or pain. You can see then from this, how poorly understood diseases, such as auto-immune conditions, or chronic health issues, may have an emotional basis, whether we are aware of this or not. What is more, living with a chronic condition or in pain, affects our mood too, often leading to stress, anxiety and depression, thereby creating a vicious circle that makes the condition appear hard or impossible to treat in conventional Western Medicine. Acupuncture takes into account a person’s emotional state and how they experience life, whether it is a tendency to worry, feel frustrated, vulnerable or cling on to the past, as each emotion has a very specific energetic effect that can be corrected through the treatment. This is why, regardless of the condition, people always comment on how they feel better ‘all-round’ after their acupuncture session, as all imbalances are treated simultaneously, whether they are at a physical or mental level.
What are some of the greatest changes you have seen through acupuncture? There are so many incredible stories of cases where acupuncture has completely turned people’s conditions around. One amazing story, that will always stay with me, is a woman who had suffered an injury to her brain following a fall. As a result of the injury, she had lost her sense of smell and taste. More than a year after the diagnosis, she had been told by her consultant that she would never regain these senses. When she came to me, to see if maybe acupuncture could help, she had almost given up hope, but she was ready to give it a go. She arrived at her second session beaming, as for the first time in two years, she had been able to taste her food. After her third session, she had started noticing fleeting smells. There are so many people, young and old, I have seen acupuncture work incredibly well for, and for a huge range of conditions too, including chronic, autoimmune or troublesome skin problems, such as psoriasis, eczema, hives, molescum, acne and fungal skin diseases. Acupuncture is a truly amazing, natural and safe way of helping us get back on top of our health. And for anyone who has their doubts, I would just tell them to try it, and be open to the possibility of change.
For more details go to:
Website - lisaleeacu.com
Twitter- @lisaleeacu
