Acupuncture & Natural Medicine              Dr. Peng, Rockville, MD

Acupuncture procedure

Acupuncturist applies hair-thin needles on acupuncture points located on the skin.
This thin needle-based procedure, in contrast to bigger needles used to draw
blood, is painless in most of times. It is emphasized that acupuncture procedure
conducted under a relaxed environment. Sometimes, a mild electric stimulation
was added to the needles to improve efficacy. Each treatment takes about 30
minutes. When it is done, It usually resolves or reduces symptoms several hours
or overnight. However, for chronic conditions, more treatments are required. As a
general rule, once or twice a week and 4-6 times of total treatment are suggested.

Individualized Medicine is at Heart of Dr. Peng's
Practice

Individualized medicine is an emerging concept of future medicine in recent years.
It requires doctor to conduct diagnosis and treatment with emphasizing on
patient's individualized conditions including genetic background, differential drug
sensitivity, and overall physiological condition in addition to presenting symptoms
or disease.

While the concept is new in modern medical care, individualized medicine has
been practiced in Traditional Chinese Medicine for several thousand years. As a
golden rule of Traditional Chinese Medicine, a doctor is required to conduct
examination (by tongue and pulse) to determine or define patient's the overall
condition (background condition) that may directly or indirectly contribute to
patient's primary symptoms or diseases.

In the treatment design, acupuncture points are selected (1) to target primary
symptoms and (2) to target the overall abnormal body condition. Only by
combining both approaches acupuncture achieves its goal of balancing Yin/Yang
that fundamentally corrects symptoms or illness.