DAVID FOLK THOMAS: Welcome to our webcast. I'm David Folk Thomas. You've heard the expression "being on pins and needles." Well, what about having pins and needles on you? That's right, we're talking about acupuncture today, and as you may know, that's the practice of sticking tiny little needles into the body. We're going to find out what it's all about. Joining me, two experts on the subject. To my left is Dr. Ben Kligler. He's the medical director of the New Beth Israel Center for Health and Healing in New York City. Sitting next to Dr. Kligler is William Kaplinidis. He is a licensed acupuncturist and department head of Allied Arts at the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine here in New York City. Thanks to both of you for joining us today.
Let's take a first-time patient who has been recommended. Maybe they have a pinched nerve or some other problem, and they're coming to you for the first time. Take us through their treatment that you would administer.
WILLIAM KAPLINIDIS: A first visit, just in general for me, might take an hour and a half to two hours. I'd have them fill out a medical intake form, very similar to the ones you might fill out when you go see a doctor, including a whole list of symptoms, which will help me get a picture of what's going on with the whole person, not just that one symptom that they're coming to me for. After I review the paperwork, I'll ask them a series of questions. Oftentimes the questions might have to do with things like their bowel movements or if they're sweating at night, things that they may not understand how it's related to the pain in my lower back, for example. But each point has many functions, so I'm trying to get a complete picture of the person to see what the cause of the problem is. Was it a car accident, or did they use up, for example, their kidney energy through stress and overworking, and now they have a weakness in their lower back, a physical weakness that's causing them to have pain? Once I would do the evaluation, I would have them lie down on the table and I'd continue my evaluation by palpating their pulse, which would give me more information; looking at their tongue, which is sort of a map of what's going on inside of the body; maybe palpating their abdomen to see if there are tender spots. Again, each part of the body is like a map giving you information of what's going on inside. The Chinese didn't take blood tests 3,000 years ago. They looked at your eyes, they looked at your tongue, things they could observe. Once I've formulated an initial diagnosis of what I think was going on, I would choose points on the body and, depending on where the points where, they may have to roll up their pants or roll up their sleeve, or maybe I would drape and they would take their pants off or something like that.
